08 December 2021 – World Steam

Presenter Guenter Oczko

Opinions may vary on the plusses and minuses of ‘Zoom’ presentations but no one can deny that the technology has given the opportunity for a much wider audience to see the wonderful images of world steam taken by Guenter Oczko presented from his home in Germany.

Guenter has travelled to a truly staggering number of countries to witness steam locomotives in action and indeed been to Turkey no less than 32 times and to Bolivia on an ‘away day’.  He freely admitted that it was only affordable because he worked for the national airline Lufthansa. The subject matter also showed that Guenter is a very adept charter train organiser.  Some authentic recreations in Germany as recently as 2019 were indistinguishable from scenes some 50 years earller.

It was very difficult to pick out the ‘stars of the show’  but the shots in Turkey and China against a backdrop of sunlit snow-covered mountains were truly stunning - no other adjective seems appropriate in this case.  In the early days, railway photography was viewed with great suspicion by many countries and he was detained by the Polish military for 30 hours on one occasion.

However this did not deter Guenter as he pursued the steam locomotive here, there and everywhere; a true measure of his dedication was the incredibly low temperatures he encountered in rural China that both he - and his photographic equipment! - endured.

The second half was dominated by steam in China but his last slide revealed that time had not allowed Guenter to show us evidence of his travels to that other former great stronghold of steam - South Africa.  Even when we do eventually resume face to face meetings, I’m sure Chichester Branch will insert a Zoom presentation into its programme - for Guenter Oczko Part 2!