I’ve just finished writing a feature on the Leek & Manifold Valley Light Railway for a future issue of Steam World. In parallel with the writing of such a feature, I do the photographic research. It is vital to find suitable illustrations, of course, and colour illustrations are preferred. However, when it comes to a railway which, like its narrow gauge contemporary, the Lynton & Barnstaple, was closed and lifted long before colour photography became commonplace, finding colour illustrations can be difficult. I do, however, have a number of black and white prints collected over the years, as it is a railway which has long fascinated me. I also have the colour prints of the route as the Manifold Track, taken in the mid-1990s when I walked much of it…
