Llangollen Railway 1960's Weekend - a photo on Flickriver

Llangollen Railway 1960's Weekend

The 1960's were very stylish. Partly because jet-setters had to dress stylishly but also because everything else was fab, including sports cars, steam locomotives and jet airliners*. This couple look like seasoned travellers who are going places in style. Their hand luggage suggests they've flown BEA and BOAC before. On this trip they're travelling by steam locomotive to the aerodrome after getting to the railway station by car, probably an MGA or E-Type Jag. If they're going BOAC they'll fly in a Boeing 707 or even a Vickers VC-10, arguably the most beautiful looking jet airliner ever built. If BEA, it'll be a De Havilland Trident.

The next two photos in this series show the interiors of a Vickers VC-10 and a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU), to help illustrate why you had to be smartly dressed to travel in the 60's.

* Not motorcycles though, or not until around 1967 or so when the Bridgestone 175 Hurricane Scrambler was introduced into the UK, with all its chrome, upswept pipes and metallic paintwork.

The 1960's were colourful and flamboyant and some of us were lucky enough to have lived through them. The 60's were very 'bright' I recall, so bright in fact that many people had to wear sunglasses. Clothes were vivid and flowing, hair was long and music was inventive and a bother to devotees of the same old same old. The best ever albums of all time, in my opinion, were released during the latter part of the decade. The Velvet Underground were on fire, Led Zeppelin had formed (albeit as the 'New Yardbirds'), the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull had released several albums and sometimes as many as two each in one year.

The 60's were also the decade of the hippy. Real hippies, as opposed to the ones who only dressed up at weekends, worshipped Steve Hillage (whoever he was) as well as the ISB and drove around in VW Camper Vans, the insides of which were all soft and fluffy.

At the extreme end of the 60's, the stark-raving-bonkers Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band were regarded as too weird even for hippy festivals but they released 'Trout Mask Replica' onto an unsuspecting public.

At the soft end of the 60's where things were 'safe' and nothing was too challenging, you had the mainstream. All that middle-of-the road and pretend-hippie stuff, including Donovan and the well known four piece popular singing group from Liverpool.

In terms of railways, we all remember the 60's for what Dr Beeching did. There were re-enactments of the protests at the weekend to remind us of what happened in 1963 when his report was published. There again, as a friend of mine commented, “if it wasn't for Dr Beeching we wouldn't have preserved heritage railways today”.

Apart from the band Horslips, things in the 1970's weren't as good and its been downhill ever since.

Llangollen Railway is based on the former Ruabon to Barmouth Line and is now a preserved standard gauge railway is running between Llangollen station in Denbighshire in Wales to Corwen.

The line runs west via Berwyn (opposite the Chainbridge Hotel) to Glyndyfrdwy, then through Carrog to the new railway station at Corwen.

Photographs taken at the 1960’s Weekend, 3rd and 4th August 2024. Pictures taken on the Saturday. Permission to take and publish posed photos were granted by subjects. For more information about the railway, please see.....
llangollen-railway.co.uk/

Taken on: August 3, 2024

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Sets appears in: • Events, Re-Enactments • Heritage Railways

Camera: Sony ILCE-7RM5, f/2.8, 1/1600 sec, 75mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony ILCE-7RM5
Lens:	Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1600)
Focal Length:	75mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Capture One 23 Windows
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