Welcome to Photos from the 50s

Photos from the Fifties”  originated in 1972 when Hugh Davies, a founder member of the Railway Enthusiasts’ Club,  was asked to look out some black and white negatives of pictures he had taken some 20 years earlier of railway signal boxes.  The prints made then aroused so much interest, even though they were only 20 years old, that Hugh dug out all his negatives and listed them.  Other REC members admitted to having cupboards full of negatives, many of which had never been printed, and over the years thousands have been identified and catalogued.  There are now over 90,000 either already listed or waiting to be identified.

The majority of the pictures are of railways, taken between 1947 and 1967, but there are also views of buses, trams, ships and other more obscure subjects.  There are lists available on line and on paper for each English County and also for Welsh counties, Scotland (two lists), Ireland (3 lists), the Isle of Man and for the countries of mainland Europe.

There is also a series of lists which cover all  our railway views in alphabetical order, from Abbey and West Dereham to Zaandam !   These lists are also available on line or on paper, and you can subscribe to receive any of the lists updated as and when further views are added to the collection.

Black and white prints in postcard size remain the most popular line, partly because many are available from  stock and also because we have been able to keep prices at a reasonable level.  However, larger size prints can be produced to order; and a limited number of views (mainly of industrial locomotives) are available as colour prints.

This is a service run by enthusiasts and is NOT a commercial operation; the only benefits that we, the photographers, receive are for the use of our photographs in books, magazines and videos.  Even here we do not charge societies, preserved railways and other charities for the use of our photographs – provided we receive due acknowledgment and a bit of publicity.

Many of the photographs in our lists have never been published, and some have never been printed previously.  Many of our customers from the 1970s are still customers today, which we believe is due in part to the friendly, personal service we are able to offer.   We look forward to hearing from you.

We do not make the images available electronically, except by special arrangement with major publishers, so our lists provide descriptions which are as accurate and honest as space allows – to the extent of admitting that certain views are of poor quality but included because of the rarity of the subject.