The Metheringham Gallery, capturing 43313 and 43309 on March 7, 2015

Taking 25 years away from railway photography to pursue my career, it wasn’t until 2012 that we happened to live just 54 metres from the Lincoln to Sleaford line.

I never thought anything of it until one of the villagers happened to mention that a Christmas steam special from King’s Cross to Lincoln ran past each year. Armed with cameras, we dutifully attended. This year it was 60009 Union of South Africa, and I didn’t think the image was too bad. From that moment I was back into railway photography.

My now late canine assistant, Polly, would insist on walking the many lineside footpaths. We bumped into like-minded folk who guided me in the modern way of doing things, an introduction to Realtime Trains being the major one. This blew my mind considering how things were done in the 1980s! The days of blindly sitting beside a railway waiting for something, anything, to come along were well and truly over!

The line was upgraded, and one of the main annual events was the Doncaster to Peterborough diversions over a series of weekends. This image is taken on one such diversion weekend and captures the whole spirit of those days. The assistant and I could leave the house early in the morning for ‘a walk’ and Codename Wife would not see us return until the light had faded, as it was just a continuous cavalcade of diverted freight and passenger trains – including Class 91s being dragged by Class 67s. The gents pictured and I never arranged to meet; it was just accepted that we’d bump into each other at some point at one of the many vantage points on this stretch of line. One of these fine gentlemen is a regular contributor to Railways Illustrated.