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- Introduction
- Official photography
- Private photography
- The masters
- Photography at NRM
- Image gallery
- References
The History of Railway Photography
Official Photographers
The first recognised railway photographs were taken in the 1840s. Initially many of those taken were 'daguerreotype' images. One early example featured a young Daniel Gooch, Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Western Railway standing alongside a model of one of his locomotive designs. By 1847 the great I. K. Brunel was sending daguerrotypes of his engineering drawings to prospective railway builders in Europe. In 1853 at the first meeting of the Photographic Society of London - later to become the Royal Photographic Society - a lecture was given on how photography could help engineers with their work.
From these beginnings, it soon became common practice for contractors and railway companies to employ photographers to document their building of the rail network. Often this would involve recording the construction of bridges, stations and lines. However, photography was also used to document accidents, providing visual evidence of the scene.
Platelaying gang at Wickwar, Glos. By MR official photographers, 1890s.
ref no. Derby 4076 © NationalRailwayMuseum /Science & Society Picture Library
By the late 1860s many of the firms involved in railway construction were keeping photographs of their work. The railway companies themselves soon began to employ photographers to capture images of their newly completed locomotives, and some companies, such as Beyer Peacock, gave them to their salesmen to show their potential customers. A standard procedure for taking these pictures soon evolved. A locomotive was selected and painted in a colour called 'works grey', a colour which reproduced detail well on the glass plate negatives they used. Once the photograph was taken the locomotive would then be returned to the works to be repainted in its usual livery. When the negatives had been processed they would be varnished and the background - usually a workshop wall - painted out by using retouching ink.
As well as recording locomotive and carriage production, the official photographers would venture into the workshops and capture images of the vehicles being produced. Although intended to be used in exhibitions and brochures, they have also left us with an extraordinary account of the noisy, crowded workshops and the men who worked in them.
L&NWR locomotive 'Sarmatian' in 'works grey by Crewe Works photographer, 1884.
ref no. NRM_DS060574 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
The furnace is tapped at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Horwich works By Horwich Works Official Photographer, August 1919.
ref no. Horwich F2776 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
In 1884 the Great Eastern Railway commissioned the landscape photographer Payne Jennings to produce scenic views of locations served by their railway. The images were then used to decorate the carriages and promote further travel. Known as Carriage Prints they were initially condemned by some as a waste of the companies' money, but as their success grew so most of the major railway firms commissioned similar work. Often the photographers would also produce scenic views which artists could work from, as it was cheaper to send a photographer out for just one day than to have an artist working from real life for a week!
The photographers' work was also used as an alternative to the images produced by the railway poster artists. Often railway companies would advertise at shows using photographs of the various towns they served. This led to the production of illustrated guides, such as Holiday Haunts, first produced in 1906 by the Great Western Railway to encourage holiday travel on their service.
Publicity photograph of Much Wenlock in Shropshire By GWR official photographers, 1923.
ref no. GWR B 3951 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
The production of images for postcards was another job for the official photographers. Postcards were originally produced to publicise railway services, such as hotels, but later were sold to the public from vending machines on station platforms. Images used for these included the official photographs of new locomotives, carriage interiors and action shots of speeding expresses. The postcards proved very popular and by 1914 the London and North Western Railway had produced over 11 million postcards. Unfortunately a paper shortage caused by the outbreak of the First World War ended the craze.
The photographer's work covered other activities too. These included the recording of official functions, reproducing engineering drawings, images of land boundaries for use in legal disputes and even taking mug-shots of known fare dodgers and criminals for handing out to station staff.
Prison warders escort convicts to their trains in a scene from the documentary 'Terminus' By BTF Photographer, August 1960.
ref no. BTF 4466 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
After the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, The British Transport Films Unit was created to record and publicise the work of the nationalised transport industries. Their approach to this was unique, using a documentary style to produce films covering subjects such as architecture, wildlife and art, but always with some link to the work of the railways. Using the commentaries of poets such as John Betjeman to narrate their work, they produced films and filmstrips covering unusual subjects to provide a record of the impact of the railways on both man and the natural world. Still photographers accompanied the film units, and their work survives in the NRM collections.
Cider apples being unloaded at Hereford By BTF, 1957.
ref no. BTF 3447 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
The official photographers' work was seen as vital to the work of the companies. Many of the photographic departments were set up in the 1870s and survived through to the 1980s. It was the privatisation of the railways that prompted their demise, with most work being contracted out to general photographic firms and advertising becoming the sole responsibility of specialised agencies.
A long exposure setting has caused the moving passengers to blur in this image of Liverpool Street Station
By GER Official Photographer, 2nd June 1920.
ref no. Liverpool Street E 152 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library