22nd January 2020 · The ‘Modern Scene’ Today

Presenter: Julian Clark

The Chichester Branch is fortunate in having Julian as a member whose photographic talents have been recognised in both the RO and RCTS publicity material.

His wide ranging presentation revealed the sheer diversity of railway subjects that are encompassed by the title of the talk. We started off in the charming surroundings of the Littlehampton Miniature Railway and then set off on a tour of Network Rail lines in Southern England.Julian not only diligently researches out the timings of the many loco-hauled trains that are slotted in to a network dominated by EMU’s, but also carefully selects his locations whilst taking full advantage of his telephoto lens to add pictorial ‘punch’ to the end result.

The audience was treated to a delightful photographic interlude in Poland where a more relaxed attitude to ‘elf and safety’ still prevails.Of?cialdom allowed a train to venture up a little used branch on condition that Julian assisted in the re-railing of the train if necessary! The whole talk was peppered with informative background detail and some amusing anecdotes including one which revealed that ‘twitching’ and ‘gricing’ have a degree of overlap