This website is a compilation of Western Canadian railway slides of the late Richard N. Isles (1947-2016), from the late 1960’s to 2000. It is a joint project of his son, Martin, and family friend Elizabeth Guenzler.
These photographs cover Vancouver Island, the mainland and interior of British Columbia, as well as Alberta and Saskatchewan. Railways represented are Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Esquimalt and Nanaimo, BC Rail/Pacific Great Eastern, B.C. Hydro/Southern Railway of BC, industrial and shortlines.
Born in Hammersmith, London in 1947, Richard spent many of his younger years riding his bicycle to take pictures of trains. At that time, the hobby was called trainspotting and over the years, he kept precise logs of locomotives he saw and photographed.
At age 18, he emigrated to Canada and settled in Victoria. Six years later, he was married then had four sons, two of whom would share their father's interest in railways. There were numerous railfan trips over the years to various locations on Vancouver Island and throughout British Columbia.
Richard was an accountant by profession, had a very good work ethic and was well-respected by his colleagues As such, when something important was happening on the local rail scene, he could be found trackside since he had “important business with his camera".
The majority of these photographs were taken with a Pentax Spotnatic camera, then digitally converted in recent years by Martin.
Richard's other interests, or hobbies as he liked to call them, were civil aviation, big band and older jazz music and philately.
Although she lived about half a mile from the E&N Railway in Colwood, British Columbia, and heard the trains daily, Elizabeth did not gain an interest in railways until February 1992, when the Roundhouse Museum Society’s stall at a local shopping centre during Heritage Week attracted her attention.
She attended one of their meetings and met Richard, the then-chairman, who offered her the position of Secretary and Trustee. The two of them quickly became friends and he taught her a great deal about North American railways, and she spent countless enjoyable times at the house, either being shown slides or assisting with cataloguing his vast railway book and big band music collection.
Richard introduced her to the twice-annual model railway shows in Burnaby, where visits to two or three rail yards were made, and it was here that Elizabeth was introduced to leased locomotives. Never one to do things by halves, she soon immersed herself into the hobby and bought magazines and books, then added another facet, the world of private cars, during the 2002 National Railway Historical Society convention. She remains an active volunteer with the Society to this day.
Since 2014, she has been a member and volunteer of the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society, becoming both a Station Master, the initial Station Master Coordinator and, since 2018,
their Director of Communications.
In the over thirty years that railways have been a major interest for Elizabeth, she has never forgotten how meaningful and significant meeting Richard was and the ensuing years of friendship and mentorship, something that she will treasure forever.
It was therefore with great honour that she accepted Martin’s request to partner on creating a lasting legacy for his father’s photographs.
Photograph by the late David Wilkie, August 1996.
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Comments or Questions? Please contact Elizabeth at elizabethjoyceruth@charter.net
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