File: 2012003-0059
Dean Forest Railway, Norchard Station, near Lydney, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom, on Wednesday 11th October 2012.
If you want to know about the heritage railway and its history, feel free to skip to Chapter Two: About the subject of Dean Forest Railway.
Chapter One: What is this photo about, and why I took the photo.
I am a photographer, but I am also a graphic designer. At that time I took the photograph, I was a very busy full-time single parent and full-time carer for my kids, so my career was put on hold. However whenever I have time to spare, I try to keep up my photography and graphic design skills by doing some projects when I can.
This was one of the graphic design projects I was doing. The project was to design a (non-existence) fictional CD album art, and I would prefer to take my own photographs, then import them into my graphic design work. The subject of the album art was about a fictional female singer-songwriter, whom had lived in an old industrial town, and wanted to leave so she could pursue her dreams of stardom.
For the album art design, I needed photos of old buildings, coal mines, and anything I can think of that would give the feel of a ran-down industrial places. Try to give the impression that the factories closed down, and that the coal mines have ran out of coal, all in black and white. The title of the album is called The Old Dying Town.
I was aware of some disused warehouses in Gloucester, and an old coal mine in Wales, those would made good background for the album art. I somehow noticed this heritage railway station not far from Lydney, in Gloucestershire, and stopped there, to see if there’s anything I can take photos of, for the design.
While looking around, and taking photos of the steam and diesel passenger trains, I noticed at the north end of the station, there was some kind of an out-of-the-way storage space for old rolling stock, like old carriages and boxcars. I think they kept the broken or damaged old railway vehicles there, maybe awaiting restoration, or to be broken up and used as spare parts.
So I took some shots, moved around for different viewpoints, try to get anything worthy of a background. I figured it would give the illustration of a railway scrapyard, and gives a gloomy feel that the fictional town lost its railway links. Hoping the photo would give the illustration of the town becoming a ghost town.
The photo was shot in 2012, and when I visited there in 2021, they were doing some improvements to this area, including building a platform.
Point of note: Those photographs were done with the camera set to Black and White, I did not take the photos in colour, and they were not converted into B&W by means of photo-editing software.
Chapter Two: About the subject of Dean Forest Railway.
The Dean Forest Railway is a 4 to 5 miles long heritage railway, still running vintage steam, and classic diesel trains, as a tourist attraction in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire.
It started in 1799 as an idea for a horse-drawn tramway, linking the Forest of Dean to the rivers Severn and Wye, for the transportation of coal and iron materials.
Between 1800 to around the 1870s, it went through so many processes. Like building lines and branching out, changing company names, financial problems, rival companies, converting from horse-drawn tramway into steam powered railway, merging companies, change of railway gauge sizes, and so many other factors.
It became known as the Severn and Wye Railway during those years.
From around the 1870s onwards, in order to cope with financial difficulties, and to help with funding, they started fee-paying passenger services in addition to the goods carrying services. But ongoing financial problems, lack of traffic, and many other factors, continued up until around the 1940s.
After the Second World War (1939-1945), the railways in this area started to go downhill, mainly due ot declining coal industry in the area, lack of passengers, improvements in transportation elsewhere, and the nationalised of British railways.
Many stations and lines started closing down, or completely shut down, during the 1950s and 1960s.
Starting from the early 1970s onwards, a railway preservation society was formed to try to buy and save as much of the old railway, and run it as a heritage railway for tourism, and was then named as Dean Forest Railway.
At the current moment, the Dean Forest Railway is approximately between 4 to 5 miles long between Lydney and Parkend, with Norchard station as its home base, but they are hoping to extend the line to 7 miles in near future.
They run a range of mostly steam trains to 1960s diesel trains, with various carriages, and at least 5 stations.
For more in-depth details, simply Google “Dean Forest Railway” for a full history or for visiting.
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