When there were Stations.

This site is about the way railways were – more or less after steam, but during the next phase of railway ‘development’ – the rationalisation.  It happened all over the country, some states before others, but happened it has. Branch lines closed, and the evidence of their existence obliterated. Some lines remain open, but the stations were razed. The signal cabins, the intricate  lattice signal masts and gantries, the staff… all gone – well mostly.

Fundamentally, it’s about getting old photo’s out of shoe boxes, and putting them somewhere  where they might be enjoyed, researched, or become valuable historical resources in the future. There is flickr of course, but on a site like this, the images can be catalogued, tagged, placed into geographically sensible pages and it can grow in a logical manner. There are other rail photo historians whose sites have inspired this one. They travelled the branches and captured the images of the working of the ‘old’ railways, and their sites offer invaluable images of a time past. I intend to acknowledge these people (and link their sites) as the project develops.

Note that the site creators are sensible of the basic reasons of economics and being competitive that lead to the changes – we work in the rail industry ourselves. But it doesn’t hurt to reflect on the old days when railways were interesting and far less sterile.

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