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 32 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 few days with the emphasis on variety. The picture on the home page will change each time new pictures are uploaded. 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. High resolution versions are available for publication use, please contact me for details.

This website should ideally be viewed at 1600 x 1200 or the widescreen equivalent - 1920 x 1200. However it will also work well at 1280 x 1024, although it may be necessary to press F11 in order to clear away the various toolbars to allow more room and prevent unnecessary scrolling. For the small number of users still viewing the website at 1024 x 768 the following procedure will ensure full screen viewing. Using Firefox (version 3.0 onwards) select zoom from the view menu. First make sure that 'Zoom Text Only' is unchecked, then use 'Zoom Out' to make the website the required size for your monitor. If using Internet Explorer 7, the zoom feature in the lower right corner can be used, although like everything else with Internet Explorer this doesn't work anything like as well as the Firefox solution. Some website elements may be distorted or misplaced.

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 once 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. In fact it was probably the introduction of the 66s which curtailed my desire to be traveling all over the country in search of freight workings, and now I hardly bother with them at all. 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. Interestingly, as time goes by more and more photographers seem to chase fewer and fewer workings and in part this is what puts me off following what everybody else does. When I first started railway photography and there was far more of interest to photograph I very rarely ever met another photographer!

I believe that a balanced website should include pictures taken in a variety of lighting conditions, not just the full sun regarded as essential by some photographers. I have made use of the various lighting conditions available in this country, and although obviously I prefer sunny shots, I have taken many pictures in less than ideal conditions. With proper processing there is no reason why these should look as bad as they often appear on other websites. Generally pictures taken in poor conditions are usually unrepeatable workings or otherwise interesting subjects. 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.

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. Another problem with Fotopic was highlighted in early 2009 when the whole site was offline without warning for several days causing mass panic among railway photographers who feared many hundreds of hours of work had been lost. With a 'proper' website such as this, at least I have a complete copy of it on my hard drive if disaster strikes!  

This website now contains 2702 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 or category pages. On these pages, the pictures are arranged numerically, or in the case of the various miscellaneous and EMU pages, by class, then numerically. A slight variation is the placing of the newer classes of 750V DC EMU that have a dual voltage capability at the end of the page, as otherwise this would break the approximately chronological order of the previous classes. 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 in particular, the pictures are arranged by the number carried, so the same loco may appear in several different places. 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!  A few pages are arranged alphabetically, including the narrow gauge & miniature, where the particular railway is listed alphabetically. The miscellaneous diesel and DMU pages contain pictures of all the various types that I only have a few pictures of, whereas the miscellaneous steam page contains pictures of locos of other than the big four companies, and includes both BR and ex industrial locos.

Most of the subject pages are fairly self explanatory, the only one that may require some explanation being 630V DC EMUs which covers either underground or ex-underground stock working on third or fourth rail systems. I have given Class 73s their own page, in view of their unique electro diesel design, and because I have more pictures of them than all other electric classes put together. Also most of the time I have photographed them running on diesel rather than the third rail! I have also given Eurostars their own page, because although generally regarded as EMUs, they are really a distinct design that cannot work in multiple with anything else and have non-passenger carrying power cars at either end. Also, due to their (initial) dual voltage capability, they would otherwise have to be split between the EMU pages. 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. Where there are a large number of pictures of one class, they will be spilt over several pages. In this case there will be arrows near the page title allowing you to move between the various pages. Generally all the pages feature motive power of some sort, but I have also included a couple of pages which don't. I have always been fascinated by disused railways where the rails are still in situ, there being something fascinating about a line of rusty rails disappearing into the undergrowth. I have therefore added a small selection of these pictures on the Disused Railways page. These all feature closed (or virtually so!) lines with the rails still intact. Sometimes these have subsequently been lifted and sometimes the line has been resurrected. I have also added a page for signal boxes, as these are probably the most interesting item of railway infrastructure still surviving. Often they feature in pictures in the other categories, but where due to their position this is not possible, I have included them on their own page. 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. 

All images and website design © copyright 1978-2010 Martin Loader.