PART TWO Ron Buckley BRITAIN’S OLDEST RAILWAY PHOTOGRAPHER

AFTER leaving England in 1940 and serving with the Worcestershire Regiment, Ron returned home after demobilisation in 1945 after four-and-a-half years away – and to a very different railway.

The ‘Big Four’ had worked as one railway under the Railway Executive, and with Luftwaffe action destroying or damaging 482 locos, 13,314 carriages and 16,132 wagons, the railways were badly run down. It was the Transport Act of 1947 which aimed to bring stability and investment under the guise of British Railways leading to Nationalisation of the railways on January 1, 1948.

Rejoining his former employer – the LMS – late in 1945, Ron worked at King’s Heath station dealing with goods traffic under stationmaster J J Ashwell; he had a friendship with local butchers who used to give him quite a bit of meat at a weekend. This meat, along with vegetables that were grown in a nearby allotment, were cooked