'H M Whitcombe was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1919, served in Burma during the 1939-1945 war and retired from the Army as a colonel in 1951. He has drawn and painted all his life - and in 1965 he began the series of vanished 19th century railway locomotives reproduced in After Rocket: The Forgotten Years 1830-1870.' From After Rocket: The Forgotten Years.

Many paintings previously displayed at the Science Museum.