Try Wandsworth Road which is just several stops beyond Victoria Station. Much freight activity, sometimes VSOE. It is reachable on the Victoria-London Bridge service on what at least used to be Network Southeast South London Lines.
Also try Stratford (NOT Stratford-upon-Avon) east of Liverpool St. Much freight activity, three kinds of passenger service. Can be reached via the Central Line of the tube or a Great Eastern train from Liverpool. If you are near Birmingham, get to Bescot Stadium station. Large yard, many different types of trains and motive power, all passing near or through the station. Near Bath, Westbury is the station for ARC and Foster-Yeoman trains. Not much passenger service. If you have a car, the Foster-Yeoman quarry west of Westbury has an EMD SW1000. I lived in the UK one semester while teaching at the University of London. These were the best four spots I found for ease of access and numbers of trains. Photography is a hard shot in the UK unless you get away from the cities. Still, the diversity of equipment itself is interesting, probably more so now than before the restructuring. Incidently, each day in Kings Cross there was a Royal Mail train set out for evening departure. This is very interesting equipment. You can also see a lot of mail activity in the evenings at Paddington. As for UK treatment of film, I have had mixed experiences. Generally, I put the film in a commercial double thickness lead-lined plastic bag, and then put that bag in a lead lined cloth bag (mine has a Velcro™ closure). Heathrow has what seems to be very powerful x-ray equipment, which even saw slightly through that arrangement. Still, it gave just the barest outline of the canisters and they let me pass. On occasion, I have put film in my pocket and passed it through the checkpoint by hand. Success often depends on the nature of the day the individual at the checkpoint has had. In any event, I am happy to report that in half a dozen trips through Heathrow, I've never come away with damaged film. Then again, I never take with me anything faster than ASA200. --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
