Welcome
Welcome to Railography. As the name suggests, this website features railway photography. As well as being a vehicle for showcasing my own pictures it also contains related material that may be useful to others such as trip reports, locomotive details etc.Geographical coverage is fairly patchy. Rather than trying to do a bit of everything, I tend to concentrate on one or two countries at a time, moving on after a few years when things become less interesting. The bulk of material here was taken following my switch to digital in 2003 but older pictures from other countries will be added as and when I get round to scanning them. China and the Czech Republic are the current destinations of choice and the subject of most of the current content but other countries, such as Germany, Spain and Switzerland also feature.
Photographing foreign trains may seem like a strange pastime but there’s far more to it than first meets the eye. A fascination with railways is essential but it also involves travel, adventure, strenuous exercise, detective work, a sense of timing, a determination to get it right, the perseverance to keep trying until you do get it right and a taste for beer. It helps to be able to predict the weather and the light, to have the skill to find good locations in unfamiliar places, the artistic flair to compose the perfect picture and the hand/eye co-ordination of a sharpshooter to take the shot. After years of trying I’ve failed to develop these superhuman qualities and have to rely on the perseverance and the beer.
It’s a great way to unwind from a stressful job, very satisfying when you do get it right and unlike many hobbies or sports, there’s usually something to show for your efforts when the trip’s over. Trainspotting with a camera it isn’t. Enjoy the pictures, I’ve certainly enjoyed taking them.
Another Upgrade
There comes a time when every website owner starts to think... “If I was starting this now, I wouldn’t do it this way”. As technology advances and new techniques are learnt, the urge to rip the whole thing apart and rebuild it intensifies until it can no longer be resisted. That time is now and the rebuild is underway. As a user you shouldn’t see a lot of difference apart from the obvious change in colour from orange to green on some pages. The vast majority of pages won’t be changing address so there’s no need to worry about any links you may have. Behind the scenes, there are big changes, principally a move to Rapidweaver to generate the XHTML code for the pages. This should simplify the process considerably and allow much easier construction of photo gallery pages than has been possible recently. If you do find problems, such as links that don’t work, please let me know.If you still use Internet Explorer 6 or earlier versions then expect some glitches in the way pages display. It would take longer to sort out the inconsistencies in the way these sub-standard browsers display pages than it did to create the pages in the first place.
User Guide
Use the menu at the top of each page for navigation between the different sections of the site. Individual pages can be accessed by clicking the relevant links and buttons. There are also links on the sidebars of many pages and “breadcrumb” links at the bottom of every page.The site is organised as follows:
