I got into railways at the age of 11, (1974) and became a dedicated spotter, to the detriment to my mates who thought I was weird, well not wrong there eh...we've all been tarred with that same brush I'm sure over the years, were just anoraks😂 I don't do fishing....so boring!

I wasn't really interested in photography, I had been using a Kodak 126 cartridge film camera which was pretty basic. But in 1982, I got my first slr, an all manual Olympus OM1N to help me learn what it was all about. The quality of photos aren't great technically, but I got better over time.

When I left school, 2 months later I got a job on the railway as a junior railman at Birmingham New St. A little while after that I applied for a job on the footplate as a secondman and got accepted. I was over the moon, getting paid for riding around on locos....I was so excited!

I was so privileged and never took advantage of the opportunities of photographing so much of the railway life I had at my disposal, film processing etc was a fairly expensive game and other hobbies (drinking /football) took up most of my time/money. Ironically I am now tee-total and haven't been to a footie match for nearly 30 years!!

On the flipside photography is now cheaper, and digital is so much easier and less costly, (unless your using a lot of f2.8 lenses) no film to buy and process and the awful disappointment of a roll not being taken up by the sprocket in camera and snapping away on a roll of 36 with nothing to show but blank negs! It only happened once, but on an Inverness trip, I never made that mistake again.

The loco haulage bug never really interested me either (could it trump being up front)? But when I ventured up the West Highlands riding Class 37, my attitude changed dramatically, the scenery, the thrash, I was hooked. Never had much to do with the class back in Brum, only a few cab haulages and a handful of drives along the way, they along with Class 50 became my preferred traction and being a "sparky" man my beloved Class 87s.

More recently I have been digitising my negs, (even though they haven't been looked after very well), using the raw data and editing them accordingly, not photoshop, can do a pretty ok job with Nikons own software, the white balance is a bit difficult to correct, most have lots of dust and scratches and a vast abundance of film grain, but the subject matter is of more importance.

Anyway enough about me, no-one will be interested in my life story, please feel free to comment on anything that you find of interest or something that isn't correct, I'm no expert by any means and have forgotten so much over the last 50 years or so, we're never too old to learn.

Cheers

Steve.