’Rail Photoprints’ - hopefully the name conveys our primary interest. We have been involved in Railway Photography and Publishing for more than 35 years.

Like many of our colleagues our initial interest was in train spotting, many pleasant hours being spent in the company of like minded people on the Platform ends at Bristol Temple Meads or on the 'tump' outside Bath Green Park sheds.

Our introduction to photography was with the humble Brownie 127, followed by the Halina 35x whose 200th second maximum speed was barely enough to stop the movement of even the humble pick up freight but occasionally reasonable results were achieved.

We witnessed the premature end of steam and then like many lost interest in the British mainline scene spending time on the British Industrial scene and on the near continent where steam was still in operation and could be readily accessed. In the early ’70’s photographic equipment was upgraded with a Practica Super TL which offered 500th second almost enough to stop some of the passenger trains in the pre HST diesel era. The end of service for the 'Westerns' saw a return to the UK railway scene accompanied by an increase in photographic activity with the setting up of our own developing and printing facility and the name ’Rail Photoprints’ was born out of the perceived need for a trading name which could be used for marketing our own b/w photographs.

Working in the commercial printing trade it was almost a natural progression which led to the our first item being produced for the market place. It was noted that a calendar was not being produced for the ’Modern’ railway enthusiast in the UK and in 1978 the ’Modern Traction Calendar’ 1979 was born, an all black and white affair which was bound using the kitchen table (to help keep costs down), it sold at the price of £1.00 and was sufficiently well received that the 1980 calendar had 4 pages of colour material.

By 1982 the demand for the product was sufficient to enable a full colour production to be undertaken and the calendar has been a regular for the last 30 years. 1992 saw the production of the first ’Steam’ Traction Calendar and in 1999 a bus calendar joined the fold.

In addition to the calendar productions some comparatively cheap photographic albums on the ’Deltics’, 50’s and 40’s have been produced as well as two Casebound titles for another national publisher.

In the late ’70’s Mamiya 645 cameras were added to the photographic arsenal, in the hope that they would improve photographic quality, this action proved worthwhile but in the late 80’s the advent of newer film technology in the form of Ilford XP1 led to our changing back to 35mm format. 2002 saw us investigating the rapidly evolving digital market and in 2005 the decision was made to use the digital format for all work, our chosen cameras being initially the Canon 20D and now the Canon 40D.

Growing standardisation and increasing restrictions on our hobby in the UK has led to our seeking pastures new for our railway photography, South Africa, China, USA, Canada and many European countries have been visited and will eventually be featured here.

We are now in the process of scanning our extensive negative and transparency collection, this is proving something of a labour of love with many hours being taken, but a great deal of satisfaction as we produce results of a standard that we rarely achieved in the photographic dark room. This website is result of our toil, it will hopefully be seen as a showcase for both our work and the work of others. All of the files illustrated are available for purchase as photographs or digital files for publication.

Being fellow railway enthusiasts it has always been our aim to produce quality products at the sort of prices that we would be willing to pay, hopefully our prices will be seen as fair for the production of a quality product.