Five Crazy Railway Photography Ideas You Won't Believe Actually Work

It's like having a magic wand. Guaranteeing a sunny shot even when it's cloudy...

...And would you like some sunshine in that picture? Details in the body text, further down the post.

The images in this post may look deceptively normal. But their creation path was anything but. Whether the surprise was in how they were taken, or what happened after they were taken, these images are proof that railway photography is not always quite as simple as pointing an SLR at a train and hitting the shutter release.

In the rundown you'll find impromptu optical jiggery-pokery, Stonehenge-era detective work, some extremely un-digital restoration, and an almost godlike plan to change the course of the weather! So let's not delay any further. It's time to ascend into the unseen world of unconventional rail photographers' tactics...

The Central Trains / London Midland / West Midlands Class 153 Diesels

The class hit the headline news in November 1999, when two separate Central Trains units' engines fell off, in separate incidents, in less than a week.

In the summer of 2000, Central Trains 153383 lends its extra seating to the operator's green liveried 158844.

After witnessing a collection of former Central Trains Class 153s tootling off to Long Marston in a final shift away from the West Midlands, I thought now would be a good time to pictorially review their years in the area. Whilst I'm founding the article on the Central Trains period, I'm carrying the progression through into the London Midland and West Midlands Railway eras, taking a look at where each vehicle ended up after Central Trains dissolved, etc.

The 153s were never without some controversy in the Central region. The class hit the headline news in November 1999, when two separate Central Trains units' engines fell off, in separate incidents, in less than a week. 153356 and 153334 lost their engines on the 11th and 16th of the month respectively, both whilst working very early morning services. But there was another reason why Central Trains' 153s took a more persistent verbal beating, as we'll see...

The Almost Accurate History of Railway Gen

"I will give you three bona fide Travellers Fare sandwiches, all made within the past twenty-eight days and still recognisably triangular in shape..."

What goes up, must come down. 31419 and 31413 provide unusual power for the 16:28 Sundays only Paddington - Hereford, on 24th May 1981.

Gen. Advance information relating, in the context of this article, to specific railway vehicles on specific train services. In particular, anything unexpected.

Even though we now live in an age of information overload, it's still not a given that we'll be able to find out what's going where until it's been and gone. But railway gen is a lot more accessible in 2021 than it was in 1981, and sweeping changes to the way the railway operates have meant that most of the chaseables now run outside of the working timetable.

Back in the Day: Dudley Port Junction

Dudley Port Junction offered the area's largest volume of loco-hauled passenger trains, coupled with total freedom to roam and relax.

For the rail enthusiast of the millennium period, it had everything. A relaxed, canalside setting, a range of photo vantage points within walking distance, and in the thick of the day an average of six or so loco-hauled trains per hour. Diesel and electric. Passenger and freight. Located on the Stour Valley line between Dudley Port station and the site of the former Albion station, it was (and still is - although things have changed in the past two decades) Dudley Port Junction.

Dudley Port Junction is so-called not because of any railway divergence, but because it sits on the junction of Thomas Telford's BCN Main Line Birmingham to Wolverhampton Canal, and the canal's Netherton Branch, leading across via Netherton Tunnel to the Dudley Canal.

The Old Normal: Classic British Rail Traction in Procession

In 1999, Dudley Port saw the passage of over a hundred scheduled, loco-powered runs per weekday.

Loco-haulage. A relentless stream at Dudley Port canal junction in 1999.

We're now deep in the era of “bespoke trainspotting”. We usually know what's coming before we leave home, and we can monitor the journey(s) of the train(s) so that we don't have to wait around long at the location. For some, “bespoke trainspotting” has been the norm since the Blackberry era of the early to mid 2000s. For others, decades earlier. I can remember advance summer Saturday gen being shouted out from a soapbox on Sheffield station in 1981 - to a large and very captive audience, and a round of applause.

So gen, and the bespoke activity it encourages, predated the Internet by a long time. But until the early to mid 2000s, we didn't actually need to know precisely what was happening in order to head off for an enjoyable spell at the lineside. Before that, the general UK rail traffic - the normal - carried inherent interest.

Tamping Machines: The Trains We Love to Ignore

Post 1978, after a flurry of 07-16 incomings and the arrival of a new batch of thirty-seven 07-32s, Plasser's 07 series tampers rapidly became a very familiar sight across the British Rail network.

Three classic British Rail era Plasser & Theurer machines in a lineup at Wolverhampton (WolverTampton?) on 11th January 2001. At the front, 07-16 No. 73241. More details on this lineup later in the post.

How would rail enthusiasts treat a train that they couldn't travel on, couldn't underline in their spotting books, and whose fleet number they struggled even to find? Well, as is evidenced in the amazingly scant coverage of tamping machines on the World Wide Web, the vast bulk of railfans would comprehensively ignore it.

The Digital Camera's Entry Into Railway Photography

"The game-changing new releases came from a variety of brands, but they all had one of two main capture systems: a Sony 3.34 megapixel ICX252AK chip, or a Fujifilm Super CCD."

Let the tournament commence... In the late 1990s, poor quality digital cameras were competing against sensationally colourful slide film such as this, the landscaper's old favourite - Fujichrome Velvia 50. The digicam had the mother of all battles on its hands...

As a digital imager since the 1990s, and one of the first contributors to fully illustrate a UK railway magazine article with digital photo files, I can vividly remember how roundly the digital format was dismissed in its early days. Back at a time when the vast majority of railway photos were submitted for nationwide publication by post, on original colour transparency media, I set about persuading a magazine editor to accept a full set of digital files in accompaniment to an article I'd written. To say the least, it was not an easy task.

Chiltern Class 168 - The Early Years

The story of the post-BR era's first new trains, in their initial ten years.

At Tyseley station on 28th April 1999, 168003 models the original Class 168/0 livery with non-contrasting doors.

It appeared that, had they not made history as the first post-British Rail motive power to enter service, the Class 168 'Clubman' units would have received no more than a pictureless footnote in the late '90s magazines...


The updated, post-2003 version of the Chiltern white/blue Class 168/0 livery, with contrasting doors, seen on 168005 at Bentley Heath, 12th July 2006.

BACKGROUND

The 168s' grand entrance came at a time when the magazines were overwhelmed with demand for coverage of the huge but imminently endangered stocks of ex-BR freight diesels. And even in their moment of historical achievement, the 168s were wildly overshadowed by the EWS Class 66s.

A Railway Month in Pictures: February 2001

"Through the latter part of the month, the whole country commenced a farmland shutdown, which affected a huge number of public footpaths and saw many popular railway photography vantage points labelled out of bounds."

Virgin Trains 43194 at Wolverhampton.

If you keep a diary and you were a UK railway enthusiast at the beginning of the century, you may notice quite a downbeat tone across your February 2001 entries. For the first time, signs of the homogenised future heralded by privatisation were starting to show, and the horizon was far from golden.

With the Class 175s finally up and running, January 2001 had seen the last of the Class 37-hauled services between Birmingham and North Wales. Meanwhile, another looming threat to old stock became a reality on 8th Feb, when the first Pendolino - 390001 - left Alstom Washwood Heath behind 66087, for testing at Ashfordby. The following day, the final three EWS Class 31s were withdrawn from regular service at Old Oak Common. And the following week, engineering work between Exeter and Newton Abbot shut down services in the West Country.

Tug Aesthetica: Making Sense of the Class 60's Earlier Visual History

"Most Loadhaul Class 60s remained either in full Trainload livery, or had the Trainload decals removed to render an unbranded triple-grey look."

Battling the Arctic-style conditions of New Year's Day 2002, 60034 flies the flag for Transrail grey livery.

With thanks to those who shared links to my Class 60 article last week, I'm making this payback time. Yes, I've dug deep into my photo archives to bring forth another selection of visual Class 60 studies - mainly from the long-lost era of film.

The theme this time is an exploration of the standard Class 60 aesthetics that sat across the transitional period from late British Rail into early privatisation. Did you know that the first Class 60 EWS repainted was not initially released in red and gold? Did you know that the 60s have a "clean end" and a "dirty end"? Have you ever wondered why so many 60s were stripped of their original nameplates in the 1990s? If not, don't worry. It's all coming up in this very post. And if you're just here for the nostalgic images, there's plenty here that the world has never before seen...

British Rail's Class 60 in the EWS Years

"One really interesting use of a Class 60 that encapsulated the transience of EWS cascading, was the Lickey banking duty."

60076 in the EWS-branded version of BR's triple-grey livery, with a Round Oak - Margam run on 6th June 2007.

They still felt new. It just wasn't what we were expecting to happen...

If any locomotive type seemed safe from the effects of post-BR renewal, it was the Class 60. Reassuringly bulky, with monster tractive effort, the Brush/Mirrlees Type 5s were a product of the late 1980s, starting service in the early 1990s, and the last of them had not been ready to run until 1993. Just three years later, the locomotive order which would rapidly end their reign of UK freight supremacy was signed and sealed.

The Complicated World of Modern Traction Naming

"British Rail did not name any locomotives at all between the beginning of 1967 and the end of 1975. That's nine full years without any namings. Just let that sink in for a moment. Nine years."

Onto its second name... 86229 was originally named Sir John Betjeman in mid 1983. It was renamed Lions Clubs International whilst with Virgin West Coast fifteen years later. This shot shows the loco at Birmingham New Street on 15th November 2001.

If we're talking about classic diesel traction and I refer to Merddin Emrys, do I mean 47281, or do I mean 47145? If I reference Petrolea, do I mean 47374, or 37888, or 58042?... Unless we already have a context, you won't know. That's because these example names appeared on all of the loco options I've cited. Over the years, locomotive and train names have been fairly casually recyclable, or transient in their association with particular items of stock. Does that defeat the point of naming?

What, indeed, even is the point of naming? Who or what is it for? Is it for the rail enthusiast? For the wider public? For the person, group or entity honoured in the name? Or is it for the media, and ultimately for the publicity benefit of the train operator? Is naming about respect? And if so, does that respect extend to the actual loco or train? Is it about schmoozing? Is it about virtue signalling? Is it merely an honest attempt to add kudos to rail travel?... It would be naive to think it's not to some extent about the train operator drawing attention to itself. But has that quest, at times, been a little too obvious?...

The 'Barbie' Liveried Class 180 Adelante Units With First Great Western

"Developed and prototyped without Automatic Train Protection, the 180s were held back while the safety system's fitting was organised, and other safety considerations were dealt with."

If you thought the Virgin Voyager was the first true 125mph DMU to hit UK rails... Well, as regards actual service, you'd be right. But if you count testing, the Voyager was beaten to it by Alstom's Class 180 unit, which began its long regime of trials at Old Dalby in April 2000.

Whilst the Voyager drifted into service with Virgin bang on time in May 2001, the 180 suffered heavy delays and did not in the end begin service with First Great Western until the end of 2001. Even then, only one unit was available, and the second did not enter traffic until March 2002. By which time the Voyager had stolen all the glory.

HSTs in the West Midlands and Worcestershire: 1999 to 2009

Pictorially charting the period during which the HST's popularity really began to soar...

Looking seriously smart fresh from refurbishment, re-engined Arriva CrossCountry power car 43304 takes us back to the initial excitement of the new HST livery that emerged in 2008.

The ten year period between 1999 and 2009 marked a major rise in the popularity of the HST. The groundbreakingly futuristic train had left wide-eyed young spotters mesmerised upon its introduction in the 1970s. But by the 1990s, standardised in InterCity Swallow livery, it had become an ever-present wallpaper behind the much more varied realm of locomotive passenger haulage.


Classic late '90s. The original Virgin CrossCountry livery. Red and charcoal, with a yellow cab roof for the power cars. This is 43068 at Kings Norton on 10th September 1999.

However, the privatisation of British Rail through the second half of the '90s brought the HST back into focus. 1998 and 1999 saw a huge raft of old BR locos taken out of service, and simultaneously, for the first time, newly ordered passenger stock tangibly threatened the HST's reign of supremacy on diesel routes. Meanwhile, a sequence of new liveries spread across the HST fleet, creating a lot more appeal for the photographers who fed the enthusiasts' magazines. The scene was set, and fairly quickly, enthusiasts began to remember the excitement they'd felt when the HST first entered their world.

The Class 156s With Central Trains

"Central could not wait for the entire repair to be completed, and the lesser damaged of the two cars was rushed back into service about two months after the crash."

Looking pretty awesome in the memorable Central Trains green livery, 156401 approaches Bankers Bridge, Aston Fields, on 20th February 2004.

I said in the Virgin Electrics Loco-Hauled piece that finding coverage of the 25KV workhorses in the railway magazines of the late 1990s could prove a challenge. But if you ever feel the need to step up that challenge to new heights, try finding anything relating to the Central Trains Class 156s in the same printed matter. Grab a bundle of mags from the period, seek to convince yourself that the Tyseley-based Super-Sprinters even existed, and you may end up in some doubt.


156412 on a stop at Kings Norton station during an extremely rare outing on the Cross-City line, 27th January 2001. This is the Regional Railways Express livery that characterised the 1997 to 2003 period for the CT 156s.

But exist they definitely did. And they were visually-engaging units in their Regional Railways Express livery. They performed competently among ex-BR units too, with an average Lickey Incline ascent of 4 minutes and 18 seconds from a standing start at the old Bromsgrove station.

InterCity Class 47s With Virgin Trains

"Most of Virgin's loco-hauled XC runs operated between the North West and the South West, or the North West and the South East."

One of the reasons why so few photographers can assemble quality pictorials recalling the InterCity Class 47/8s in the Virgin CrossCountry era, is simply that in the initial phase of Virgin Trains, IC 47/8s were considered a "waste of a photo". They were the default. And until spring 2000, still responsible for the majority of diesel loco-haulage across the Virgin network. As a facet of the scene that most people had already photographed in the latter days of British Rail, the IC 47/8s were roundly ignored.

But by the late 1990s, regretting missed opportunities to record the mundane as a teenager a decade and a half earlier, I suppose I made the InterCity 47/8s my opportunity to atone for the future. Now that future is upon us. It's time to look back on what was, in its day, a sphere of mundanity, but which now stands as a lesser-documented component of an ebbing era. The era of widespread locomotive passenger haulage.

Millennium Turns - West Midlands Rail Scene Around the Year 2000

"The Class 56s dug in their heels to the point where, in the second half of 2000, they actually made something of a comeback."

We kick off our nostaligic pictorial just south of Bankers Bridge, Bromsgrove, with a real encapsulation of the times. Virgin HST sets in mixes of InterCity and Virgin livery were common through the late 1990s. By 2000, most of the repainting was complete, but there were still plenty of opportunities to see the occasional red set with a rogue IC power car at one end. And with time running out for the last IC stock set, one complete InterCity formation was assembled in Y2K. The set above, captured on the doorstep of the new millennium at the end of summer 1999, is led by 43159.

The Introduction of the EWS Class 66

"The prototype bogie did not come with the same durability warranty as the production version. For this reason, it was always planned to update the prototype bogies to the ‘passed’ version at an early stage."

Still almost brand new in summer 2000, No. 66220 scales the Lickey Incline with a long rake of loaded coal hoppers, and some distant rear-end assistance from triple-grey 60068.

The arrival of the EWS (history of EWS here) Class 66 locomotives is widely remembered by the UK motive power enthusiast as a launching pad for the biggest cull in the history of British-built diesel freight traction. But for those more focused on the prosperity of the railway, the Class 66’s grand entrance was a bravura performance. From speed of delivery, through whirlwind, pre-approved acceptance, to the unprecedented streamlining of inventory and maintenance, the birth and roll-out of the Class 66 was a masterclass in efficiency.

The £350,000,000 order for 250 brand new freight locomotives was placed almost immediately after the EWS brand came into being in spring 1996. Idealistically, EWS would have bought secondhand to reduce costs, but it’s not an ideal world, and there was no high-quantity secondhand market for a GB-compatible loco with the operational improvements EWS required. So they approached General Motors to talk about an upgrade on the GB-proven Class 59/2, with a modernised engine, ‘self-steering’ bogies, and highly advanced computer control.

Cool Runnings: Memorable Midland Diesel Duties 2005 - 2009

"The old era of long, pick and mix photo sessions had finally gone west, to be replaced by a new era of short, information-driven visits to targeted locations."

57302 'Virgil Tracy' on a Pendolino drag at Dudley Port, on 18th June 2005. See post text for more.

Summer 2005. For the first time in the living memory of West Midlands and Worcestershire railways, it was not possible for an enthusiast to go out and record a daily, squadron regime of locomotive passenger haulage. When Virgin Trains gave up the lease on its last Class 87 locomotives in June that year, nothing remained except temp stand-ins and special cover. Just four years earlier there’d still been a huge volume of slam-door trains passing through Birmingham New Street – many of them loco-hauled. But all of that had been swept away by the Virgin Voyagers and Pendolinos, which had arrived in truly overwhelming volume.


Redundant electric locomotives being placed in and out of storage produced some of the most chaseable scenes of the decade. On 10th May 2006, Virgin red 47810 'Porterbrook' takes the loop at Bromsgrove with the 0Z88 storage move for Gloucester, and ultimately (the following day) Long Marston. And the load? 87033, 87030, 87021 and 87025.

Although loco-haulage remained dominant on the freight scene, traction variety had vastly diminished since the end of the 1990s, and loco fans found themselves in a new situation. The old era of long, pick and mix photo sessions had finally gone west, to be replaced by a new era of short, information-driven visits to targeted locations – each typically made with the capture of just one very specific train in mind. The regular traffic was now seen almost as background noise, and the focus centred purely on special or unusual duties – the ‘cool runnings’, as my Bob Marley-inspired title refers to them.


Network Rail structure-gauging in the snow - 31233 tails 31601 through Northfield station on 6th April 2008. See post text for more.

In this pictorial I’m exploring some of the West Midlands and Worcestershire’s prime diesel traction targets during the 2005 to 2009 period. I’ve avoided railtours to home in on what I’ll call non-contrived operations. And I’m paying particular attention to short-lived phenomena which would soon be consigned to history...

The Virgin Red Class 47/8s - Identification Guide & Trivia Trove

"Particular areas of variation would include the type of marker light panels, and the number of lamp mounts on the cab fronts."

We all chased the celebrities, but today, even those good old bog-standard Virgin reds look mighty fine. Can you tell them apart though? Identify them in photos without knowing the number? Can you reel off those little bits of trivia that time is fast erasing? Well, if not, you'll certainly be an expert by the end of this post. In an almighty article featuring photos of every single Virgin red 47/8, I'm going to dissect those work-a-day, bread-and-butter ILRA classics like never before...

There are also posts for the InterCity liveried 47/8s and the celebrity liveried 47/8s with Virgin, but in this Virgin red post, each loco has its own heading and photo, beneath which you'll find a Quick ID button and a Details button. If you click or tap those buttons, you'll get information which aims to help uniquely ID the locomotives. Use the Quick ID buttons if you just want a fast means of pinpointing the locos' unique features. If you use the Details buttons, you'll also need to consult the key, which appears at the end of the post and tells you what each letter or symbol in the block stands for. If you're not quite that nerdy, you can ignore the ID and Details buttons, and just enjoy the pics and trivia.

Please note that the ID and detail information is only accurate for the period during which the locos were working for Virgin, in Virgin red livery...