ONE of the Cumbria’s great enthusiasts for railway history has died at the age of 94.

Barrow’s Ken Norman was an author, transport historian, photographer and an expert on the darkroom techniques to get the best from vintage pictures on glass negatives and slides.

The funeral for Mr Norman, who died on November 9, is being held from 11.30am on Tuesday at Barrow’s Thorncliffe crematorium.

Mr Norman’s last involvement in a transport history book was in helping to get Michael Andrews’ Furness Railway into print in 2012.

His first book with Raymond Sankey was for Dalesman in 1977 called The Furness Railway - a Photographic Recollection.

In 1994 he produced The Furness Railway - a recollection for Silver Link Publishing which was based on photographs from the Sankey Collection.

In 2001 he wrote and two volumes called The Furness Railway - an illustrated record including photographs from the Sankey Collection.

These dealt with a description of the line and then with the locomotives and ships and excursions operated by the Furness Railway.

Mr Norman, who was married to Joan for 69 years and had two rail enthusiast sons, worked for Vickers in Barrow and became manager of the quality control department.

Photography was his chief leisure interest and he played a key part in the preservation of the famous Sankey photographic archive and was an authority on the pre-digital photographic record of local railway and maritime subjects.

He was a pioneer member of the Cumbrian Railways Association – which is celebrating its 40 th anniversary - and helped to develop its photographic collections.

Mr Norman and sons Tony and Phil were involved in the early days of the preservation project at Haverthwaite - which saw the building of a pool of locomotives and rolling stock and the reopening of the abandoned British Railways line from Haverthwaite to Lakeside.

Mr Norman, his son Phil and Phil Cousins, were standing on the footplate of the first locomotive bought by what was then the Lakeside Railway Society.

They were on Fluff, a shunter from Barrow Steelworks, as it was brought to Haverthwaite from a goods yard behind the Strand, Barrow – with the help of another shunter No. 4152.

That historic trip was on October 14 in 1970 and Fluff was needed to operate works trains as the Haverthwaite site was made ready to open as a preserved line on May 2 in 1973.

Fluff now forms part of the Furness Railway Trust collection based at the Ribble Steam Railway in Preston.