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The History of Railway Photography

Introduction

There can be very few people over the last 175 years who have not had their lives affected in some way by the railways. Their development bought about rapid technological advances and paved the way for great social changes. For many it provided employment as well as a means of travel.

With their extensive and dynamic history, we are lucky that the development of the railways have been mirrored by the evolution of the means to record this change - photography.

F. E. Mackay posing with camera at Greenwood Signal Box

F. E. Mackay posing with camera at Greenwood Signal Box
By Maurice Earley, 1924.
ref no. Earley F1A/30 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Both the growing army of railway enthusiasts and the railway companies themselves were quick to realise that this new method of recording images had great potential. The companies saw the opportunity to record their products and work. For the enthusiasts photography allowed them to capture the beauty they saw in the locomotives and their locations. It also gave them a personal record of their pursuit of the objects of their desire.

The private photographer's work was also essential in recording a period of change in railway history with the decline of the steam locomotive and the shift towards alternative methods of transport. In many cases these represent the only evidence of the steam locomotives and the people who surrounded them, the machines themselves having long since passed into disuse.

This online exhibitions features the images of the 'official' photographers, who worked for the railway companies, and of the enthusiasts, for whom railway photography was a labour of love. It also features the work of some of the private master photographers. All the images have been drawn from the collections of the National Railway Museum.

A Great Western Railway locomotive crossing the Stapleton Road Bridge

A Great Western Railway locomotive crossing the Stapleton Road Bridge by Godfrey Soole
ref no. Soole 806 © National Railway Museum/Science & Society Picture Library