Ron White, founder of Colour-Rail

[VIA185]

I see from the Colour-Rail website that Ron White, founder of the extensive library of colour images, has died recently. Though many modellers may not have heard of Ron, they will almost certainly have made use of the vast range of locomotive and train photographs from the Colour-Rail archive which have appeared in books and magazines for more than four decades. It was Ron's mission to both preserve the photographs and to make them readily available to all. I first met him when I worked for Ian Allan where, for some inexplicable reason, he was always known as 'Honest Ron'. Perhaps it was his forthright wit, coupled with an inability to resist taking a pop at the Great Western when opportunity arose. I recall my first visit to his home, being greeted by Ron on the front lawn with "Typical Great Western man - five minutes late!" Immensely knowledgeable and always willing to find just the picture I needed. Another great character has gone from our ranks. (CJL)

[Ray H]

I had the pleasure of getting to know Ron in the 1970's when, in his full time job's role, he was our insurance company's kindly representative.

 

I eventually helped to bring him into the then modern world by helping him produce his various slide catalogues and supplements using a word processor, a task I continued doing on his behalf until his wares passed to a new owner. Previously, Ron had re-typed the entire catalogue every two years. I still come across the odd page of the proof catalogue every now and again as I'm loathe to only use one side of a piece of paper.

 

Ron was a brilliant orator by all accounts as well as a good singer.

 

He would always address his good lady as his present wife, whom I met on numerous occasions when delivering the computer produced catalogue's offerings. They do say that behind every good man there is a good woman and that was truly the case with Ron.

 

Another source of considerable railway knowledge lost forever. RIP Ron.

[Mike_Walker]

What a sad loss.  Ron was a regular presenter at meetings of the Marlow & District Railway Society and never missed an opportunity, as Chris says above, to slag off GWR locomotive policy.  We used to hurl it back at him with equally ribald comments which he used to love - he much preferred that to being "nearly lynched" as he claimed had happened when he did a presentation in Plymouth!

 

He was old school to the end.  Apart from Ray's help with the catalogue, he never used a computer and stored all his images and details in his head.  The slides were all kept in many sets of drawers at his home and if you asked about a picture of a particular locomotive and/or location he would invariably be able to go straight to it.  It was the increasing difficulty in obtaining copy slide film that led him to decide to retire and pass the Colour-rail business on to Paul Chancellor.

 

Yes, he was a good singer and was the leading man in many productions by his local amateur operatic society.  He would also visit local WIs to entertain them with musical soirees.

 

RIP Ron.

[Strathwood]

Likewise, I had the pleasure of knowing Ron and his charming wife since the late 1970s when I made first direct contact with him for a favour which he generously granted to this young chap in his early twenties at the time, suggesting I was his youngest customer.

 

As work and life took me around the globe during the following twenty years we remained in touch when I was in the UK for personal visits, and when I was abroad exchanging letters (old school) about various topics. One memory that comes back to mind this morning is a story he once relayed to me personally at his home in Chesham surrounded by his collection of highly polished and cherished nameplates (one with pride of place was The Scottish Horse), our conversation was around his correspondence with the late Derek Cross. This involved their ongoing list or additional proposed names for a further build of Class 52 Westerns or as ideas to name the then nameless Class 50s which was being proposed. Among the many revealed to me were Western Tax Inspector, Western VAT Man, Western Mayor, Western Mayoress, Western Councillor, Western Butcher, Western Baker, Western Candlestick Maker and so on...

 

His love of the stage, amateur dramatics and opera were only too appropriate to his ready dry and laconic wit. We are fortunate to be able through is appearances on various Transport Video Publishing programmes from the last century, to be able to still enjoy his presentation and commentary today for those of us who still have a number of those videos and DVDs shot around his former stamping ground around the Chilterns for example.

 

Without Ron's and others vision to share the colour photography of so many exponents through the last forty plus years, our little world of railway enthusiasts would have been much the poorer.

 

Well done Ron and thanks for all the pleasure your efforts have created for us.

 

RIP Ron

Edited May 5, 2023 by Strathwood

[TerryD1471]

So sorry to learn of Ron's passing, I am so pleased to possess a good many of his earlier slides.

 

I also attended a meeting which he addressed in Wolverhampton. He was a splendid speaker and I enjoyed a joke which he made at the expense of Pat Whitehouse. Not repeatable here!