Tuesday, 17 March 2009 13:49

North West Scene, 1970-1971

Written by Mike
Class 40 no 317 at Maryport, 7 April 1971 Class 40 no 317 at Maryport, 7 April 1971

The period 1970 to 1971 was the time I started to get more interested in taking pictures of railways rather than just collecting their numbers.

It was also a time of 'Runabout' tickets in the school holidays when as a group we travelled extensively around the North West at very little cost!

It was an interesting period to be interested in railways.

Some industrial steam remained in West Cumberland at Workington and Whitehaven Docks.

Most British Rail locos had been repainted into Rail Blue, but there were still many running around in the original green livery. Officially the 'D' and 'E' prefix on diesel and electric locomotive numbers had been dropped, but most still carried them.

There were still some named trains - 'The Royal Scot' and 'The Thames Clyde Express' still carried a special cachet - even though they were worked to the same timings as other services on their routes.

Loops and sidings abounded, economics had not yet taken hold to force their lifting and removal. Much infrastructure from the steam period remained, and semaphore signals were still in the majority.

Electrification of the West Coast Main Line north of Crewe was just beginning - making for lots of interesting diversions over the Settle & Carlisle line - especially on Sundays.

Camera wise I was using a Ricoh compact - film of course. It featured very unreliable automatic exposure - necessitating facing it downwards to get it to expose the subject correctly. Film choice was generally Kodachrome. Generally the original slides have stood the test of time well, better than the cheaper emulsions I moved on to later.

See pictures of the:

UK Industrial Steam

UK Railway Scene - 1970

UK Railway Scene - 1971

 

Mike

Mike

Mike McCormac has been a photographer since about ten years old.  He's a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and lives in a village in the hills near Paphos in Cyprus.

Read his full Bio

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Add comment