Postcard of a day trip to Bristol. Traveling just on a regular diesel HST dating from the 1960s but seeing at Bristol Temple Meads number 44932 LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 steam locomotive hauling a charter up to Waterloo. The steam loco is one of the "Black Five" which survived running in service until the last day of steam on British Railways in 1968. Number 44932 was built in 1945 in Horwich Works near Bolton in Greater Manchester. So the steam loco is only 20 years older than the diesel HSTs still in service...
And a snap from just outside London Paddington showing two of the Crossrail Tunnel Boring Machines. TBM are huge machines, dwarfing the concrete mixer lorry nearby in front; behind the drilling plate there is a production line to remove the spoil and line the tunnel. Crossrail will link Paddington with Canary Wharf via Farringdon and is due to open for service in 2017. Crossrail's 21km of new twin-bore tunnels are first major new railway tunnels under London since the Jubilee Line.