Sepia Saturday 283: Laying New Rails at Derby

Sepia Saturday's theme image this week was taken in the early 1890s shows a number of railway workers standing at the entrance to a large tunnel in County Mayo, Ireland. Some years ago I published a scanned and digitally retouched image of a roughly trimmed cabinet card from my collection which I entitled, "A group of railway navvies from Sheffield, Yorkshire."

Thanks to information later received from fellow photohistorian Simon Robinson, I discovered that the workers were more likely to be excavating water reservoirs rather than railway cuttings, but that hasn't prevented it becoming the most popular page on Photo-Sleuth, and "navvies" being the most common search term for visitors arriving via Google. If you type "railway navvies" into Google's image search, it should be in the top few images. According to Google Analytics tools, in the seven years since it was published it has received 1839 hits, a steady stream of visitors averaging 5 per week. I have no idea why, except that it is a great picture. It's also one of my most pilfered images, having been reposted without attribution on a multitude of other sites including, I was surprised to learn, the web site of the Smithsonian Magazine (who should know better).


Railway workers
Print (97 x 141 mm) mounted on thick card
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Today I have a similar image of railway workers, likewise scanned from a roughly trimmed albumen print mounted on thick card. Sadly it's a little worse for wear, the photographic emulsion being considerably faded, the surface of the print showing a good deal of ly spotting, and having a large tear almost completely across the upper right hand quarter. the photograph shows a group of five railway workers standing across several sets of railway tracks, with several buildings visible in the background, including a possible railway station and platform at the far right. Judging from the clothing and headgear of the men, I suspect that it was taken in the late 1880s or 1890s, at roughly the same time as the theme image, and perhaps a decade or so earlier than my other navvies photo.


Inscription: Laying New Rails at Derby(?)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The intriguing thing about this photo is the caption written in black (or perhaps very dark blue) ink on the reverse. It's rather difficult to decipher but it may read, "Laying new rails at Derby" (or possibly Darley), and that is how it was advertised when I purchased it off eBay not long ago. If any readers can shed light on where the photograph might have been taken, I'd be very grateful to hear from you, either by comment below or via email.