Biscuit Tin Discoveries

Mike Dodd volunteers for the Restoration and Archiving Trust (RAT) at the GWSR where he scans and digitises their substantial collection of photographs, negatives, slides (sounds familiar!). This exercise unearthed a biscuit tin which had lain unopened for some time. No sweet biscuit assortment in it, but what it did contain was a sweet assortment of envelopes containing negatives and slides of locomotives from around the UK and Europe. Sufficient evidence existed that this was the collection of Frank Saunders. Mike’s presentation ‘Biscuit Tin Discoveries’ on 15^th February, was the result of his work converting this collection to digitised images and researching the locations where the photos were taken. Research established that the collection dated from around 1948 to the very early 1960s. Starting on the Isle of Wight, we moved around the Southern, over to France, Spain, Germany, Austria, and Belgium, back to the home counties, the West Country, West Wales, Cambrian, Midland, Great Central, Great Northern depicting locations long gone, railtours (RCTS tours featured), and included locomotives from diminutive 0-4-0 saddle tanks right up to the giants of steam along with  diesel and electric locomotives, including the Western hydraulics and the Metropolitan electrics. Have you got a biscuit tin of undiscovered photographs? Maybe it is time to lift the lid!