July 9th 2008 and the rain hardly let up during the entire day. This is the down Steam Dreams sponsored Sunny South Express hauled by Bulleid original pacific 34067 Tangmere which is about 8 minutes down as she passes under Culliford Bridge on the approach to Dorchester South station.
Modern digital cameras have fantastic auto-focus capability but mine, a Fuji Finepix S5700, hunted as it couldn't differentiate between the 45° driving rain and the central subject. This shot is actually only a small part, less than a third, of the original image.

July 9th 2008 and the rain hardly let up during the entire day. This is the down Steam Dreams sponsored Sunny South Express hauled by Bulleid original pacific 34067 Tangmere which is about 8 minutes down as she passes the signal box on the approach to Dorchester South station.
Modern digital cameras have fantastic auto-focus capability but mine, a Fuji Finepix S5700, hunted as it couldn't differentiate between the 45° driving rain and the central subject. This shot is actually only a small part, less than a third, of the original image.

July 9th 2008 and the rain hardly let up during the entire day. This is the up Steam Dreams sponsored Sunny South Express hauled by Bulleid original pacific 34067 Tangmere which is about 10 minutes down as she passes through Dorchester South station with relative haste and sounded, as ever, to be in fine fettle. Mercifully, the incessant rain we'd had all day had abated to just spitting level at this juncture but the heavens opened again before nightfall.
There is a scheduled stop at Dorchester but I can recall only a couple of the up trains actually doing so in the five years that I've lived here.

What's in a name? Well, Winchester's on the route of this working, the Steam Dreams sponsored Cathedrals Express of August 13th 2008, but any others have escaped my attention.
Once again the weather intervened and after a relatively settled morning the rain set in again to greet the one hour late arrival of Stanier pacific 6233 Duchess of Sutherland as she hits the sharp curve prior to the brief stop at Dorchester South station.

What's in a name? Well, Winchester's on the route of this working, the Steam Dreams sponsored Cathedrals Express of August 13th 2008, but any others have escaped my attention.
Once again the weather intervened and after a relatively settled morning the rain set in again to greet the one hour late arrival of Stanier pacific 6233 Duchess of Sutherland seen here as she restarts following the brief stop at Dorchester South station. The one occasional advantage of this type of weather is that steam locos do produce more evidence of their power source.

The return working of the Steam Dreams sponsored Cathedrals Express on August 13th 2008 as viewed from the footbridge on Dorchester South station in rapidly fading light. This image of Stanier pacific 6233 Duchess of Sutherland is actually only about 20% of the original image hence the foreshortening effect and a slight lack of digital style image clarity. She was still running about an hour down and eschewed the scheduled stop here but rather ambled through the station before accelerating away past the green light at the other end. A bit of a damp squib really but at least there was no rain in the air.

The return working of the Steam Dreams sponsored Cathedrals Express on August 13th 2008 as viewed from the footbridge on Dorchester South station in rapidly fading light. A couple of steps sharply to the right from the previous picture produced this image of Stanier pacific 6233 Duchess of Sutherland passing through the station in somewhat desultory fashion. A bit of a damp squib really but at least there was no rain in the air.

The return working of the Steam Dreams sponsored Cathedrals Express on August 13th 2008 as viewed from the footbridge on Dorchester South station in rapidly fading light. Following on from her stately 20 mph amble through the station, Stanier pacific6233 Duchess of Sutherland finally puts on the style as she accelerates away towards Moreton and points eastwards.

This in't a particularly exciting loco portrait and the shot was something of an afterthought, a snap in other words. However, I've included it for a less obvious reason just for a bit of a chuckle unless the viewer is a member of the Politically Corrected brigade.
A friend was recently commenting on his wife's execrable driving and described her, tongue in cheek, as "Lacking in spatial awareness". Now take a good look at this picture with attention being paid to the two women who are pointing digital cameras. Everbody else (bar a gent who is looking at one of those women) is following the locomotive's movement but .........

A rare day out for me on Saturday August 16th 2008 took me to the Swanage Railway on, again, a dull day. The purpose of the visit hadn't been to do any serious photography but old habits die hard particularly as one of locos on duty was an old personal favourite in the form of Drummond M7 0-4-4T 30053. We go back a long way as I extensively photographed her last BR outing on May 7th 1964, in the heritage era during the 1992 Salisbury bashes and again whilst she played a full part in the Yeovil Steam weekend in October 1997.
Although my appontment had been at Swanage I was then directed to meet someone at Corfe Castle station and whilst there took this shot of 30053 which, wait for it, was planned albeit only in the minute or two before the train's arrival. Planned? We'll have none of that kind of talk around here! It worked out as I'd hoped but now take a look at the next image in this set . . . .

. . . . a not planned snap, an afterthought, of Drummond M7 0-4-4T 30053 entering Corfe Castle station on Saturday August 16th 2008. Personally I prefer the planned shot (the previous image) but others have said that they prefer this one.

Saturday 16th August between Norden and Corfe Castle stations whilst I waited in, yet again, pouring rain but this time for a Wilts and Dorset bus which was, mercifully, dead on time. The loco is BR Standard 4MT 2-6-4T 80078 and whilst it's a bit of a nothing shot a friend remarked, probably correctly, that this type of loco looks good from any angle for some reason and I agree with his sentiment.