NYMR Steam Gala 2026
You can also see my shots from the 2025 steam gala here
I spent 2 days at the gala (the Friday and the Sunday). On Friday Christine and I travelled to Pickering and back to avail ourselves of the Sir Nigel Gresley shuttle service, and to see what we could along the way. I carried my workhorse lenses, the 16-35mm wide-angle zoom and the 105mm short telephoto macro. Mostly I used the latter, it allows me to isolate details but also to fully-frame approaching trains without the un-natural perspective effect of a wide-angle. It is a little too short for capturing approaching trains, but with my 46MP sensor I can comfortably crop as though I were shooting more towards 200mm. It is also a little too long to capture full train views of trains in the station (which is why I carry the wide-angle also) - BUT, framing the full train in the station during the gala is a bit of a non-starter anyway; there are just so many people getting in the frame! Which is why in the stations I more go for half or quarter shots with the longer lens. My main use of the wide-angle was to capture 563 T3 out of the carriage window whilst we were stopped right next to it. It was only a couple of feet from me so the 16mm setting was the only way to get it in frame. I cropped the nose because the distortion was way too extreme (for my taste); the result is still way un-natural but at least controlled and I think kinda sweet.
On the Sunday Christine was working so I checked out the timetable and looked to capture 6 trains at Grosmont before travelling to Goathland to see 4 more - with 2 sightings of my favourite (Sir Nigel Gresley). This time I just took my long zoom telephoto (200-500mm) to see how it would work out for me. I particularly wanted to get shots that would require less cropping, so they would print proper big (all these shots printing at above 2'). The reach this lens gives me was a real boon in isolating the trains as they approach because they can be that much further from the crowded platforms when I shoot them. The shot of Repton in the steam cloud, for example, shows the loco face just about full frame from almost 60m away (shot at 500mm). During the gala you see a LOT of photographers littered across the countryside with long lenses to capture trains in the environment, but a super-zoom telephoto can also be a fine instrument for more intimate portraits of these beasts from closer quarters.
I guess the truth is you can photograph steam trains with ANY lens, they are such adaptable subjects; you just need to tune your vision to the geometry of the optics.
The Trains I photographed in 2026
4-4-0 Class T3 — LSWR express passenger
563
- Built: 1893, Nine Elms Works
- Withdrawn: 1945
- Restored: 2023
- Designer: William Adams
- Role: Express passenger services; also used in The Railway Children productions in Toronto (2011) and at King's Cross (2017)
It is interesting to me, that one's relationship to a train shifts radically once it has been seen 'in-the-flesh' (so to speak). Reading the brochure for the gala, I wasn't immediately particularly interested in 563. It struck me as 'just another little green thing like No. 29'. But of course, its a completely different beast. It has a much longer nose than No. 29 and curvy haunches (without tanks to hide its lines). With disfamiliarity it's easy to group trains into amorphous families (little green ones, big black ones) and thereby dismiss the unique character of individuals. It's a strange human trait, thank god it only ever happens with steam trains, huh?
So I only photograhed 563 on happenchance, as and when we passed by it. I do like the shots that I got, but I feel I probably missed really revealing this little engine's full character. I think the learning is that, all steam trains have a unique character, if only one bothers to look for it...
4-4-0 Class 5P — Southern Railway’s Schools Class
926 Repton
- Built: 1934, Eastleigh Works
- Withdrawn: 1962
- Restored: 1971 (US), Repatriated: 1989
- Designer: Richard Maunsell
- Named after: Repton School, Derbyshire
- Role: Express passenger services on tight Southern routes; also served in the US and Canada
I will of course be joking when I say I don't like green or black steam trains... I love all steam trains. When I first saw Repton (last year) I noted it had bigger wheels than I had previously noted; with its high-sided tender and somewhat squat chimney I think it has a kind of daintiness to its 100+ tonnes.
2-8-0 Class S160
2253 — Omaha
- Built: 1943, Baldwin Locomotive Works
- Designer: United States Army Transportation Corps (USATC), led by Major J.W. Marsh
- Oil conversion by NYMR
So it turns out, I most like trains that aren't green or black. Omaha, in its deep plum looks damn fine. This is one I really need to shoot in the wild, rolling through the moors. In the interim I took a few detail images. While it was sat in Goathland I noticed the tracks underneath glowing in a deep orange and realised this was light spill from the firebox, which of course I had to shoot... The full-face head on shot was taken at Grosmont as Omaha rested on the side branch. Grosmont is great for being able to get right in front of the engines thanks to its level crossing.
0-6-0 Class P3
2392 - The North Eastern
- Built: 1923, Darlington Works
- Restored: 1971
- Designer: Wilson Worsdell
NYMR's first train I believe. It was pumping plenty of steam out on the day, which is great because I do think that a picture of a steam train oughta include some steam if at all possible - else you might as well be looking at an artefact in a museum. Part of the draw is the hardwork that they do, even after a hundred years or more. Without performing that work they seem more like elaborate sculptures, so the steam matters.
4-6-0 Castle Class
4079 - Pendenis Castle
- Built: 1924, GWR Swindon Works
- Withdrawn: 1964 (bought for preservation)
- Restored: 2021
- Designer: Charles Collett
- Role: long-distance express passenger services
- Worked in Western Australia 1977 to 2000. Out-performed the Flying Scotsman in terms of power
Okay, so despite being green this is a really lovely train, with its brassy chimnies flashing up top. The first shot here was taken at Goathland from the footbridge. Next to me was a young teenager who explained his dad was driving it, that his dad had driven 3 of the 8 remaining castle-class locos; his pride in his dad was palpable. It was a small vignette of family, community, history - which I guess is all part of the draw of steam... OR it could be the 2 pints of beer-festival cider I'd enjoyed by that time made me unusually sentimental.
4-6-2 Class A4
60007 Sir Nigel Gresley
- Built: 1937, Doncaster Works
- Withdrawn: 1966
- Designer: Sir Nigel Gresley
- Lost its valances in 1942, but same design as the Mallard. holds the postwar steam record speed of 112 miles per hour (180 km/h) gained on 23 May 1959
I love this train! It so reminds me of the Rolls Royce Phantom with it sweeping curves, best apreciated on a 45 degree semi-profile; the boiler is so very long that the valence lines appear much flattened with a strict side-on view, but in semi-profile it's really quite stunning.
I managed to get some less-usual shots looking from above on the footbridges at Pickering and Goathland as it passed under me - showing details I had not aniticpated. I expected the chimney would be basically just a cylinder, but it certainly is more than that. Also, I had always imagined a tender car to be just a big coal-bucket, and I never really knew how the fire man got the coal from the tender to the cabin... seeing inside Gresley's tender was a revelation for me. Another example of how photography is really just my 'reason for seeing' - to leg it up the steps of a footbridge to look atop of a train. Whoever stops to look at the tops of trains otherwise?
The best view was at the Levisham curve, but I only had my short telephoto (105mm) so the image is cropped somewhat giving me a print size of about 15"x19". On the sunday I worked with just my long lens (200-500mm) and got a nice 18"x23" shot of Gresley arriving at Goathland (50% larger) at 320mm focal length.
2-10-0 — British Railways Standard Class 9F
92134 (running as 92079)
- Built: 1957, Crewe Works
- Designer: Robert Riddles
- Withdrawn: 1966
- Restored: 2019
- Role: heavy freight and mineral hauling
- Only surviving single chimney variant.
I had planned to shoot more of the 9F but it had to take a rest to be hit by hammers mid-gala, so I only got the one shot. It's part of the home fleet though so I should have lots more opportunity. I love the mad number of drive wheels it has, but also how clearly the underlying structure of a steam engine is revealed with the long boiler sat high above the chasis - perhaps next time I'll be able to show that!