The Restoration & Archiving Trust
The digital archiving of photographs, railway related in general, to conserve these and make them accessible to future generations is a major part of the Trusts activities. This work is particularly focussed on colour images which are far more likely to suffer deterioration with the passing years, particularly when not stored or handled under ideal conditions, with some film emulsions also being less stable than others. The extent of what can be done to repair damage, albeit at the expenditure of a considerable amount of time, is illustrated below with this shot was taken in Spain during 1968 on Agfa CT18 slide film.
In recognition of the vast national contribution to the development of railways around the world, and the wanderlust tendencies of some British railway photographers, our archive is set up to cover railways around the globe and covers all countries and eras for which images have been offered and accepted. As this was a minority interest with the resulting pictures having little or no commercial value, there is a greater danger of irreplaceable images being lost to future generations and the Trust therefore places a particular emphasis on the conserving of these.
The database catalogue of the images in the Trusts collection that have so far been archived, currently some 35000 photographs, is on public display in the Exhibition coach in the dock platform at Toddington station. It is recommended that anyone requiring a more detailed look through the catalogue make an appointment through the Contacts area of this site to come and view in the Toddington East building at the back of platform 2.
The publicly accessible catalogue is just one aspect of our efforts to make these images available, there are also several other computers available in the coach and in the station buildings at both Cheltenham & Winchcombe providing access via a menu system to a wide range of short presentations allowing visitors to select topics or areas that interest them. Also a growing range of projected digital slide presentations making use of photographs from the collection - details of which are available on the Slide Show pages, and last but not least there is a growing Photo Gallery on this site.
All this work is very time consuming and photographers offering their pictures to the Trust for archiving are encouraged to become involved in the tasks themselves. For anyone interested a copy of our standard archiving agreement can be viewed by clicking on the Agreement button at the top of this paget. A Licence agreement is also available for those who would like to see their photographs in the public arena but do not wish to pass full title over to the Trust.
