The Flickr Davidhill Image Generatr

The mighty Kriegslok loco pauses at Duboki Potok station on a run between Bosansk-Bijela and Zivinice in Bosnia.

It coincided with pupils leaving school, and waiting for their bus home. For the most part, they seemed quite indifferent to the steam loco. I guess it’s an age thing . . .

Bosnia. April 2010. © Photo: David Hill

To stir paint, most of us use a stick or an old screw driver, but in Bangladesh, you use anything that comes to hand - literally.

It says 'distemper' on the can so I guess the water based product will clean off easily enough. He was decorating new build apartments beside the Buriganga River in Dhaka.

Dhaka, Bangladesh. March 2025. © David Hill

Early morning at the Akhara Siyaram mud wrestling club on the banks of the Hoogly River in Kolkata where the group’s guru Jwala Tewari performs his exercise routine.

I have since learned that he passed away in January 2023. This was in the Times of India -
"Jwala Tiwari, a former state-level wrestler and head of one of the last surviving akharas in the city on the banks of the Hooghly, passed away on Sunday. He was 65 years old. The wrestler who specialised in clay pit wrestling had represented Bengal in several competitions in various categories till the mid 1990s. He won silver and bronze in several tournaments organised by the various wrestling authorities of different states."

Kolkata, India. December 2017. © David Hill

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A credit to their Health and Safety department, all the track gangs and loco staff that we saw in Chile were extremely well equipped for life in the harsh conditions of the Atacama Desert.

Here, permanent way workers have paused to let a coast bound train go by on the Cumbre Pass.

FCAB Railway, Atacama, northern Chile.
December 2024. © David Hill

Activity during the morning shift change on the Pingzhuang coal mines railway. At this time (2008), the open cast mine was just about finished, but the locos were needed to service several deep mines on the northern section.

To the south, en route to the China Rail exchange yard was a wonderfully spacious workshop with all manner of pictures waiting to be taken. (See comments below)

Pingzhuang, Nei Mongol, China.
January 2008. © David Hill

The sun has set on the Sahara desert, and the coolness is a welcome relief from the scorching heat of the day. A quiet stillness comes with the dusk.

And yet, somewhere in the far distance, just audible, is a low- pitched throbbing rumble. It would be five to ten minutes before the source of this reverberation is revealed as the headlight of the leading locomotive appears, at the head of a dust trail hiding the long train.

At kilometre post 190, the iron ore train is heading into the empty Saharan night with another five hundred kilometres to run, returning wagons to the mine at Zouérat. The journey started at Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast.

The SNIM iron ore railway.
Mauritania, March 2022. © David Hill

Deep in a dingy workshop, this man was sitting on the floor, one padded foot securing the end of a spinning lathe while he turned aluminium pots. Each pot took less than a minute to shape from a circular sheet. The air was heavy with metal dust, and the workers took on the grey patina of their grimy surroundings.

Dhaka, Bangladesh.
© David Hill March 2025

The locos B1b 340 and B2b 213 have safely passed under the overhanging “lion” rock without incident and continue their uphill journey towards Kandy.

Part of a Farrail tour organised by Bernd Seiler.
Sri Lanka. February 2020. © David Hill

Battered and bruised, the bodywork of this Ashok Leyland bus shows its scars inflicted by the daily battle with life on the roads in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Seen here crossing the Bububazar Bridge over the Buriganga River. At least there was no-one riding on the roof!

Dhaka. Bangladesh. © David Hill March 2025

Women in their colourful clothing brighten the street markets of Atar in Mauritania.

For an isolated Saharan desert town, the bread on sale was surprisingly good, made using skills presumably left over from French colonial days.

Atar, Mauritania March 2022. © David Hill

The driver of 99-516 checks me out in case I’m nicking sleepers as his train draws out of Neuheide station on the Schoenheide line in Saxony.

On the Schoenheide line, Saxony, Germany.
February 2023. © David Hill

The mechanical spiders take over a stone crushing yard at Jaflong in the north of Bangladesh.

Jaflong, northern Bangladesh.
© David Hill March 2025

An early morning train has left estacion El Prat and is clagging nicely as it starts the climb over the Cumbre Pass on its journey to the Chilean port of Mejillones.

Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia (FCAB)
Atacama, Chile. December 2024. © David Hill

On the rubbish tips of Sylhet, it’s a race to beat the digger before it demolishes all hope of finding anything salvable to recycle

There were about a dozen or so workers, predominately women, who waited for the garbage trucks to unload, pouncing on the “fresh” rubbish as it cascaded into the hole made by the digger. They set about their task as a team and with quiet dignity.

I had the feeling that they were there by arrangement with the council in a vaguely official capacity - who knows?

Strangely, no flies and no rats visible either, but that’s probably due to the large flock of hawks monitoring the scene from the branches of the nearby trees.

Sylhet city garbage dump.
Northern Bangladesh.
March 2025. © David Hill

Activity at the busy Mail Office on the platform at Attock railway station. Mysterious parcels and sacks of “stuff” all securely bound with tape and rope in the way they do so well on the sub-continent.

Contact the web site addresses shown on the helpful sign to track your parcel, maybe state your preference for delivery if you’re not going to be home. Hmm, I think not, it will mean a trek to the station to reclaim your package - but it all seems to work well enough.

Attock Station, northern Pakistan.
December 2021. © David Hill

Passengers prepare for an arduous overnight trip, spreading out their colourful bedding on the deck of a ferry about to leave the busy, chaotic terminal in Dhaka.

To be fair, from my “crow’s nest” viewpoint, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be too bad a journey by Bangladesh standards - everyone has their own personal space, and with no rain forecast, what could possibly go wrong?

I note that on the ferry at the base of the picture, the after deck seems to be designated as the ship's mosque with two passengers kneeling on the long prayer mat.

Ferry terminal on the Buriganga River, Dhaka.
Bangladesh, March 2025. © David Hill

We’ll start with the excuses - this was hopelessly under exposed - probably operator error for not allowing for the vast amounts of white exhaust, although I’m blaming the old Nikon DX2 digital camera of the day.

Every morning, the train for the shift workers would leave the washery area and climb around the rim of the open cast pit, heading for Nanzhan to the south. With the morning temperatures in January around -35C, any movement of steam locos produced volcanic amounts of exhaust. It’s clear that the lead loco was doing the work - if the trailing loco had been working too, then the whole thing would probably have been visible from space!

With the use of modern rescue software, it was probably just about worth the frozen feet endured.

Zhalai Nouer, Nei Mongol, northern China.
January 2008. © David Hill

Döllnitzbahn Saxon-Meyer loco 99 1584-4 backs into the welcome shelter of the shed on a wet night in Muegeln, with the swirling fine drizzle saturating men and machines - but especially camera lenses.

The Doellnitzbahn line from Oschatz to Muegeln.
Saxony, Germany. February 2023. © David Hill

Bricks to build a nation. In this view, I can count at least twenty brickworks chimneys - in the foreground, and in the haze on the other side of the Buriganga River in Dhaka’s crowded southern suburbs.

The nearer kilns are being unpacked. The grey lines beside the river are acres of wet clay bricks, drying out before firing. Each brick is made individually in a wooden box mould by workers squatting on the ground using the clay arriving by wheel barrow from a team digging and mixing nearby. A truly low tech process.

It was one of the most interesting places I saw on my recent visit and was . . . a tad dusty.

Dhaka, Bangladesh. March 2025. © David Hill

Not even the dire weather conditions could hide the fact that Hegang had some of the best turned out locos of all the industrial systems in China. The burnished copper boiler bands were a nice touch.

Here, SY 1498 passes by in spritely fashion with a workers’ train from Fuli Mine to Hedging City in depressing rainy and sleet.

Hegang, Heilongjiang Province, northern China.
April 2005. © David Hill