A Railwayman’s View: Photographs of Ronnie Gee

A Railwayman’s View: The Photographs of Ronnie Gee by E. Johnson and I. Simpson.

This photographic books provides a flavour of the railway scene between Manchester and Stockport where Ronnie Gee spent most of his working life. 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 included in this 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.