Advent Quiz 2015

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Each day in December, I'll be posting a picture of a rail subject for members to identify by location, talk about when they thought it was taken, and discuss related subjects. Many thanks to Phil Wakely for providing pictures; only Phil and I know where each was taken (and only Phil knows the "when").

Anyone jump in and identify ... rather that confirming you have it right, I'm proposing to leave that somewhat hanging for a final reveal on Christmas day though some at least will be pretty clear right away.   Not a prize quiz, no limit on numbers of posts in the thread - a good chance to have a bit of fun and in many cases to play the "I remember when" card.

Let's start

1st December 2015

[ellendune]

The steep valley sides and the deciduous trees, a double track line on old GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) territory. Two possibilities come to mind; Somewhere around Liskeard or Bodmin Road, or in the upper Stroud Valley around Chalford.

[Bmblbzzz]

Somewhere Chalford or Thrupp-ish way was my immediate thought too.Not by any means sure though. As for when, I'd guess 1980s?

[InTheSidings]

Beside Claverton Pumping Station (where the K&A canal is fed from water pumped from the River Avon in the Limpley Stoke Valley).
Between Bathampton Junction and Freshford.
Guess a BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) to Weymouth service, sometime in the 1980s.

[AMLAG]

St Mary's Crossing , Stroud Valley line, Swindon to Gloucester stopper 1970's

[patch38]

Looks familiar. Is it the Island of Sodor?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Well, I don't think it's Taunton ... 

[grahame]

It's pretty fair to conclude it's a local train somewhere on what would probably have been the Western Region of British Railways at the time - a time when I (like many other people) used the train far less than today - and yet I'm struck that so many of the pictures show 3 car trains where today they might be 2 cars. Seems almost back to front in terms of the railway matching supply and demand. (Yes I am aware that more trains now run in many / most places ...)

[JayMac]

I'd go with the Avon Valley. Building looks to be made of Bath stone.

[Bmblbzzz]

The fact it's on an embankment is troubling me with regard to my previous answer.

[grahame]

Here's one for today.  Not giving anything away, I don't think, if I say "a little further away" - though perhaps this could be a "back from the future" picture of how Exeter will look in 2029 

2nd December 2015

[eightf48544]

I don't think it's Germany although its looks like a varient of an ICE3 plus the architecture and O/H seems wrong.

I have a feeling Spain use Siemans trains on their high speed lines (standard gauge)  so I would suggest Barcelona High Speed station.  The architecture could also be Spanish.

[JayMac]

For 2nd December:

That's a Russian 'Sapsan' ('Peregrine Falcon') Siemens Velaro.

I'll take a stab at Moskovsky Station, St Petersberg.

[JayMac]

I'd go with the Avon Valley. Building looks to be made of Bath stone.

For 1st December:

In fact, after judicious use of Google Earth and Google Images, I'll go one stage further and concur with InTheSidings. Claverton User Worked Crossing next to Claverton Pumping Station.

[Bmblbzzz]

Russia is my guess for that (before I'd even seen Bignose Mac's answer ^ but I'm not going to guess a station). It's the stripes, the appearance of the passengers (on the platform) and something about the lettering, though we can't quite see enough to say it's Cyrillic.