OBITUARY: ‘CAPE MOUNTAINEER’ PIONEER DAVID RODGERS

Globetrotting railway photographer David Rodgers, who introduced many hundreds of UK enthusiasts to the wider world of steam through the tours business he ran for 25 years, has died after suffering from cancer.

Perhaps most noted for his near-encyclopaedic knowledge of steam locomotives, routes and operations in South Africa, David, a frequent contributor to Steam Railway, was only diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus three months before his passing, at his home in Huddersfield, on January 9. He had attained his 70th birthday on Boxing Day.

He is survived by his wife Julie and by adult sons Michael and Jonathan.

Weaned on steam in his native Yorkshire, by the end of steam on BR in 1968, though still only a teenager, he had built up an extensive library of thousands of colour slides.

Gravitating to foreign climes following the demise of steam in the UK, he was himself a paying participant on many overseas tours before going into partnership with like-minded friends Derek Phillips and John Middleton under the banner ‘Steam and Safaris’.

Their first major venture in tour organisation was the nowfabled ‘Cape Mountaineer’ in

South Africa in 1990, a near 2,200-mile ‘mega-bash’ between Johannesburg and the Indian Ocean at Knysna, in which 22 different steam locomotives were deployed, and which yielded a colossal 127 photographic runpasts over two weeks. For many of the ‘Cape Mountaineer’s’ 120 participants – most of whom were

British – it was a first serious taste of steam photography abroad, but it would not be their last.

Upon retiring from his career as a chartered surveyor in 2015, and with steam operation on the world stage now becoming ever more difficult to resource, he stepped back from the organising side.

He was the author of two steam albums – South African Steam Today (Ian Allan 1980), which he compiled following trips to South Africa in 1976 and 1978, and Preserved Steam Album (Jane’s 1986).

A funeral service is to be held at Huddersfield Crematorium on February 4, at 2pm.

DAVID RODGERS David Rodgers will also be remembered for organising the ‘Border Countryman’ railtour, which took lamented ‘Jubilee’ No. 45562 Alberta to Carlisle, via Shap, on February 25 1967. The train is pictured at Leeds City station.