Comments on: Modern Image?

By: Kevin Prince

Kevin Prince — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:14:46 +0000

I think I’m finally convinced that ‘modern image’ does need to go. The term is contemporaneous with my lifetime so a blue AL6 on Mark 2a stock could not by any stretch of the imagination be modern. The term was coined by CJF and it really did mean something at that point in history (45 odd years ago, which interestingly positions it around 45 years after the Grouping).

I still hold out though for ‘The Modern Image’, capitalised and with a definite article as perfect for that decade. Image suits it well because it was the image but hardly the reality for most of the rail system. Rattling down to Portsmoth in a Nelson or riding the mixed to the Higjlands, loose coupled coal or pick-up goods on the Cambrian belong to The Modern Image.

I know people will use it indiscriminately and that’s a shame. Time for the Railway equivalent of Modernism and post-modernist?

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:19:59 +0000

The problem with “Modern Image” is there’s no longer any consensus on what it means.

You use it to represent the 1965-1975 era covering the sort of things Cyril Freezer was describing. Other use the term to mean the present-day scene. And those whose interests are firmly steam-age use it mean anything post-steam.

By: Kevin prince

Kevin prince — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:55:31 +0000

Not convinced it should retire. It really does serve well the time it was coined when the shiny new electrics were hauling out of the box Mk2s on the WCML while the railway in General remained a steam-age one. Probable cut off would be the mid-70s when you move to the Crumbling Edge era. I know I’m old-fashioned but I like modern image but few use it so targeted to a period. If you must change then pre-TOPS, Crumbling Edge, Sprinter Revolution, and then Privitisation seem useful periods to me. I agree that Blue Diesel is a common replacement for Modern Image but that too misses a whole chunk of what it needs to convey – what space for the WCML and third-rail systems in Blue Diesel?

By: Fraser

Fraser — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 09:30:55 +0000

A good point well made. We’re now at the point where nobody under 50 really remembers seeing steam in daily service on BR lines (I’m not counting the VoR as it wasn’t operationally part of the BR network even when BR ran it!).

While, as you say, a lot of BR stock from the 60s can still be found on the network, most stock built as a result of BR’s 1955 Modernisation Plan has followed steam to the heritage railways or the scrapyard and much of that happened 15-30 years ago.