An Artist Among the Ashes - 1968: Continuing David Shepherd’s photographic record - now at the end of BR steam

The first of renowned artist David Shepherd’s collections of colour slides - An Artist Among the Ashes: A Photographic Record of the Very End of Southern Region Steam - was published in January 2012. To produce the title, Noodle Books was privileged to be able to access the author’s extensive collection of slides taken during the 1960s when he was travelling around Britain recording the final years of main-line steam operation and producing the iconic works of art for which he is renowned.

The first volume dealt solely with the end of steam on the Southern but David Shepherd also recorded steam elsewhere and, published in spring 2013, this collection continues with the story ‘north of the Thames’ into the industrial Midlands and North-East where steam traction lasted until 1968. As with the earlier volume, the book includes David’s moving comments about the very end of steam on BR.

This is not an ordinary type of railway book. The artist’s eye is ever present to capture scenes and colours so often overlooked and revealing details of light, shade, night and day that make the pictures mesmerising and memorable.