The train now arriving is the 13.20 from 1979

I am well aware it isn’t the most original of titles but it pretty much sums up where we are.

At the back of the 1970s I bought a new camera and later added a dark room.

The pictures were all a bit hit and miss because I was a tad lazy with timings for both the developing and printing.

So while some might stand against anyone’s, others are hazy, lack definition and can either be too light or too dark.

That said they are a record of just what things were like as the 1970s pulled to a close.

And so here I was on Piccadilly Railway Station watching a rain arrive.

I have no idea what type of locomotive it is or even where the train had come from.

During the early part of the decade I had regularly travelled south with British Rail but by 1979 this was less frequent.

More recently I was back on the station and was transfixed by the smooth looking locos of today, so in celebration of what we had and what we've got now, here is one I took over 30 years after the first.

Same station, possibly same platform just separated by the decades.

And six years on from that picture of two Virgin trains ...... taking  the strain from Manchester to London it is now as much a part of the past as the train from 1979.

Location; Piccadilly Railway Station

Pictures; Piccadilly Railway Station, 1979, 2013, from the collection of Andrew Simpson