IMPORTANT AND RELATIVELY INTERESTING NEWS
A while ago I was offered the chance to take over the British Railway Photographs website, minus all the thousands of images. Even though I would have to start from scratch regarding the content, I thought it worthwhile as I have over the years built up a substantial catalogue of transport images myself trading as TRANSPORT TOPICS. So there would be a good selection, in fact many thousands that have never seen the light of day on a web-site, although many have been published in print.
The re-populating of the website will be an ongoing gradual process, building as we go with images added almost every day. Colour and Mono, diesel, electric and steam. So be patient with me, I may be slow at first as I learn the ropes, and it's me, so I will make mistakes.
I have been lucky in accumulating many quality images from the likes of COLIN MARSDEN, DAVID CANNING, DARREN FORD, MICHAEL HILL, ROBERT TARLING and many others, and a few half decent shots by myself.
In fact inspired by Colour-Rail and Ron White we issued our first listing in 1988, photocopied and stapled. This developed into a bound volume of over 100 A4 pages plus supplements, which alas is now too expensive to produce, so now we rely on Ebay and our PDF versions, plus of course now this website.
So you know a little bit about why the website is "Under New Management" and hopefully you will find the subject matter of interest
ENLIGHTENING INFORMATION REGARDING REFERENCE LETTERS IN DESCRIPTIONS.
You will see what seem like random letters accompanying the loco numbers in the descriptions. For instance "TTP" "UN" "CJM" "MHL" etc. These are references we use in our catalogue to help identify shots and the photographers etc. They do not help you with the location, date or anything else but do help us in identifying the shot and location it amongst our library. So please do add the letters when ordering to help us out.
TIMESCALES AND TURNAROUND
We are a part time business, my main employment being at local zoo as a Maintenance & Facilities Supervisor. So whilst in an ideal world your order would be expedited in a couple of days, in the real world it may take me a few days to process your order. If the order is large it would be sent to the processors in its own right. However if the order is smaller we may hold it to batch together with other orders to allow for our trade pricing. Therefore you can expect your orders normally in 7 - 14 days.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON SIZING
Transport Topics have collated our library from hundreds of sources, which means that the sharpness may vary somewhat between images taking into consideration the photographers skills, film speed etc.
We have optimised our scanning for 6"x 4 up to 8" x 6" print sizing as these seem to be the most popular size range. Please be aware that with enlargement the sharpness of the image may not be as good in some cases whereas others will be absolutely fine.
COPYRIGHT
All our shots are subject to Copyright.
We buy in out images either with Copyright transferring to us, shared copyright or with permission to use.
Obviously we have to rely on the suppliers being accurate with their rights to transfer copyright and we take images on in good faith.
If you have any doubts around any copyright issues, please do get in touch.
AND NOW A BIT OF HISTORY ON HOW BRITISH RAILWAY PHOTOGRAPHS ORIGINALLY CAME ABOUT
The British Railway Photographs website was originally designed and owned by Steve Davies. So it is only fair that we include a little bit of history on how it all began.
Steve was born in 1958 in Cardiff.
He was brought up in Barry very close to the entrance to the docks and only about 200 yards from Dai Woodhams scrapyard. Steve used to play in the scrapyard, often running from one end to the other on top of the rows of covered vans, something I don't recommend.
Steve served 12 years in the R.A.F. and 5.5 years in the M.O.D. before being made redundant in 2003. He then worked for Networkrail as a crossing keeper at the s.w.c.c. near Cardiff station
He started taking an interest in railway photography in 1987, when he met the late Brian Miller from Barry. Steve started to take photos in black and white, only taking colour rarely. Steve shot in both black and white and colour whenever possible, using a Mamiya 645 for black and white and a Minolta Dynax pro 7 for 35mm colour, and a Nikon d800 (36.3 million pixels) digital camera
Steve had been buying negatives since 1987, and in 2003 he managed to buy John (J.A.M.) VAUGHAN'S collection of 55,000 black and white negatives. He also had Brian Millers collection of diesels, some negs from doctor Ian Cameron Allen, and some of Colin J Marsden's negs. But due to illness and different priorities Steve decided to let most of his collection go to good homes. I am one of the lucky ones, acquiring a good selection of negs and the website.
Sadly Steve is no longer with us, losing his fight against cancer on 16th October 2021.
He will be sadly missed by his friends, customers and those that got to know him through the covid epidemic via his on-line railway talks.
I hope as I rebuild the website I can do Steve proud and hopefully continue the good work that he started.
Finally of course, I am always on the lookout for quality negs and slides of a transport nature.
Martin at TRANSPORT TOPICS
Established 1988 and still trundling along!