Charlie Hulme's photo collection
Index to the Collection | Manchester Locomotive Society website
I was born in 1949, and grew up in Whaley Bridge, near the station on the Stockport-Buxton line. Sadly, our house was on a lowel level that the line, so I couldn't actually see the trains from home. Unlike many other boys of my era, I never was a dedicated number-collector, or shed-basher, partly because lack of money, and perhaps as an only child I stayed away from group activities. I could see passing North Western buses, so I made my own 'ABC', having written to the company who kindly sent me a list.
I was however, always interested in trains: we never had a car - and I still have still never had a car - so the train and buses were the family transport. Each year in the 'wakes week' we headed off by train to a different destination, selected from BR's 'Holiday Haunts' book, sending our suitcases by 'Passenger Luggage in Advance'. When I was 16 I even had a railway holiday on my own, a week with the Cambrian Line with a £1.50 Runabout ticket, the first of many visits to the line.
My mother had been a keen photographer sinve the 1920s, using a Kodak box camera, which I occasionaly borrowed, but soon had a camera of my own. I could afford many films, and my early pictures were just a memory of a visit. The 60s were a bad time for the railways, with some of the most interesting lines being closed, and I tried to visit as many of these as I could, using money gained by delivering newspapers. The Midland line from Manchester to Buxton was a favourite Saturday jaunt. I'd go to Buxton from Whaley Bridge, then the shuttle to Miller's Dale and a loco-hauled run to Manchester Central, and back home the same way. I was never a Steam fan - a Peak or Derby 2 on a train would be fine with me.
By the 1970s, I was able to take more pictures, but none of them can be considered masterpieces. I Joined the Hazel Grove Model Railway Society, where I met railway people and learned more about operations; my interests spread to the Continent: my modelling activity transferred to Austria, but I still observe the British scene, especially loco-hauled trains after I created the North Wales Coast Railway website, and also joined the Manchester Locomotive Society where I help to look after the website you are reading now.
The 'Buxton Line' has been all my life: I commuted to Manchester from 1971 onwards, first from Whaley Bridge until 1985 when I married and set up house near Davenport station. None of this would have been possible if Wallace Sutherland, whose collection is now with the MLS, and others who fought off the planned closure of the line in the 'Beeching' era. - Charlie Hulme, 2024.
Last update September 2024. Comments welcome.