Neil Sprinks RIP

[Patrick Davey]

Sad to learn of the passing of Neil Sprinks, legendary railway photographer and author of the landmark book on the SLNCR.

May he rest in peace.

[Galteemore]

Thanks Patrick. He must have been quite an age. A really prolific author on UK matters too, but he was an SLNC man at heart I think. His photos even graced the cover of the last SLNC public timetable, such was his relationship with the line. 

Edited April 29 by Galteemore

[Mayner]

Neil Spink's SLNCR Book was one of the 1st books I borrowed from the library in my late mid-teens a treasured read and I have the 1980 re-print in my collection.

His relationship with the SLNCR made him not quite the companies official historian.

His book and a photo of Lough Gill in a Union Publications Iain Allen style spotters book on Irish locos inspired my as a teenage to build a model of the loco with a tinplate body on a very second hand Triang Princes chassis. A real beginners effort but it ran!

[Patrick Davey]

3 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Thanks Patrick. He must have been quite an age. A really prolific author on UK matters too, but he was an SLNC man at heart I think. His photos even graced the cover of the last SLNC public timetable, such was his relationship with the line. 

93 I think David.

[David Holman]

We were only talking about him at the Eastleigh show on Saturday. Remember seeing at least one photo from the late 40s, so lasting into his 90s sounds right.

 His books on the SLNCR underpinned so much of my Arigna Town project and I still go back to them for the simple pleasures of being drawn into a bygone age. Thank you, sir and RIP.

[leslie10646]

Sad news to hear of Neil's death.

We in the London Area of the IRRS published  his definitive history of the SLNCR in 1970 and then produced a second edition (in 1981) - not many Irish railway books have been accorded that honour?

I only met Neil a few times, but he is omnipresent in my life, as a painting, based on one of Neil's photographs, of a VS climbing over the Bessbrook viaduct on a Dublin-bound express  hangs on the wall at the end of my bed!

Edited April 30 by leslie10646

[airfixfan]

Neil was aged 93 when he passed