BAGDContext CSM

Another lovely picture of tracks, buildings and people…this time from Switzerland.

I like these coloured prints of provincial railway stations and seaside views. Usually, they are black-and-white albumen prints with hand-colouring added, through a pochoire stencil.

The French were very good at producing these kinds of images.

The combination of colour and black-and-white produces an interesting two dimensional effect…the coloured elements seem to float in relation to each other. Not the floating world, but something a bit like it.

John Hinde was a photographer who did something similar in Britain during the 1950s with Butlins holiday camps…and Sir Peter Blake’s collages have a similar spatial set-up.

Ages agi, I posted about the way that modernist architects have tried to satck the railway station platforms above and beneath the ground. This makes for a better footprint,

Here is a picture of Limoges stato in France. I know this because it is on the line between Paris and Toulouse, and all the express trains stop there.

I remembered that Limoges station is in an art-nouveau style, although built much later than the original style.

Lovely speedy artwork…

I love the photographs of all the people, from top to bottom, who help run the railway.

The railway system, in its mechanical form, quickly became a very large employer…and, from the early days nwards, photographs recorded every aspect of the enterprise. These images attest to the evident pride, both individual and collective, afforded by the railway.

I like that.

Pinhole brakeman…very 1960s vintage looking. Lovely.

Leaning, not waving…

The brakeman is the guy who rides the train and warns the driver of any problems by hanging out the train and waving….because of his visible role on the train, he is seen as photogenic…

Here is an old picture of Belleville station, Canada. I love the way there’s a crowd for the arrival of the train…like in Once upon a Time in the West.

And the timber station buildings are lovely too.