Feature - Railways and Tramways

Some railways started out as horse drawn tramways, and there are a lot of similarities between railways and tramways. For that reason we have joined these two areas together. Tramways also have enormous varieties from remains of a granite tramway, to pleasure and tourism sites, and more.

Locations vary from seaside rail lines, to lines across the moors or up mountains, through idyllic countryside to city locations, over viaducts spanning valleys to tunnels that run through the hillsides.

The variation we are covering is even wider, from the 'rack and pinion' train that runs up Snowdon to the variety of trams, to some smaller narrow track trains.  Add to this the bridges, viaducts, scenic locations, architecture as well as a variety of artefacts and more and you see we could all set out to photograph railways and all come back with different collections of images. Even on a single line, with a number of special events, different trains, seasonal variations, weather and lighting changes, we have a lot of scope.

As you may expect by now we have, as usual on feature weeks, undertaken a large search and indexing project to find as many as we could. We didn't find any single source with them all listed, and of course we may have missed one or two, if we have then please let us know. We have discovered a lot of changes, there are a number of new railways, quite a few are building extension and others are opening their extensions this year, but a few have also closed or are up for sale. There are loads of plans around to expand, and some to eventually link up some of these railways.

Train photography is in some ways relaxed and easy going, after all you know when they should arrive and they are usually late. Trains also can't go up hill so track-ways are level when you walk them, but you do need a permit to do this.  In theory you may think that train photography would be straight forward, you know exactly where the train is going to go, and can work out everything before it arrives, but of course there are a few problems to cope with, the major one being the extreme contrast from the black or dark coloured train down amongst the trees to the white steam, smoke and clouds in the sun lighter sky.

There are many whose main interest is rail photography, and others connected with trams and others on lines, this is a huge topic, supported by a number of specialist magazines.

Many of us like to undertake some rail photography, also like to see trains within scenic shots, portraying action, romance, people in period dress with restored railway items. You can feel the power of a train, appreciate the work put in by the volunteers who have restored and run it, and with growing numbers of Gala events have the opportunity to see a wider variety of trains and other rolling stock than ever before.   The opportunity to both photograph railways and travel on these often opens up possibilities for many other types of photography from scenic to wildlife to plants. Given that at some time every photographer is likely to want to photograph some railways and many will become hooked, and want to visit many more, this is a topic area where we want to provide a lot of resources.

This week we are starting this section, with articles on some aspects of rail photography and access, listings both alphabetically and by county. We also take a look at one small group of trains, the Great Little Trains of Wales, 9 narrow track railways that run through very nice scenery, some along mountain ledges. Work is in hand to join up two of these, and when this is complete it will provide the chance of a 40 mile ride through Snowdonia on a narrow track steam railway.

What we would like to do eventually is to have a more detailed photographic guide on each railway showing the best photographic locations along the routes, we know our own local steam railway well and a few others a little, but we hope to interest more photographers interested in rail photography in helping by providing details on the railways they know well. So while we get started on this section this week, it is just a beginning.

As we wanted the section and articles to have photographs representing more than the locations featured this week we will be adding them within the next week or so rather than putting some in now and then replacing them.

Next week we are going to look specifically at dealing with high contrasts, and the use of graduated filters, which is particularly relevant to railway photography, but also  relevant to many other areas. Also next week we are going to add a number of location guides of some of the better known of the steam railways across the UK, as well as moving the calendar forward to look at August photographic opportunities.

New Railway Section added

• Railway photography  - Looking at what you can photograph and how to do it.

• Photography on the railways, going lineside with a lineside pass/permit.

• Railway Photo Charters  - special events put on for photographers, taking you to locations and then running through for you, before moving on to the next location along the line.

• Great Little Trains of Wales - 9 narrow track railways, with scenery and character.

• Alpha listing of railways - also organises with listings by county see railway section for this.

• Railway  Magazines  - a good source for information, as well as perhaps publishers of your work.

• Further Information  books, website links and more.

Great Little Trains of Wales

Bala Lake Railway, Llanuwchllyn, Gwynedd

Brecon Mountain Railway, Glamorganshire

Ffestiniog Railway, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd

Llanberis Lake Railway, Llanberis, Gwynedd

Talyllyn Railway, Tywyn, Gwynedd

Vale of Rheidol Railway, Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire

Welsh Highland Railway, Caernarfon

Welsh Highland Railway, Porthmadog, Gwynedd

Welshpool & Llanfair Railway, Powys

Other Location Guides

Dalgoch Falls, Gwynedd      -  3 waterfalls that can be visited from one of the lines above.

Other changes this week

You will find we have extended the county section of the indexes, separating out Ireland, and the Islands associated with the UK as well as preparing for the addition of other country sections. While we are concentrating on the UK, we have quite a few Irish locations we want to add. As you take your holidays and start to put into practice what you have learnt, discovering new places, you will now be able to share your experience and knowledge with other photographers, and we will be able to fully index it, country sections becoming visible when the first information is available. 

You will start to see advertisements now appearing in 12 photographic magazines to make the availably of this website more widely seen, we have booked space in each of these for the next 12 months. In addition we are shortly going to start running a press campaign through local newspapers, looking specifically to recruit those who would like to have a go at writing up locations in the areas they know well. This will allow those with an interest in writing the chance to become involved, as well as photographers, allowing us to move up a gear and expand the location guide sections faster. Why not have a go now at writing up some of the locations that you know.  See how to go about this and templates here.