Martin Loader's Railway Photography

Welcome to my railway photography website. I hope you will enjoy browsing through these pictures, which include both recent and historic images taken over the last 30 years. Classic diesel traction will predominate, with eventually numerous archive pictures from the more interesting rail blue and sectorisation eras. There will be some current pictures, but do not expect to see endless pictures of Class 66 hauled freights all taken from the same location! I will try to add a few pictures to the site every day with the emphasis on variety. Many thanks to all those people who have commented on the pictures. The compliments with regard to the quality of the archive pictures are very much appreciated.

Although based in West Oxfordshire, I have traveled extensively throughout the UK in search of railway subjects, and this will be reflected in this website. Much traveling was done during the 'golden years' of the late 1980s and 1990s, unfortunately before then I very rarely strayed from the local area, therefore completely missing the last days of the Deltics, and other interesting workings. In hindsight more effort should have been put into photographing the numerous trip freight workings that still existed in the 1980s. Nowadays, with far less of interest happening, I find that I tend to concentrate on the local area once more, with the Cotswold Line, Oxford to Banbury, and Didcot to Swindon lines being my usual subjects. I do still make occasional forays to other areas, and I usually try to visit Scotland at least once a year, but I very rarely chase railtours the length and breadth of the country like I used to. Although obviously like everybody else I have favourite classes (37, 50, etc), I have generally taken a broader view than a lot of photographers, believing that the mundane and seemingly uninteresting will one day seem historic and interesting. I have always liked HSTs and the humble DMU and certainly nowadays I find them just as interesting as the depressingly dull freight scene (such as it is!). Consequently you will notice that the modern images tend to feature units and HSTs in greater abundance than Class 66s. In fact I find the privatised passenger railway with its seemingly never ending livery changes far more interesting than the very repetitive freight pictures that some photographers seem to regard as the only 'proper' railway photography. Even though I am now able to, I do not feel the need to go out every day just to see the same workings. There is a small collection of steam pictures, but not many featuring overhead electrics, as I find there are very few good photographic locations under the wires.

Although like all photographers I regard the lighting as very important, I will still take pictures in less than ideal conditions, although this will usually be some unrepeatable working or otherwise interesting subject. I do not subscribe to the theory that all railway pictures have to be taken in full sun, with the sun on the nose, with a standard lens, and from a front three quarter viewpoint. Although obviously I do take these conventional shots, I also try to vary the angle, viewpoint and as mentioned previously make use of different lighting effects. A whole collection of the so-called ideal railway pictures can get very monotonous. Pictures taken in the rain can look very effective, but keeping the camera dry is a major consideration, and the comfort factor tends to limit the number of such pictures taken! I generally tend to favour a short telephoto lens for the standard lineside type of picture, but employ a full range of lenses from moderate wide angle to long telephoto to achieve a variety of images. To this end I am always seeking out new locations and trying to vary the angle of the shot, although generally without going to some of the avant-garde extremes popular a few years ago.

This website has been deliberately designed with a clear uncluttered look, a result that could not easily be achieved with the more common fotopic format. Not only did I want an individual look to the site, but I also found the fotopic format very limiting, particularly the rigid 'collection' format, which makes it impossible to link to recent images while still maintaining individual class collections. Ideally this website should be viewed at 1280 x 1024, but the pictures have been sized to 980 pixels wide, which allows for full screen viewing on 1024 x 768 monitors, allowing room for the standard scroll bar, but without an annoying horizontal scroll bar. Internet Explorer 5 and above with Java enabled is recommended.

This website now contains 1206 images. To make navigation around the site easy, the 100 most recent images (including scanned archive pictures) can be seen on the Recent Additions page, with the latest pictures at the top of the page. All images including these new additions are available from the various individual class pages. On these pages, the pictures are arranged numerically, or in the case of some unit and steam pages, by class, then numerically. Generally speaking the order of the diesel locos follows TOPS numbering regardless of number carried, but due to the complicated and multiple renumberings of the Class 37 & 47 fleets, the pictures are arranged by the number carried, so the same loco may appear in several places on the page. Certain classes, such as 40 & 52 will tend to feature numerous pictures of the same loco in different locations, mainly because I took so few pictures of the locos when they were more numerous, and of course in one or two cases there are only a couple of locos extant! Most of the subject pages are fairly self explanatory, the only ones that may require some explanation being: Departmental, which includes all types of track machines, MPVs, etc, and 630V DC EMUs, which covers either underground or ex-underground stock working on third or fourth rail systems. The distinction between Narrow Gauge and Miniature being the generally accepted one that miniature lines employ scale models of full size locomotives. Also, narrow gauge covers track gauges between 1 ft 11½ in and 3 ft, and miniature 20 in and below. To help you search for a particular loco, location, railtour operator, or just about anything else, please use the search facility below. Please bear in mind however, that it will take at least a day for new additions to appear in the search results. The picture on the home page will change each time new pictures are uploaded.