Super photo, Colin. Here is one of yesteryear from the same location showing British Railways Southern Region loco "Sir Richard Grenville" heading a boat train out of the Ocean Terminal with the Queen Mary in the background.
How times have changed. Everything in the old photo was British owned and a source of national pride - a mighty British Railways express steam engine; the great Port of Southampton, home to the ocean liners; and the legendary Queen Mary of the Cunard Line.
Everything in the more recent photo is privatised and foreign owned. The loco belongs to EWS who carry most of the freight on British tracks and are now owned by the German national railways Deutsche Bahn, who also own Chiltern Railways and now Arriva; the Port of Southampton is one of the 21 ports in the ABP group, owned by a consortium of global infrastructure funds including GIS of Singapore, Borealis of Canada, Goldman Sachs of the USA, and Prudential. Cunard is now owned by Carnival of the USA, and the QE2 in the photo is now owned by Nakheel of Dubai.
