British Rail Scene: The 1970s and early 1980s in Photographs

The railway scene in the 1970s and early 1980s was one of great change. Avid train-spotter Andy Sparks was out and about with his camera, seeking to emulate the work of Colin T. Gifford, who successfully captured the 1960s steam age in his black and white photographs. But by the next decade, modernisation and rationalisation was rapidly sweeping away the vestiges of the previous age, and dereliction and decay intertwined much of what he saw. Desperate to capture the scene, Andy Sparks took thousands of photographs from 1972 until the early 1980s and his images beautifully convey the nostalgic, gritty years of the 1970s and early 1980s on Britain's railways.