Steam in England: The Classic Colour Photography of R C Riley

R. C. ('Dick') Riley (1921-2006) was one of the country's foremost railway photographers; starting with mono just prior to World War 2, he moved over to colour in the early 1950s, when such film was both expensive and slow.

Working in the banking industry gave him the opportunity to travel widely and, aided by his trackside pass and contacts within the railway industry, he was able to access locations and views from which many other photographers were excluded.

From his early work through to the end of main line steam in 1968 he took countless thousands of transparencies; over the years a number have been published but there remain a significant number that have yet to see the light of day.

This large landscape format book showcases over 200 colour images taken by Dick Riley between the early 1950s and 1968.

Although he took a large number of photographs in the Southern and Western regions, the book will also include a significant number of illustrations on both the Eastern and London Midland regions.Dick Riley was also a prolific photographer of industrial railways, and the book includes a brief selection featuring these fascinating sites, as well as recording aspects of the day-to-day life of the railways such as signs and minutiae, which were largely ignored by other photographers. The text has been compiled by his close friend and executor Rodney Lissenden, who had access to Dick Riley's personal diaries for anecdotal tales relating to the images concerned.