Rail Reminiscences

Our speaker for our first meeting of the year was Branch Chairman Phil Darlaston whose photographic presentation ‘Rail Reminiscences’ covered 50 years of his photography from 1973 to 2023 encompassing Black and White, Colour Slide and more recently, Digital images. The earliest pictures were from his home area of Birmingham which was revisited over a number of years in the presentation illustrating the changes in motive power from Class 47 and Peak hauled IC trains to modern EMU’s.

Phil worked for the CEGB, originally at Ironbridge Power station in Shropshire. Most fortuitously, the SVR at Bridgnorth was very local and the return of mainline Steam to the nearby North and West Line was an added bonus. This central location provided much photographic interest and was the springboard for many excursions in and from the Midlands area in search of BR, Industrial and Mainline Steam activity and further afield during the 1970s and 1980s to favourite places such as the Cambrian and more particularly the Settle & Carlisle line,  which from 1978 mainline steam had also returned.

A move south to Didcot Power Station gave Phil fresh local photographic opportunities and locations to explore in the Thames Valley;in particular the Oxford Area, Reading, Didcot, and the Berks and Hants lines were all regularly visited and recorded. Mainline Steam from Didcot was supplemented by Steam from Marylebone and Network Southeast provided cheap days out and opportunities to record new liveries on old favourites such as the Class 50s now working out from Paddington and Waterloo. Other diverse locations such as Dover Marine, Helsinki and Norway and Mainline excursions and Exhibitions were also included in this 50 year overview.

Thanks to Phil for showing us his wide variety of pictures whilst also telling us the background story.