In March 1983, after leaving school the year before, I withdrew my lifes savings and bought a Pentax K1000 at a price of $235 at the local camera shop, and started to take pictures of trains, just like I saw in the magazines, as the magazines were in B&W, I too used this medium.

B&W was a strange and costly choice, as colour prints were all the rage at the time. Colour print film was easy and cheap to buy, usually you got a "replacement" film included when you got your prints back. Printing cost was approx $6.00 for 24/36 exposures and you got the prints back "next day".

B&W however was expensive to buy, 24/36 prints used to cost about $20.00 and you had to wait several days for their return. No "deals", no "replacement" films. Indeed the printing quality got worse and worse, much that I started to do my own printing by early 1985.

Thankfully in those days, I use to write full captions on the photos and in the photo albums, thus the fully detailed captions provided here.