A collection of photographs, approximately 1,730 cellulose nitrate film negatives 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 in and approximately two hundred prints 5 1/2 by 3 1/2 in featuring locomotives and trains of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, Great Western Railway, Southern Railway, Industrial Lines, Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, also Welsh Railways and Light Railways such as east Kent Railway, Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway, Easingwold Railway and Selsey Tramway dating from 1930 to 1960, all by photographer J E Simpson.

The collection also comprises a small body of archive material, including timetables and maps which can be accessed separately

Simpson began taking railway photographs at the age of ten, when he used a Box Brownie camera to capture an engine on the South Eastern & Chatham Railway. His hobby developed through several phases, and Simpson claims he adopted the methodical approach of a stamp collector. He began by deciding he would 'collect' LSWR locomotives and set himself the task of cycling throughout the company's operating area until he had achieved his object. In the 1930s he commenced a second wave of railway photography and continued until the Second World War, when he was posted to China. After the war family life kept him busy, but he still made time to photograph the Lyme Regis branch line using his Super Ikonta camera. After the 1970s he undertook research in geophysical fluid mechanics at Cambridge University and in the early 1980s was awarded a PhD in Mathematics, but still retained an interest in railways.