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Frank Jones's pictures only became available to me in 2023, some two years after my
initial compilation of
'Sweet Dreams'. Approximately 100 of his colour images were initially scattered through
some 4000 plus others
in the main section but I have now gathered Frank's mill by mill output here for the convenience of those curious about the 'good old
days'. They are shown in the same mill order as the main body; necessarily not all mills are represented and some have just one or two pictures.
The 'missing' mills are Kalibagor, Pakis Baru, Krian, Candi, Jatiroto and De Maas.
Frank would pass slides to his good friend Allan C. Baker, who later
passed them to the Industrial Railway Society which, in turn, has graciously allowed me to
use them here. I cannot say for certain what percentage of his colour
output is shown but given the overlap with the black and white prints which came
to me later, it must be quite high. As such I can only imagine that he was quite
frugal with his film. Maybe he was not the last one to discover that Java visits
could easily overwhelm the allocated stock - this in a place where, at the time,
the nearest supply of colour slide film was about 1000km away in Singapore.
In March 2024, I was loaned a further set of just over 200 black and
white postcard sized prints of Java steam by the Industrial Locomotive Society.
From
these, I have uploaded scans of just over 100 further images, generally being those which do not
have a colour slide equivalent and these can be accessed below (mixed with the colour images
which are also in the main Sweet Dreams section). In general, the few of Frank's
black and white pictures I have added to the main section are of those
locomotives which were not previously represented but they are here too..
Frank was very 'lococentric', concentrating on 'roster shots'
which will appeal especially to those interested in how the locomotives looked
before the mills became popular with visitors. Anyway, altogether there are now
just over 200 of Frank's images in 'Sweet Dreams'. This sub-section will be of
particular interest to the
serious student of the subject, but an analysis of the pictures and what I know
to have been published elsewhere shows that some were lost before they arrived
with the ILS.
Please understand that Frank was travelling 'blind' with
limited time to document a vast subject from scratch and usually had no permits
- these would have had to be issued in regional centres, inconveniently some way from the mills.
Hence much time was wasted negotiating entry and few visits were made at the optimum times (early morning and late
afternoon) and it shows. I would like to thank Ross Sadler for his efforts to
enhance the images, restoring the colours and highlighting detail lost in the dark
shadows, work which continues with the black and white material.
Clicking 'Start' will normally take you to the main Sweet
Dreams index. Exceptionally, within this section, it will return you to here.
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