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Ronnie Gee - A Railwayman's View

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Ronnie Gee Book 1 Price: £15.95+£4.50 P&P, 96pp Black and White and Colour photos. I only met Ronnie Gee on a handful of occasions, each time at the Manchester Locomotive Society where he spent many hours looking through the varied , and extensive, library of photographs. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of railways, but particularly of the South Manchester area where he worked. Being interested in local operations, he could tell you anything about train operations over a period of 50 years. With over 2500 black and white negatives and colour slides to choose from, the task of bringing them into some sort of collection has proved a longer task than I initially expected; but the photographs show that Ronnie wasn't just a 'snapper', but had a keen eyesore composition and which trains were worthy of his precious film. In this first book, I have tried to give a flavour of the railway scene between Manchester and Stockport, this being where Ronnie spent most of his working life. I have included a few shots of other Manchester stations simply because they are great photographs. Living near Mauldeth Road station, Ronnie would take time out to photograph trains along the 'Styal Line', many of which were 'running-in' turns or test trains from Crewe. The main areas we have included in this first book are Manchester London Road (as it was known pre-1960), Longsight and Stockport, natural choices for Ronnie, working as he did at the adjacent signal boxes and able to capture superb images, either from the box interior or the line side. The sheer variety of motive power seen in South Manchester is reflected though Ronnie's photographs. Local trains between Crewe and Manchester would often be running-in turns from Crewe works, so Duchess and Princess Class engines were regularly captured on such services. Ronnie photographed the BR Standard 9Fs on their test runs from Crewe, the engines appearing to be examined at Longsight in between the return trips from Crewe. The early electric locomotives are also seen; some rare shots of E1000 (originally the experimental gas-turbine locomotive 18100) on test from Crewe Works in 1958 are captured along with a photograph of experimental AL3 locomotive E3100 (later 83013) on return from Crewe works with new bogies in 1967. Some profits from this book will be donated to a Leading UK Cancer Charity. Keywords: Ronnie Gee, A Railwayman's View, EM Johnson, I Simpson, November 2020, LMS

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