Camera Happy

My earliest railway photographs were taken with a ubiquitous Box Brownie (see pic of 6970 below). I was stretching the technology a little when attempting to capture the ‘Royal Wessex’ at 70mph, but the results were generally quite acceptable and I still enjoy looking back at my earliest efforts.

 I was a very prolific photographer in those days, and I have in excess of 2000 negatives of steam in the sixties.

In later years, having advanced from my Brownie, through an Agfa Isola, Retinette, and Adox, from mid-1963 onwards I used a little 35mm Fujica, originally bought by my father in New Zealand back in 1960. It wasn't a single lens reflex but it had a super lens and everything a lineside photographer needed in simplicity and ruggedness. 

Few of my photographs in those days addressed creativity. My camera merely backed-up my number spotting activities. Despite this, some of those early shots are my most treasured because by sheer fluke a few turned out to be good compositions.

One of my favourite photographic locations was in a gently sloped cutting near the village of Walkford, just west of milepost 100 on the Weymouth main line (see 35017 below). On a hot summer’s day the world would take on an idyllic quality. I would lie among the wild flowers, mostly Ox-eye daisies, with nothing to disturb my peace but the hum and scratch of insects and the incessant trilling of skylarks. I would be alerted to an approaching train either by the Hinton Admiral outer home signal suddenly whipping off for down trains, or a distant whistle as up trains from the Christchurch direction approached Hinton Admiral Station just over a mile away. 

It goes without saying that on summer Saturdays I wasn't allowed to slumber for more than a few minutes between trains. On the up line engines would be tackling a shortish 1-in-103 gradient, and depending upon who was driving, fireworks would ensue. Whereas on the down gradient opportunities would be taken to whip up some speed; the mid eighties being achieved quite regularly. Surprisingly, trackside fires were quite rare; probably due to an adaption to fire by the local ecosystem during years of steam traction. Since the introduction of electrification the embankments are now overgrown and much of the flora has disappeared. What a pity.

I am very attached to the Bullied Pacifics, and I find the rebuilds particularly photogenic (a contentious point no doubt!). The unrebuilt light Pacifics are visually rather uninteresting to photograph because of a lack of angles to catch sun and shadow. I am pleased with some of my unrebuilt Bulleid shots, but most are mediocre. Having said this, one of my personal favourite photographs is a shot of 34023 'Blackmore Vale'. Its young driver appears mesmerised by the trackside beneath him as his engine starts in an eruption of clag (see below).

On a day trip to a good steam location it was sometimes difficult to also meet ideal requirements from a photographic point-of-view. Shooting highly photogenic Great Western locos, for example, could be most frustrating due to the featureless nature of the main line out of Paddington, but on one sunny Sunday in 1962 I found the pretty little station at Taplow was an ideal place for capturing WR expresses at speed. I spent nearly three hours there, clad in my Sunday best due to a possible side visit to relatives (which didn’t transpire, thank goodness!). 

Taplow was surprisingly busy for a Sunday. I was sweltering, but enchanted by a succession of Churchwards, Colletts and diesel hydraulics (20 steam locos consisting of four different classes). Eleven Castles were included (4080, 5074, 5077, 5078, 5087, 7006, 7014, 7027, 7030, 7031, 7036), four Halls (5932, 5939, 7902, 7914), a King (6018 King Henry VI), a 47xx 2-8-0 (4702), two 41XX Class (6160, 6164) and the original Riddles 9F, 92000. On the day, my best shot was of 7027 Thornbury Castle hurrying east with an ex Worcester express (see below).

In London unless you had a lineside permit, photography could be very restricted. In the early sixties shooting architecture, railwaymen and other interesting railway subjects just didn’t occur to me. So my many visits to London were therefore never intended to be major photographic occasions. But, there! I’m getting ahead of myself - London is another story!