Circa 1900 - "COMO [RAILWAY BRIDGE and STATION]", Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (restored version)

IMAGE INFO

- The photographer's viewpoint is centred looking north-east from the slopes of the hill west of Como Station (near where the end of Como Parade in Como West is today).

- By this time, Christmas holiday outings by rail from Sydney to Como by day trippers & picnickers was proving very popular, with fishing, boating & other leisure activities becoming well-catered for.

- By the time this photo was taken (c.1900), the "old" Como Station with single short platform on the eastern side of a single track (which opened 26 Dec 1885) had been completely demolished & re-built during 1889-90, with an additional track dedicated to southbound train movements being added on the eastern side of the existing single track, south from the rail bridge abutment & a larger station building constructed on the new extended western platform. The original single track became a northbound line only. A second "Gauntlet" track was laid next to the existing track across the single width bridge so as to alleviate the need to use levered points at either end.

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SOURCE INFO

- This version is a copy of an original Albumen photo print c.1900 (commonly used for commercial sale as real photo cards or post cards) which has been digitized & is held in the New South Wales State Library online image collection digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps...

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ATTRIBUTION INFO

- Star Photo Co. (1894-1928), the creator of the original image,

- Mitchell & State Libraries of New South Wales for their valuable work of scanning & digitizing these rare historic images.

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COPYRIGHT INFO

- The original image is no longer restricted by any form of Copyright, per State Library of New South Wales copyright advice -

"Out of Copyright

Reason for copyright status: Created/Published Date is Before 1955

Material type: Photograph

COPYRIGHT & PERMISSIONS:

This image may be used freely for research and study purposes. Further use may require permission. Please acknowledge that the image is from the collections of the State Library of New South Wales".

- As for my own work in creating this restored duo-tone version, I have applied a Creative Commons "Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike" copyright .

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PROCESS INFO

- A copy of the archived digital image was downloaded from NSWSL.

- Latest version re-coloured using MyHeritage app.

- Image enhanced using Topaz Gigapixel AI, Skylum Luminar Neo AI & Adobe Photoshop CS2.

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ADDITIONAL HISTORIC INFO

- STAR PHOTO CO. was operated by the proprietor William Livermore (chief photographer). I found an early notice in the Daily Commercial News & Shipping List (Sydney) which shows the Star Photo Co. had imported 1 case of "pictures" (probably photographic glass plates) from Victoria, passing Customs on 3 Apr 1894.

- I would suggest most entries found on other websites that claim Star Photo Co. was only operational from as late as 1898 would appear to be incorrect, since the newspaper evidence shows that Star Photo Co. was already actively engaged in the commercial photographic business, from at least as early as April of 1894!

Done