ATTENTION TO DETAIL!
Railway photography is undoubtedly a popular hobby, but David Rodgers did not just take railway photographs, he made them happen and not just for himself but for many others as well, and on a truly international scale. Brian Sharpe presents a photographic
Railway photography exploded towards the end of BR steam in the mid to late-1960s and so many of today’s well known photographers were drawn into this particular aspect of the railway hobby by the urgency to photograph steam trains as they rapidly disappeared.
Then in August 1968 it was all over. Some continued to photograph BR diesels, some took to travelling overseas in search of steam, some devoted their energy to steam preservation, but many abandoned their railway interest completely.
There is little doubt that steam preservation in the late 1960s and early 1970s produced little to inspire the steam photographers at the time, although such pictures are of considerable nostalgic interest today. It is often forgotten now that there was virtually no steam action in the winter months on the heritage lines or the main line.
Serious enthusiasts and photographers started to travel further afield in search of steam, particularly as European countries said goodbye to their steam traction fairly quickly after the end of BR steam. For some time though, there was exotic motive power to be found in far-flung corners of the globe for those prepared to track it down.
One country captured the imagination of steam photographers in the 1970s like no other – South Africa. It had steam engines of distinctly British outline, many actually built in Britain. It had an extensive and varied railway system running through some of the most dramatic scenery on the planet and best of all, it has the weather that steam enthusiasts dream of.
In the winter months, the sun comes up every day into a cloudless blue sky which is virtually guaranteed to last all day, often starting with a hard frost and with barely a breath of wind. One British enthusiast who was drawn to the country to photograph steam was David Rodgers from Huddersfield.
David had cut his teeth photographically on BR steam, particularly in his native West Riding but often further afield. He also dipped his feet in the world of railtour organisation by promoting a trip from Leeds to Beattock via Shap, hauled by one of Holbeck shed’s last LMS Jubilee 4-6-0s, No. 45562 Alberta.
‘The Border Countryman’ ran on February 25, 1967 and Alberta handed over to now-preserved LMS Ivatt 4MT mogul No. 43106 at Carlisle for a run to Beattock and back before the Jubilee took the seven-coach train back to Leeds via Hexham and York. It would be many years before David organised another railtour, but when he did it was on an altogether different scale.
After a couple of trips to South Africa in the 1970s, David produced a book, South African Steam Today, which undoubtedly brought the attractions of South African steam to a wider audience and prompted many more to make the journey to the southern hemisphere.
South African steam
David’s trips to South Africa were a little more ambitious than most, and attempts to cajole South African Railways’ (SAR) management into turning out older motive power on express passenger turns in preference to an unphotogenic bunker-first Beyer-garratt, met with considerable success and produced some memorable photographs recapturing an earlier era.
All too quickly though, even SAR modernised its railways and steam was relegated to little more than shunting in a few unspectacular locations. As on BR, the end of SAR steam was greatly accelerated by the closure of lines and dramatic reduction in services, meaning that existing diesels and electrics could easily cope with the remaining traffic. It had lasted until the mid-1980s though, giving many photographers another 20 years of rewarding steam photography.
The Railway Society of Southern Africa (RSSA) promoted a two-week steam tour of the country each year and this continued as many steam engines remained serviceable. Increasing numbers of British enthusiasts patronised these trains, while many more continued to have their annual winter break in South Africa, to include some lineside photography of the railtour. The RSSA even persuaded SAR management to stage photographic runpasts on its tours, although they were never primarily aimed at the photographer.
Many other companies were by now promoting steam tours to destinations around the world but although photographers were catered for, photography was not the prime reason for the tour.
David Rodgers had the idea of promoting a railtour where photography was the primary motivation. The late 1980s had seen the invention of the photo charter on British heritage lines, where a group of photographers hired the railway and a train for the day. In many cases, efforts
were made to re-create scenes from real steam days in this way.
David’s plan was to adapt this concept of re-creating real steam days for a group of photographers, but using a main line train on the state railway system of a country on the other side of the world! To say that this was ambitious is something of an understatement.
It meant persuading railway management that the photographic runpasts were the primary reason for the tour and there needed to be plenty of them. The train was to be called ‘The Cape Mountaineer’ and would run over the most scenic lines, particularly in Cape Province but as far as possible re-creating scenes that would have been seen in the latter days of real steam.
So the train would run in the path of the daily passenger train on a given route and where the regular train used to depart from a given station at sunrise, such as at Schoombee on the Stormbergrosmead line, then the tour train would perform a runpast at sunrise. It was this attention to detail which was to mark out David’s overseas photographic expeditions from all the rest.
On some branch lines, a goods train was used with a couple of coaches on the rear for passengers, just as in the old days. This was ambitious, but SAR agreed to most of the demands and rose to the challenge.
By this time, SAR had returned some historic locomotives to steam purely for railtour use, so there were opportunities for photography of engine types which had been retired during the 1960s before South Africa became a popular destination for enthusiasts. Filling the train did not prove too difficult. Around 120 passengers, mainly from the UK were keen to participate, and the tour set off in June 1990.
The tour ran as planned, with relatively few operational difficulties, although there was one engine failure late one afternoon. The weather was kind and the passengers came home with many excellent photographs as planned. Many had been to South Africa in the good old days but for many it was their first visit to the country.
For this first tour, David had the assistance of Derek Phillips, another British enthusiast with an in-depth knowledge of South African steam, and John Middleton, a South African and RSSA member.
Adventurous itineraries
Spurred on by the success of the ‘Cape Mountaineer’, David promoted further steam tours of the country, later under the banner of his own company,
Steam Loco Safari Tours.
The itineraries became more adventurous and sometimes headed for areas which had been steamless for much longer than the areas covered by the first trips. The addition of further historic engines to SAR’S active heritage fleet, provided considerable further interest.
A loyal band of followers supported David’s tours, knowing that it would deliver the spectacular steam pictures they were looking for. Eventually however, photographic locations began to be exhausted, the SAR railway system was not in good shape and tours became ever more difficult to operate.
With such a loyal following, David started to look elsewhere for possible steam tours in foreign parts aimed specifically at the serious steam photographer. By the end of the 1990s, regular working steam had disappeared from most countries, but many maintained a small fleet of active engines for occasional tourist trains and many countries were eager to attract foreign currency.
David turned his attention to Pakistan, Ecuador, Cuba, Zimbabwe, the United States, Turkey, Syria and Jordan, as well as well known and not so well known European countries. He visited 45 countries in total in search of steam but for much of this time he was leading a band of photographers who were highly appreciative of David’s efforts to provide the pictures they were seeking.
David was regarded by South African enthusiasts as the most knowledgeable man in Britain on the subject of South African railways. However, taking a party of enthusiasts to country which he had no prior knowledge of, was a very different matter.
Organising railtours in far-off countries is not easy and things do not always go exactly according to plan. It is particularly difficult in countries which have not been visited previously, such as Pakistan. Classic British-built locomotives still survived in Pakistan into the 1990s and David organised a visit to see and photograph these survivors at work. Paul Stratford was one of the participants in ‘The Punjab & Khyber Explorer’ of January 1996 and takes up the story.
“David was expecting to have the assistance of the leader of a small group from one of the well known railway societies,” recalled Paul. “However, it became obvious on the first morning that this group were not photographers but number crunchers who were happy just shed bashing and looking for derelict locomotives and rolling
stock with numbers on them.
“Extremely frustrated by the total lack of input by the leader of this other group, David took me to one side and suggested that being a photographer and thick skinned enough to take any flack, would I assist him for the rest of the tour. So began the Pakistan adventure, spending most of the day on the footplate, looking for photo positions, instructing the crews on what was required and of course taking the opportunity to drive whenever possible!
“The aims of the tour were to utilise each class of locomotive still operable on both broad and narrow gauge, to visit the centres where these locomotives worked from and hopefully, subject to security clearance, climax with two days on the railway through the famous Khyber Pass. Narrow gauge steam had finished on Pakistan Railways by 1996, but the Changa Manga Forest Railway near Lahore was still operating, hauling timber from the forest to the sawmills.
“A day was spent at Mirpur Khas photographing the metre gauge service trains to and from Khokhrapor, before running to Nwabshah with our own chartered train hauled by an ancient 4-6-0.
“The tour then travelled across Pakistan taking in Faisalabad, Malakwal, Lala Musa, Lilla, Ghaibwal, Khewra, Taxila and Havelian, using various combinations of the classic SGS 0-6-0s and SPS 4-4-0s.
“Finally, and with security approval being granted, the tour arrived in Peshawar for the grand finale of two days heading up the Khyber Pass. The authenticlooking mixed tour train with an HGS 2-8-0 at each end departed from the checkpoint station of Jamrud, security on the train being provided by a detachment of Khyber
Rifles soldiers. Under cloudless skies numerous runpasts were performed, particularly at the many reversals, although some locations were off limits due to the security threat posed by the local gun-toting tribesmen.
“On arrival at Landi Kotal, participants were strictly advised to keep within the confines of the station, as the town, was and still is, a lawless drug and gun smuggling area.
“For one day of the Khyber Pass trip, the tour was joined by historian and broadcaster Michael Wood, who was filming a series on the life of Alexander the Great who traversed the pass in 326 BC. David was interviewed by Michael, which caused some frustration as David was trying to change films at the time.
At one point there were eight people including Michael and his cameraman on the footplate of the leading HGS.
“Returning from Peshawar towards Malakwal after dark, David took the regulator of tender-first SGS 0-6-0 No. 2470 and demonstrated considerable skill in handling the venerable old engine.”
North American memories
It was not only the ‘old guard’ looking for new photographic opportunities in the post-br steam era. Warwick Falconer moved to the UK from South Africa in 2004. He recalls one of David’s tours to the US in 2008.
Photographing a main line US steam engine on an authentic
train of boxcars in a main line setting is quite a challenge in the 21st century. Warwick recounts a memorable experience.
“It was September 2008, day one of the David’s action-packed and rather high-paced US trip of that year starting in Owosso, Michigan,” he said.
“We had chartered Pere Marquette 2-8-4 No. 1225 to work a photo freight on the Great Lakes Central Railroad using former New York Central trackage. The wagons were all steam era and No. 1225 had worked in Michigan in its service days. It was as close as one could get to a fully-authentic standard gauge steam-era freight with a big locomotive. The pressure was on to get it right!
“We were setup to the north of Owosso for what was to become our first fully sunlit runpast of many. Shortly after the morning mist had lifted, the train was called forward, the crew really getting into the spirit of things. It came charging towards us in stunning light, making huge volumes of exhaust and loads of noise.
It looked absolutely fantastic and as a lifelong fan of large American engines, to see one on a freight in conditions like that was too much to contain. My eyes started welling up and by the time it reached the gallery of photographers it was full blown tears!
“After the shutters had ceased firing, I turned to David. We just looked at each other gob-smacked and lost for words. Nothing was said, but the next thing I remember we were locked in an uncontrollable embrace and jumping up and down with joy.
“It laid the foundation for what was to become the best tour I ever did with David and I will never forget it.”
Conclusion
David continued to organise photographic tours to all corners of the world for nearly 20 years until 2009. From then on, he continued his international travels, reaching a final tally of 45 countries and photographing steam locomotives in action in most of them.
David sadly passed away early this year (see page 24 HR264). However, he leaves a magnificent legacy of photographs and many memories for the people fortunate enough to have travelled the world with him in search of that elusive ‘master shot’.
The writer would like to thank Paul Stratford, Warwick Falconer and Dick Manton for their assistance in preparing this article.
Thanks must also go to David’s widow Julie, whose assistance has been invaluable and who played such a vital part in the success of David’s overseas excursions.