Ian Allan Photographic Collection

Acquisition of the Ian Allan Photographic Collection which consists of some 80,000 negatives (glass plate and film) of railways and railway-related subjects, and 55,000 reference prints. Ian Allan is one of the country’s foremost railway publishing houses, and the collection is one of the NRM’s largest. It has three main parts: Locomotive and General Photographs, including locomotives, rolling stock, architecture, civil engineering etc.; Locomotive Publishing Co. photographs, including high quality 19th century images; and Real Photographs, including work by significant photographers such as H. Gordon Tidey’s images of trains in urban and rural settings. The range of subjects covered spans from landscapes, urban and industrial scenes to wartime services and railway staff.