Monday 01 & Tuesday 02 February 2016
Hardly Surprising - Gales to Start Off the Month
The month has got off to a windy start although not wet and windy. Monday was windy enough to make it into number 3 spot in my windy day records since January 2010. It didn’t seem to let up at all for the whole day.
January turned out to be another mild month so combined with the exceptionally mild December we could easily finish up with a very mild winter.
From the graph it looks like February would need to be a little bit on the cold side to bring it down below that red line. I haven’t seen anything to suggest we are going to have anything other than a fairly average February so it looks like a record might be on the cards.
Wednesday to Saturday 03-06 February 2016
It’s Wet in Cumbria Isn't It?
Generally it hasn’t been too bad a week for February with the weather continuing on the mild side with some nice sunny spells.
The forecast for Saturday didn’t look too bad - well the morning looked dry with the possibility of some rain in the afternoon. As it turned out the forecast was wrong - very wrong. I’d decided it was my last chance to get some photos as videos of the world famous steam locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman. After some test runs in the week it was scheduled to haul the Cumbrian Mountain Express to Carlisle on Saturday.
Our trip up the A1 to Scotch Corner wasn’t too bad although it was a little bit misty in places. By the time we’d stopped for coffee at a farm shop near Scotch Corner not only was it misty but it had started to rain too.
By the time we reached the Cumbrian border it was cold and rainy which I suppose is only to be expected in early February.
Our Sat Nav managed to find some of the narrow Cumbrian roads to get to our chosen vantage point and at least on this occasion we avoided any closed bridges.
As I had suspected we wouldn’t be the only ones out trying to get some photos of Flying Scotsman and by the time we arrived at Lowgill, other enthusiasts had already arrived. Need I confirm that it was pouring down with rain. After a bit of a discussion we decided our best option was to use an umbrella to protect both us and our cameras from the rain. It’s not that simple to take video and photos sheltering under a small umbrella. We’ll have to lash out and buy a bigger one for future rain affected photo opportunities.
So this is the best still image we managed grabbed off some video. Neither video or photography went according to plan due to sheltering under the umbrella.
After an excellent lunch in Hawes we set off to Garsdale to try our luck at some photos as Flying Scotsman headed up the Settle and Carlisle line. By now the roads were rather wet with some very large puddles in places.
My camera was already playing up which I think was due to it getting damp in the morning although it was certainly sheltered from the rain. In the end we took the comfortable option of trying to photograph and video the train from the comfort of the car with the windscreen wipers working hard to keep the windscreen clear. It might have been the comfortable option but it didn’t work very well at all.
The Flying Scotsman’s next public outing will be its inaugural run from London Kings Cross to York on 25 February 2016 when it will have been repainted in its BR green livery.
