Recording the mundane - European style.

[Mallard60022]

With apologies to the UK Prototype posters.

All Wolsztyn, Poland and area 2003/4.

[70000 Britannia]

No need to apologise at all and these pictures are certainly not mundane - I think you've captured the atmosphere of the Polish steam excellently.

 

The steamer over the pit took me back 43 years - to Stoke shed. Thanks for posting.

[NGT6 1315]

No need to apologise at all and these pictures are certainly not mundane

 

That's quite what I wanted to say as well . But you're right - better to capture as much of the everyday stuff as we can because one day that, too, will be only memory. Wonder what I'll be telling my children about what railways were like at the turn from the 20th to the 21st century some day...

[Pacific231G]

That's quite what I wanted to say as well . But you're right - better to capture as much of the everyday stuff as we can because one day that, too, will be only memory. Wonder what I'll be telling my children about what railways were like at the turn from the 20th to the 21st century some day...

 

Daddy what was a locomotive?

I absolutely agree about the focus on front 3/4 views of locos. I guess it's partly because fiilm was quite expensive so people tended not to "waste" it on mundane details. Today with digital cameras there should be no excuse.

One really good exception I have is tome IV of La Vie du Rail's "Images des Trains" which covers Epoch III from immediately postwar to the 1960s. This is mostly because the talented railway photographer F?©lix F?©nino was commissioned by La Vie du Rail and its predecessor Notre M?©tier to shoot photo reportages for them. Because it was a weekly newspaper/magazine aimed at cheminots and their families there was far more emphasis on the work of railways and railwaymen overall but F?©nino himself had a real eye for the story in a picture. The photos include a huge amount of really useful detail such as what sort of containers goods were packed in, how passengers were dressed, what train crews carried their lunch in. There are farmers with their horses and carts loaded with fruit and vegetables in the goods yards, parcels being handled, passengers with porters carrying their baggage, displays of flowers on country station platforms, the local boules players in the station yard and so on.

Apart from such details the overall impression you get from material like this is what a human enterprise the traditional railway really was with people everywhere and the local station a real centre of everyday commerce.

[Gordonwis]

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I agree, mundane in the dictionary sense of 'everyday', but far from mundane in the colloquial sense of 'ordinary'. Superb atmosphere.

 

Reminds me of my trip in 1993 when we camped at Wolstzyn campsite and after the usual day's photography, we were back at the campsite relaxing outside our tent when the evening freight stormed out of Wolstzyn northbound, out of sight but well within earshot. 'missed a photo opportunity' but gave me a lasting 'steam railway atmosphere' memory.

 

Nice to see some pictures in 'poor' (but entirely natural...) weather conditions. I get a bit irritated by the school which says all photos must be taken in perfect lighting circumstances.

 

 

G

 

 

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