A level-crossing in Holland in 1898:

This is scanned from a somewhat crinkly home-printed print I inherited from my grandpa William Archer (WGRA), presumably home-printed by him and home-dried (hence the crinkling if you don’t have a heated hold-down drier, I used to find). Anyway, as the caption above says, this is a level-crossing scene in Holland in 1898, taken during WGRA’s six years in Holland working for his mother’s brother Ernest Albert Reed at the Kaisersveer paper factory. Perhaps this is ‘just round the corner’ from where grandpa was staying - I know not, as my print did not (I recollect) have any such details recorded on it. But it seems safe to assume that grandpa travelled on such a train on his many (I think) journeys back and forth to his family home in Oxford, at No.7 Tackley Place, Oxford, in the Walton Street/Kingston Road area of the city, when his father, Alfred George Archer was a local Oxford Inland Revenue Officer. These were the glory days of steam. Grandpa’s mother (Olive Emma Reed.Archer) had a cousin-by-marriage (her Aunt Eliza Reed’s nephew-by-marriage), who lived in Stoke Gabriel, Devon, whose name was George Jackson Churchward, and who, in 1902 became Chief Engineer of the Great Western Railway, and established Great Wester Railway steam engines as the precursors of most of the best-known express and general-duty steam engines of the hey-day of the railways in the inter-war years: 1920s and 1930s.. (Added 2.2.15): Have found my notes: WGRA’s hand-written note on the back of this print says: “Level crossing at Raamsdonksveer-Geertruidenberg 1898” (which is easy to find on Google maps at: click here but there seems not to be any railway or level crossing now. 

qaa© Philip B Archer 2014