Dear Colleagues,
Please find below the answers received to our query concerning the use of
photography for railway advertisement and marketing in railway carriages. I
thank warmly colleagues who were kind enough to answer from Australia,
Germany, Spain, and the UK.
It seems that further studies could tackle the commercial use of photography
in the railway, (photographs ordered and used by railway companies for their
marketing seen as a part of railway mobility culture and railway companies’
use of the contemporary industry of the visual arts), the Visual history of
the tourist gaze (How railway companies directed the public towards railway
destinations and taught how to look at them).
Marie-Noelle Polino
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AUSTRALIA
Professor Robert Lee
History and Political Thought
School of Humanities and Communication Arts
University of Western Sydney
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith NSW 2751
Phone: 02 9772 6311
Facsimile: 02 9772 6688
Email: [log in to unmask]
The practice was widespread in Australia and lasted until the 1970s. The
style, subject matter and layout of photographs was similar to post-war SNCF
compartment coaches. The NSWGR was the most extravagant user of photographs
inside coaches and had a photographic section within the Mechanical Branch
(headed by the Chief Mechanical Engineer). Employees in this section took
and photographs, processed the film and made the prints in-house. This
section also documented accidents, rolling stock, workshops, infrastructure,
personalities, celebrations and much else. Some post-war air-conditioned
cars even featured original paintings, some by Robert Emerson Curtis, who
had been an official war artist. See
http://www.daao.org.au/bio/robert-emerson-curtis/ and
http://www.awm.gov.au/people/artist_profiles/curtis.asp .
Many of the NSWGR photographs survive, although they never have been
researched nor has anything been published on them. I even have a modest
collection myself, still in their timber frames, saved from carriages
awaiting scrapping in the early 1980s.
There were also photographs in some other Australian railways’ carriages.
There were not many in Victoria, which favoured glass panels and mirrors
beneath luggage racks in compartment cars, although some Victorian Railways
(and V&SAR Joint Stock) sleeping cars had them in their smoking saloons near
the toilets at one end of the car. There were some in Queensland, although
the practice was not widespread. Commonwealth Railways had the most bizarre
marquetry images in the lounge cars of its post-war air-conditioned
Wegmann-built trains for transcontinental service. These featured various
German castles, probably because Wegmann had the marquetry in stock in their
workshops in Kassel. See http://www.comrails.com/pic_common/cr91.html for
an example.
I agree this is a fascinating topic for research and international
comparison.
GERMANY
Dr. Rainer Mertens
DB Museum
Sammlungen, Ausstellungen, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit Stellvertretender
Museumsleiter Collections, Exhibitions, Public Relations Deputy Director
(GMM 4 A)
DB Mobility Logistics AG
Lessingstraße 6, 90443 Nürnberg
Tel. +49 (0)911 219-1233, Fax (0)911 219-2121, intern 966-1233-
Mobil: 0151 121 037 52
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We keep in the DB museum Archive a number of landscapes photographs used by
the German Railway for advertising purposes, in coaches and in railway
travel agencies and bureau. This collection dates back to the late 1920’s.
Of course railway posters were common practice from the 1880’s onwards.
SPAIN
Leticia Martínez García
Archivo Histórico Ferroviario
Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid
FUNDACIÓN DE LOS FERROCARRILES ESPAÑOLES
Pº. Delicias, 61 - 28045 Madrid
Tel. 91 506 81 78 (interior 168 178)
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In response to your query about landscapes-historical monuments and towns
photographs in railway coaches, in the spanish case, we can report that in
in the late years of the nineteenth century the photography was beginning to
develop in Spain, and because of its high cost and difficult reproduction,
it wasn´t employ very much, apart from publications of the own railway
company, such as promotionals leaflets or booklets, or in magazines and
newspapers of that time. In fact, in most cases, the photographs taken were
used to make the illustrations that were included in the publications,
because the illustrations were easier to copy.
On the other hand, in those days the photographs were normally used to
illustrated the construction process of railways, for example, the
photographs of Charles Clifford of the Alar del Rey´s railway.
About your second question, we think that the use of landscapes-historical
monuments and towns photographs in railway coaches, was a international
habit, but maybe this trend was further developed in the twentieth century
with the popularization of the photography.
About your last question, in most cases, there were a company’s own
photographic pool, and also the railways companies hired professional
photographers, like Jean Laurent, Clifford etc., as I said before, primarily
to document the process of building lines and stations. Regarding amateurs
photographers, they weren´t common in Spain in those days, because of the
high cost of the materials photographics.
I hope that this information will be interested for your research.
From Ralf ROTH:
Prof. Dr. Ralf Roth
Historisches Seminar
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität
Grüneburgplatz 1
60629 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 69 798-32627
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.RalfRoth.de
Privat:
Schwarzweiherstr. 21
36391 Sinntal
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 6664 402700
Fax: +49 (0) 6664 402699
Have a second look at the article of Rocio Robles Tardio, „Economic
Investors and Railway Advertising: the Influence of Photography in the the
Railway in Modern French and Spanish Painting in the Second Half of the
Nineteenth Century, in: Guenter Dinhobl / Ralf Roth, Across the Borders,
Financing the World's Railways in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,
Ashgate, 2008, 63–76.
UK
Dr M P Higginson
Associate Member
Institute of Railway Studies & Transport History
York University / National Railway Museum
Martin Higginson Transport Research & Consultancy
5 The Avenue
Clifton
YORK YO30 6AS
01904 636 704
07980 874 126
www.martinhigginson.co.uk
Martin Higginson [[log in to unmask]]
For the history of pictures in railway carriages in Britain you need to see:
Greg Norden, Landscapes under the luggage rack (Northampton, Great Norden
Railway Publications [GNRP], 1997)
which is an illustrated history of the subject from its beginning c.1884 to
c.1980. As well as photographs, many of the pictures in railway carriages
were paintings. The book lists some 50 artists of railway carriage panel
pictures.
Alexander Medcalf [[log in to unmask]]
My research considers how images (sometimes the same ones as those in the
carriages) were used as part of promotional literature, in particular in the
Great Western Railway’s most popular holiday brochure ‘Holiday Haunts’
between 1906 and 1939. Holiday Haunts was filled with the kinds of
landscape and town imagery which Le Boyer produced, as well as (especially
in the 1930s) images of human interest which used studios and agency models.
Most of the photographs were taken by the company’s own photographic pool,
but occasionally the Great Western used outside agencies and amateur
photographs taken by other members of staff. Some of this research has been
published recently in an edited volume and I include the link to Google
books below (although sadly for copyright reasons the photographs are not
viewable). I hope this is at least a little bit helpful. Thank you for
sending through the link to the photographic archives. If you have any
questions please do get in touch and I will do my best to try to answer
them.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fUOY8941RjMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&dq=
medcalf+picturing&ots=jqv8PjidXg&sig=VYP06n2cRKLsixhU3M7Qi_3qnfw#v=onepage&q
=medcalf%20picturing&f=false
Hiroki Shinn
Hiroki Shin [[log in to unmask]]
Just a brief historical note on the UK case. I don't think anyone knows the
definite origin of the practise, but undoubtedly the most well-known is the
carriage advertisements on the Great Eastern Railway. In 1884, the company
employed a famous landscape photographer Payne Jennings in order to
embellish the carriages with landscape photographs, though the original idea
of the Locomotive Superintendent, Worsdell, seems to have been exhibiting
photographs of the company's hotels and stations. From that year, the
coaches of the Great Eastern were decorated with landscapes of English as
well as foreign scenery (the GE operated a direct sea route to the
Netherlands).Payne was also employed by other companies, including the Great
Western Railway.
As noted above, it is not clear if the Great Eastern was really the first to
introduce the practice. The report of Great Western's Advertising
Department, created in 1876, refers to the expenditure of £73 on 'preparing
the photographs of the views of the West of England'. My guess is that, by
the late 1870s, some companies had already started to use landscape
photographs in carriages, though on a small scale. The Great Eastern was the
one which adopted the practice in a large-scale.
Di Drummond
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I can't say anything about photographs of destinations in railway carriages,
but certainly it seems to have been common to have railway posters displayed
in ticket offices in India during the period of the British Raj. These not
only included posters of destinations on the Indian subcontinent but further
afield such as Africa and Europe. Posters advertising luxury trains covering
part of the journey home were also displayed. My evidence for this is in
photographs in The Railway Gazette India special numbers published in 1913,
1923 and 1929.
________________________________________
From: All aspects of railways, past, present and future.
[[log in to unmask]] on behalf of [log in to unmask]
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Sent: 21 May 2012 19:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Query about landscapes-historical monuments and towns photographs
in railway coaches
Dear Colleagues,
Recently we came across the complete archive of the free lance photograph
who was commissioned the typical landscapes, historical monuments and towns
B&W pictures which were posted in French railway coaches from the interwar
period to the late 1960's. Enquiries among our colleagues from the UK show
that this was a very common practice on UK railways from as early as the
late 1870's.
I was wondering whether (a) Companies used to post the same "advertisement"
for the possible spots you could go by train to in carriages in your own
country, (b) as it seems to be a widespread / international habit, who
began? (c) and if you please add any detail you would find relevant, for
instance if photographs were taken by the company’s own photographic pool,
outside agencies or were amateur photographs taken by other members of staff
or elicited trough a public contest among rail customers.
Any bibliography or reference will be useful.
I offer to post back any answer received and we shall see whether there
would be there a topic for further collective research and publication.
Marie-Noëlle Polino
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