Railways lend themselves to photography and high art. So for the second year running Network Rail is supporting the ‘Take a View – Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards 2011.’
The national competition brings together amateur and professional photographers. The top prize is £10,000. An additional prize will be given for the best photography of Britain’s rail network, the Network Rail ‘Lines in the Landscape’ Special Award.
The winner will receive a weekend break and a guided tour of the Severn Rail Tunnel’s Sudbrook Pumping Station, including travelling down the 180ft lift shaft to the complex of underground culverts, sub-tunnels where you can safely observe the trains as they pass.Â
Says David Higgins, Network Rail chief executive, ‘Every day for over a century the railway has helped people travel across the length and breadth of Britain. Those journeys can take people across spectacular structures such as the Forth Bridge and Ribblehead viaduct and where people can experience truly amazing views of the countryside and our cities.
‘Network Rail has the special duty of protecting and promoting this legacy as well as building a modern rail network for the 21st century. We are proud to continue to support this competition, and even more so to have a special award for the best photography of our rail network. Travelling by rail is becoming ever more popular, and we hope that, through this competition, even more people will recognise its importance in Britain today.’Â
The winner of the 2010 award was Chris Howe from Hitchin in Hertfordshire with a photograph of a speeding train going through Grindleford station in the Peak District. Just this month Chris took up his prize of a guided tour across the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland, something only possible owing to the current upgrade works.
