News Archives

Vintage UK Pictures - 1981

27/07/08 19:30 | United Kingdom

1981 was a seminal year. It was when I got serious about railway photography and started to take pictures that I'm happy with to this day. It was also a year of change for Britain's railways. Industrial steam was on its last legs in Scotland and I managed to get a few shots of NCB No.17 working at Bedlay Colliery before it closed at the end of the year. At the opposite end of the scale, the legendary Deltics were working out their last miles on the East Coast Main Line. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to photograph them earlier in the year, I found myself within striking distance of the ECML on several occasions in November then got posted to Selby for most of December. With few opportunities for daylight photography, most pictures were taken after dark with the aid of a tripod. Some of the original slides have unpleasant colour casts but the scanning software has done an excellent job of restoring the colours.



East Coast Diesels



Bedlay Colliery

China - Loco Lists Updated

14/07/08 11:48 | China - Steam

The Loco Lists have been updated to include sightings up to June 2008. The inclusion of historical data continues but progress is very slow. It can take hours to pin down a single sighting because many of the locations listed are very obscure. In contrast, entering 40 numbers from a web report of Sandaoling only takes a couple of minutes.

Many thanks to everyone who submitted reports to Steam_In_China and SY Country or e-mailed me directly with information or links to items on the Chinese bulletin boards. It's thanks to you that the list now contains details for around 400 industrial and local railways and 6900 individual locomotives.

Lists by Class
Lists by CNR Location
Lists by Other Location (Industrial, Mining, Local Railways etc incl Museums)

Spain - Ponferrada Villablino Pictures

08/07/08 13:18 | Spain

The Ponferrada - Villablino was one of those railways that stood out from the crowd. This 62km metre gauge coal carrier in north-west Spain remained 100% steam worked until 1980. It was blessed with superb scenery, plenty of impressive bridges and tunnels and a fleet of very distinctive locomotives. I made three visits between 1979 and 1981 and despite being a photographic novice who couldn't compose or expose a picture to save himself, came away with a few photos I'm happy to publish more than quarter of a century later.



go to the photos

China - Fushun Pictures Added

01/07/08 21:23 | China - Diesel / Electric

Some vintage pictures from the Fushun Opencast Mining operation in 1984. The big pit was filled with fog but we got some interesting pictures of the surface operation including 3 different classes of electric loco, a KD6 (USATC 2-8-0) and an East German V100.



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Tractive Efforts Finally Scrapped

01/07/08 20:35 | Website

The publication of the new China Main Line photo galleries has finally consigned the last remnants of Tractive Efforts to the scrap heap. Virtually all the pictures that were in the Tractive Efforts Photo Galleries are now available in the Railography galleries and those that aren't need re-scanning anyway. Hopefully that won't take too long but as Tractive Efforts took about two years to disappear, don't hold your breath!

China - Main Line Galleries

01/07/08 20:09 | China - Steam

The China Main Line Galleries have been reorganised on a CNR Bureau basis. Many of the pictures have been published before but there are quite a few brand new pics and others that have been re-scanned or otherwise improved. In particular, there are fresh scans of 35mm slides from 1984/5, using a proper film scanner this time, not a flatbed, and a new gallery of pictures from the spectacular Datong - Qinhuangdao coal line. In total, there are over 200 photos covering a wide variety of steam, diesel and electric classes in Harbin, Shenyang, Beijing and Lanzhou Bureaux.



go to the galleries

China - JiTong Pictures

22/06/08 16:11 | China - Steam

It's taken a long time but I've finally got round to organising all the JiTong railway pictures in the same place. There are almost 200 pictures in 14 galleries covering the line from near Fuxindi, east of Chabuga to near Majiazi, west of Jingpeng. In addition to the pictures in the old Tractive Efforts galleries and those already on Railography, there are many previously unpublished images. This is just the tip of the iceberg and covers the line from early 2003 onwards with a handful of scans from 2002 and 2003. This was the ultimate main-line steam spectacle in more ways than one. Enjoy!



JiTong photo galleries

French Pictures Added - May 2008

12/06/08 21:50 | France

Pictures from my May trip to the Narbonne - Cerbere line along the Cote Vermielle have now been added to the photo galleries.



Narbonne - Cerbere photo gallery

Railography goes XHTML

11/06/08 17:32 | Website

If you have any difficulty viewing the Czech photo galleries mentioned in the previous item then please contact me. These pages have been produced with XHTML code rather than the traditional HTML. Although they've been checked on a variety of different browsers on both PC and Mac computers, it's always possible that some older browsers won't be able to cope.

The intention is that all future content will be coded in XHTML and many existing pages will be replaced with XHTML equivalents when they need revising.

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More Czech Pictures Added - April 2008

11/06/08 17:02 | Czech Republic

The remaining pictures from my April 2008 Czech trip have been added to the photo galleries. These cover diesel worked lines in the north of the country, notably Sumperk - Jesenik, Jaromer - Trutnov and Liberec - Zawidow.



Hanusovice - Sumperk/Zabreh photos,
Hanusovice - Jesenik photos,
Lipova Lazne - Javornik photos,
Liberec - Turnov photos,
Jaromer - Trutnov photos,
Liberec - Cernousy photos,
Liberec - Ceska Lipa photos,

Railography Search Facility

22/05/08 19:06 | Website

I've added a search facility to Railography courtesy of Google. You can now search the site using the search box that appears close to the bottom of most pages including this one.

There's also a dedicated search facility available for the loco lists on the Chinese Steam Locomotives Contents Page. This just searches the Class, Location and Bureau lists.

Czech Pictures Added - April 2008

18/05/08 18:56 | Czech Republic

These pictures are from the first part of my April 2008 Czech trip and include new galleries covering the Ostrava - Valasske Mezirici and Olomouc - Sumperk lines as well as additions to the Brno - Jihlava, Zdar nad Sazavou - Tisnov and Brno - Veseli nad Moravou galleries. Pictures from the other lines visited will be added later.



Brno - Jihlava photo gallery
Zdar nad Sazavou - Tisnov photo gallery
Brno - Veseli nad Moravou photo gallery
Ostrava - Valasske Mezirici photo gallery
Olomouc - Sumperk photo gallery