Photo Challenge: Narrow

I haven’t posted for a little while, so am trying to catch up, and will just start with last week’s photo challenge, Narrow.

This week, let’s keep things narrow (but not narrow-minded!): share a photo with your take on the theme. You could focus on a slender object, or shoot an image where your field of vision is restricted. Alleyways and half-open doors, seesaws and water slides, spaghetti and electric cords… the world is full of narrow things.

I spent a weekend away at a B & B in rural Australia, a few hours drive from where I live in Brisbane.  Most of my photos have been centred around the waters of the Brisbane River as well as the coastline of south-east Queensland. So it was a nice change to get out into the countryside and capture a different side of Australia.

Driving down a random road, I came across a group of people standing by a rail line, cameras at the ready.  Instead of enquiring, a quick check of the sign close-by told me what was coming — a steam train, which was being put through its paces, as a part of the process of being fully restored.

I hadn’t seen a steam train in years, and looking at the narrow track it would be on very soon, I wondered if it would fit.  As a kid, I recall these huge monster sized machines, puffing smoke and steam like an angry dragon. Soon those memories came flooding back as the distinct sound of the engine releasing steam was heard as it approached my location. As I remembered, the loco was powerful and seemed to pull the carriages with little effort.

The sound and then the vision appeared…and it thundered toward us and past us, before disappearing down the narrow gauge railway track.

Beware steam trains

It seems too narrow for a train?

It’s upon us, steam and smoke bellowing from its chimney

Soon past, heading toward a narrow tunnel…will it make it?

Success!