While we were in The Netherlands last June we took the chance to go to Amsterdam as it was somewhere we’d never visited. It involved quite a long train journey, first on a swish kind of Inter-City double-decker train from Heerenveen to Zwolle, then a slower type of train called a Sprinter, which seemingly stopped everywhere between Zwolle and Amsterdam, including six stations in Almere alone!

The sprinter had decorations in the style of the artist Mondrian.

Glass partition:-

The walls of the toilet were also styled like Mondrian – see where corridor doglegs :-

We got off at Amsterdam Centraal Station. Central facade:-

Stitch of frontage:-

Canal scenes:-

Amsterdam City Hall:-

Clock building in Muntplein:-

Carstairs is a village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.It is perhaps best known unfortunately as being the location of the State Hospital,* a high security unit for psychiatric patients. The name also refers to the railway junction and village where the main West Coast rail lines from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London join (or split depending on whether you’re travelling south or north.)

Its War Memorial, a Celtic cross, stands at one side of a green area by the side of the A 70 road through the village:-

Dedication and Great War names:-

More Great War names:-

Second World War Dedication and names plus another for the Korean war:-

*Full disclosure. I have actually spent some time in the State Hospital. (I was visiting one of its inmates, a schoolmate of the good lady.)

Station buildings on Platform 2. Trains to north:-

The station buildings on the east side (Platform 1) house a very good charity second hand bookshop.

Tracks looking south from Platform 1:-

For more views of the station see here.

These were in the corridor of the Carron to Mumbai Restaurant, Stonehaven. There was a railway theme.

East Indian Railway poster for Calcutta:-

Calcutta showing Metro sign:-

Despite the date, 1916, this Indian Motocycle poster has an Art Deco background:-

This one’s more film noir, though:-

The Royal Border Bridge, Berwick was built between 1847 and 1852 to carry the railway over the River Tweed.

From north bank:-

Southern part:-

From Tweedmouth:-

As seen at Ingliston Antique Fair, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh, September 2017.

“Ground” level view:-

“Platform side” view:-

This isn’t really a linguistic annoyance but I’ve not used that category for a while.

Anyway I was tickled by the title of a listing (now vanished) on eBay. (PHOTO DUMBARTON CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION VIEW IN THE 1960`S WITH AN EMU IN VIEW.)

“An emu?” I thought.

Then after a second I realised it must be train-buff speak for electrical multiple unit.

The spa town of Buxton has a lot of fine classical architecture, not the least of which is the spa itself.

Close-up on bit to left. The writing on the building says Natural Mineral Bath:-

This is the view from the War Memorial:-

And from the town, showing aspects of the spa building to the right of the previous photos:-

Buxton also sports a fine Opera House:-

I read that this building, now part of Buxton and Leek College, had the largest dome in the world at the time it was built:-

River and bridge in Buxton Park:-

Miniature Railway in Buxton Park:-

Groningen Railway Station is an architectural confection, superficially a bit like St Pancras. A Cathedral to steam.

This is its exterior from the ring road:-

It’s the interior that’s the gem though.

Apparently until quite recently all this lovely brickwork and decoration was covered up by plasterboard or something. When that was stripped off they discovered what they’d been missing. (There’s a couple of pigeons up there somewhere in these two photos.)

This is the cupola in the roof of the entrance hall:-

This is the vaulted roof in a side corridor!

And here is the stained glass in the windows round the entrance hall:-

More stained glass:-