he steam train - or more precisely, so as not to upset the true enthusiasts, the steam locomotive – has left a lasting impression on those who can remember them when they were an everyday occurrence. And the handful of preserved examples still draws a crowd wherever they go. They are a truly dynamic multi-sensory experience… sight, sound, smell and touch; maybe even taste too. Consequently, books celebrating the steam era continue to be published, but just about all of them concentrate on the machinery rather than the men (and it was all men back then) who operated and maintained them. Without the human involvement, the steam locomotive was just a static lump of cold metal.
Back in the 1960s, a couple of teenage enthusiasts seemed to be instinctively aware that people were an integral part of the story of the steam locomotive and began including them in their photographs. drivers, firemen, guards, engineers and stationmasters. In the process, they started taking very different photographs from the standard three-quarter view of a locomotive and its train of goods wagons or passenger carriages. Again, their feel for framing, composition, viewpoint and exactly the right moment to press the shutter also appears to be instinctive as, at 13 and 16 years of age, neither had had any photographic training. Yet today, those photographs taken over 50 years ago exhibit a remarkable maturity of vision and interpretation. What’s more, they didn’t just fluke the occasional great photograph, but the whole archive is full of them and enough to have yielded, so far, five books, with a sixth on the way and possibly another two to come. A couple of teenagers! And, at the start, with just a simple Kodak Brownie box camera that they took turns using!
Railway Culture
In May 1963, Robert Wheatley and his younger brother, Bruce, set out from their home in Western Sydney and, on their own, headed
