Steam Porfolio

Malcolm Dunnett

CHESTER-LE-STREET
CO. DURHAM

I began railway photography in 1957, although not to the extent that I now wish, considering how much the railways have changed from then until the early 1960s. For the last few years I have used a Super Baldax 2 1/4 in square camera, which was second-hand, and a Mamiya C3 twin-lens reflex. I am firmly a lover of steam locomotives; my aim has been to record the steam railway scene before it vanished completely. In today's world, when all machines tend to be enclosed in a metal box and do nothing very interesting to observe, a machine such as the steam locomotive, which consumes coal and water and breathes forth smoke and fire is obviously of great intrinsic interest. Items of decaying splendour always tend to be most photogenic and this applies to our once-vast 19th century railway system as well as its locomotives. I try to recapture some of the "atmosphere" of 19th century England in my photographs, the dirt and grime, as well as the elegance and pride.

My own home area, County Durham, is well provided with a wide variety of railways, from the ancient colliery wagonways to the East Coast main line, which used to have such beautiful engines for its express trains. Of course they have gone now but even though the last BR steam locomotive departed from here a year or more ago North East England still retains what is probably the largest concentration of industrial steam engines in the country. As for the future, the next year or so will no doubt be spent in recording NCB engines, which will not last forever - colliery closures are bringing about their demise at a most unpleasant rate - and the European railways, some of which are keeping a degree of steam operation for a few years longer than BR. There should thus be enough of interest to keep myself and other similarly-minded photographers busily occupied for the next five years or so. After that I will have to think of something else to amuse myself, for it would never do to take pictures of diesels!