I do hope nobody thought I was disparaging railway photographers. I did a lot of photting myself from about 1965 to 1985, but nothing which got within 100 miles of Colin Gifford (above all), Paul Riley, Ian Krause, John Hunt, Alan Castle, Bill Anderson, Derek Cross, Ivo Peters and many other UK guys. In truth I simply hadn't got the staying power - you have to be used to getting up at all hours, driving hundreds of miles, and very often coming back with no shots, or ones suitable only for the bin.

I just wish Colin Gifford's "Decline of Steam" could be reprinted using modern digital technology. The photos in that book are unbelievable but the publisher managed to crop some badly and some are a bit muddy. It was a revelation to see some of Colin's efforts in large format at the National Railway Museum some years ago.

One of the best examples of how to do a photo book is "Daylight Reflections" compiled by Nils Huxtable. It's a colour album about the Southern Pacific RR "Daylight" trains and features marvellous shots from the 1940s on. A really good recent album is John Snell's "Mixed Gauges" - it's very expensive but worth every penny.