Andy Gibbs - British Rail through the 1970's and 80's.

Andy Gibbs - British Rail through the 1970's and 80's.

Welcome to British Rail through the 1970's and 80's.

There are now well over 7000 images here, whilst mainly from the the 1970s and 80's in BR's classic rail blue era, plus there are some images from earlier and much later too.

Original photographers are credited where known, or marked photographer unknown. Uncredited photos are taken by myself.

Some of the captions I'm sure are wrong and will be / have been corrected, please let me know if you spot any errors or are able to identify any of the 'unknown' locations.

Images from here and others I have, have been compiled into a ten volume series of books. Published by Amberley Publishing. In order these are.......

The Southern Region in the 1970s and 80s.

The Western Region in the 1970s and 80s.

The Eastern Region in the 1970s and 80s.

The Midland Region in the 1970s and 80s.

The Scottish Region in the 1970s and 80s.

Railways around Brighton in the 1970s and 80s.

Intercity cross country rail services.

The West London Line

Southern Region Locomotives in the 1970s & 80s.

The Scottish Region in the 1970s & 1980s Revisited

PHOTO GALLERIES

The big backlog of images is still slowly being cleared and these are initially added to the New Images Gallery.

The extremely popular SR accident photos from 'Control we have a Problem' are here, with some additional images. Again, if you spot any errors or omissions let me know.

The galleries of Classes 33, 44/45/46, 47, 50 and 73 are compendiums of photos from the regional galleries for ease of searching they should display in loco number order, as should the regional galleries. These are being added to all of the time.

I now have a scanner that can deal with Medium Format negative and slides, these are now being added to the galleries they will make great prints as they are mainly scanned at 1500 x 1500. Copies of ALL the photographs are available for sale through this website as are downloads.

Additional pages are being added to the Motorail galleries as I try and catch up with my backlog, several new years of brochures have been added.

The gaps in the list of class 47's are slowly being filled in too.

New galleries: Buses around Brighton, 1950s railway images around the Brighton area and Canada 2016, a road trip through the Rockies during which I managed to capture a few trains. Also being added to are galleries for the Peaks and Class 50’s.

If you would like to start a gallery at Zenfolio please use my referral code 13U-HSH-3DM and save yourself some money.

You may also be interested in my other website www.1S76.com The Rise and Fall of Cross-Country train services to and from Brighton.

If you have any comments or corrections to the captions please let me know, thank you.

In these strange and troubled times for the whole planet, stay safe everyone.

Andy Gibbs, July 2026.

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I've been a rail enthusiast ever since I was born...... it's in the blood.
Early days trainspotting from home in Brighton and on holiday lead to me getting a student railcard and with camera in hand meant that I could travel much further afield.
With relatives in Nottingham I could also travel much further north, lots of trips out with my late Uncle Tony ( whose gallery of photos is also here) in my teens, then the start of a career with British Rail in 1978 have not diminished my interest.

Nearly 40 years later I've taken early retirement from the rail industry. Hopefully that will mean not so many delays in getting the photos uploaded.

Featured Galleries & Collections

The Tony Lower Gallery

Visitors 3290

322 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Brighton Breezy

Visitors 7180

583 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

New Images

Visitors 8555

189 photos

Created 23-Jul-26

Modified 23-Jul-26

Class 33 - The Cromptons

Visitors 3249

555 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Class 47's - Nothing Duff here!

Visitors 3954

1125 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Class 73 - The ED's

Visitors 2706

249 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Kensington Olympia and the West London line

Visitors 1455

182 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Kensington Olympia and the West London line

Canada - September 2016

Visitors 64

22 photos

Created 28-Mar-24

Modified 28-Mar-24

Buses around Brighton and Sussex

Visitors 1092

214 photos

Created 7-Jan-26

Modified 7-Jan-26

Motorail Photos

Visitors 2610

45 photos

Created 7-Jan-26

Modified 7-Jan-26

Loco hauled cross country trains

Visitors 1517

74 photos

Created 7-Oct-25

Modified 7-Oct-25

Recently Added

New Images

Visitors 8555

189 photos

Created 23-Jul-26

Modified 23-Jul-26

Class 50 - The Hoovers

Visitors 30

55 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Southern Scenes

Visitors 6146

1062 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Class 44, 45, 46 - Peak time.

Visitors 177

129 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

The Tony Lower Gallery

Visitors 3290

322 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Brighton Breezy

Visitors 7180

583 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Class 47's - Nothing Duff here!

Visitors 3954

1125 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

Western Wanderings

Visitors 3795

763 photos

Created 14-Jan-26

Modified 14-Jan-26

0 photos

Visitors 67704

Member since 21-Mar-11

Guestbook for Andy Gibbs - British Rail through the 1970's and 80's.

Gordon - Dinnages Publishing(non-registered)

https://andygibbs.zenfolio.com/p171983007
Your view of TCD376J would likely be 25-Jun-72.
One similar shot in my photo library is of the same bus at the same location going by how many enthusiasts had been there at the time.
Dinnages BW0829 Jim Jones #3298 Published 2012.
Pulling off Fishbourne ferry CUTHRED.

Ray Talbot(non-registered)

Hi Andy do you only have the four photos of the Hampton Ct derail? My father was on the Basingstoke up that got hit that day.

john Abbott(non-registered)

Andy this is a great resource as a modeller of the Southern Region in 1977.

Do you have any pics of the nuclear waste train that used to go through Poole in the 70s?

I have seen a video of this working in the early 80s where one flask wagon was being hauled by a 73 with a brake van bringing up the rear.

Also do you have any pics of the Brockenhurst to Stirling summer weekend Motorail. Finally am interested in any freight pics taken in the New Forest.

Thanks John

PS I bought your Southern Region book last year

Roy(non-registered)

Awesome collection

Chris Boland(non-registered)

Been looking at the photos of Brighton buses. I lived in Hove in the early 80s when I was at Sussex University. Lots of great memories. I might even be in one or two of the shots. The ones at Brighton Station show the Nightingale pub in the background. I played guitar in there at the Irish music sessions on Sundays for a few years. Happy days. Thanks!

The guestbook is empty.

Andy Gibbs