Now I do have a fondness for preserved steam railways. It is not nostalgia, I do just about remember them as a kid and they scared me, great smoky clanking monsters, and at the back of the apartment where I lived there were some allotments and behind them some railway marshalling yards; the sounds of them getting up steam in the early morning, struggling and wheezing, was the stuff of nightmares. So it was as an adult I got to appreciate them, these extraordinary examples of pre-electronic precision power engineering.

And I would take my children to visit the preserved steam railways, of which there are a couple near me; the Watercress Line and the Bluebell Line, and filled with tales and images of Thomas the Tank Engine they would have a great day out. Time passed and my children grew up, and no more steam leviathons for me until a year ago when I took myself off for a few hours for a return visit. And very photogenic these great machines are, yet, being true to myself, it is sometimes the small details that fascinate me. So here are a couple of images, one converted to black & white for that bygone days feel. And rather than the most perfect picture of the whole engine, I hoped to capture some sense of the feel of these wonderful scary monsters.