28 February 2024 That Was the Year That Was – 1962
Presenter Geoff Plumb:
The branch was entertained by well known RCTS member Geoff Plumb who regularly presents both face-to-face and zoom shows for our Branches, this time with ‘That was the year that was: 1962’.
The evening started with a 4-year-old Geoff taken in 1954 by his father Derek who was a founder of the RCTS Sheffield Branch taken on a local tour of the Duffield Branch standing in the cab of a Midland Railway 0-4-4T and finished with the Beattie well tank farewell tours of SW London suburbs on Dec 2nd & 16th 1962 by Geoff himself.
In between we were treated to steam taken in England mainly, Scotland and Wales by photographers well known and not so well known both in B/W and colour. Geoff and his younger brothers were extremely lucky youngsters having a RCTS official as a dad and are regularly seen in other people’s pictures enjoying RCTS tours, loco shed & station visits. I was very envious seeing him with his dad foot-plating on Black Fives 45139, 45091 & 44833 all on one day on a RCTS East Midlands rail tour on 9/8/1959 when he was only 10. Lucky devil! After the break we had reached 1962 and were shown mainly Geoff’s own slides taken when he was 13 with a £5 s/h voigtlander camera he received on his birthday that year.
Geoff had also experimented recently changing b/w pictures into colour using a picture he took of 60022 at KX on the Aberdeen Flyer tour and later a Crosti boiler 9F No 92029 taken at Wellingborough and his results while time consuming was well worth the effort. There was something of interest in every excellent picture, whether it was a Super D at Willesden, Brush built ‘Falcon’ on an east coast express or the final trolley bus services in London.
Avoid missing any of his future shows for a great evening of railway photography.
