Over 50 years experience is bought to bear in this in depth, topic by topic guide to railway photography. Roger Siviter has built up one of the country's largest railway photogaphic archives, from his first simple box Brownie pictures taken when still at school - when steam reigned supreme - through teenage and young adult years spent at the lineside, in steam sheds and around works and yards. The archive then progresses through the demise of steam, a career in music-teaching, playing in Big Bands - at times aboard ocean liners - and on through the swinging sixties and the dawn of diesel and electric traction.

Playing in bands at night meant time during the day to chase all those elusive shots and to learn the skills of composition, film speeds, film formats, submissions, cataloguing and archiving, coping with weather conditions, failing light, developing and printing, darkroom techniques, lenses, filters and planning and organizing a shoot.

This new volume will make an ideal gift. Aspirational in its approach, it will suit photographers of all ages and experience. The book has now been bought up to date by photography standards with the inclusion of a chapter on digital photography.