Picture Gallery Uploads

Contents

Upload Albums
Guidelines
Registered Users and Comments
Legal Information

The Picture Gallery of IRFCA.org has been set up with the aim of collecting a wide variety of images and videos pertaining to Indian Railways and related subjects. To this end, we invite railfans (whether or not members of the IRFCA group) to submit their pictures.

Contact: For all matters having to do with the gallery, the contact address is gallery@irfca.org.

NOTE: For submissions of other material, such as documents, articles, etc., for the IRFCA.org web site, please write to the webmaster@irfca.org address.

Submissions to the Gallery

There are two public albums where you can submit pictures. One is the Open Line album where you can upload pictures for immediate sharing with other railfans. The other is the First Class album where submissions are moderated and subject to the submission guidelines provided below.

Open Line

The Open Line album is unmoderated and is intended to be like a bulletin-board for sharing pictures and videos of current interest with other railfans. Items submitted here are not scrutinized for quality issues. Items uploaded here will be available for a certain period of time and eventually deleted. Comments are disabled in this album.

Please use this album for all pictures or videos that are of interest only for limited periods - for example, to share pictures of a railfanning trip you have posted about on the mailing list. Please be prudent about the number of items you upload to this album and avoid uploading many repetitious pictures. Even though there is no moderation on quality issues, you are encouraged to follow the quality guidelines in the submission rules below so that your pictures are of a high quality and provide your viewers with a pleasant experience.

You can submit items directly from the Open Line album: The Open Line Album. No user id or registration is needed to submit items to this album.

Please keep the size of each picture submitted to under 225KB (with pixel dimensions of 1024x768 or less). Please provide appropriate captions with all relevant details of the subject, dates, places, etc., and your name (or the photographer's or copyright holder's) name and your contact e-mail address for the items you upload. E-mail addresses will be slightly altered automatically before being displayed publicly, to minimize the possibility of spammers harvesting the address from our gallery.

The webmasters will manage the items of this album at their discretion. In particular, items in this album may be deleted at any time. No notifications will be issued for items deleted from this album, nor will any questions be entertained about them.

Please be sure to review the legal information below.

First Class

The First Class album is moderated. Picture and videos submitted here are not immediately available on the web site but are first scrutinized by the webmasters for conformance to the submission guidelines provided below. This album is intended to be a showcase of the best pictures and videos related to railways in India and hence the webmasters will be very selective in approving submissions. Items that are approved by the webmasters will appear in the album for all to see and will stay there for a period of time (about 2 or 3 weeks), and will eventually be moved to one of the other albums of the gallery to be part of the gallery's permanent collection. Comments are allowed on the items displayed in this album by registered users (see below).

In this album, there is a limit of 10 items per person per week. Exceptions may be made (rarely) and more items accepted if the submitter checks with the gallery webmasters in advance.

When items are rejected, the webmasters will generally send a notification explaining the reasons for the rejection. In some cases items may be summarily rejected without notification if they are obviously flouting the guidelines (e.g., non-railway content, copyright violations). If an item is rejected, it may be re-submitted after changes to address the rejection reason(s). For instance, if a photograph was rejected for poor composition, it may be re-submitted after being recropped to improve the composition. The webmasters will generally not entertain queries or comments about why particular items were rejected.

Use this link to submit items for First Class: Submissions for First Class album. The album itself can be seen here. No user id or registration is needed to submit items to this album.

Please provide appropriate captions with all relevant details of the subject, dates, places, etc., and your name (or the photographer's or copyright holder's) name and your contact e-mail address for the items you upload. E-mail addresses will be slightly altered automatically before being displayed publicly, to minimize the possibility of spammers harvesting the address from our gallery.

Please be sure to review the legal information below.

Guidelines for submissions

Please write to us at gallery@irfca.org with any questions regarding these guidelines.

Subjects: Images, videos, etc., submitted for inclusion on this site should pertain to railways in India or neighbouring regions. Although occasional items pertaining to other parts of the world are accepted, it should be understood that the primary focus is on India, both present-day and British India.
Videos: Because of storage and bandwidth concerns, the webmasters will be extremely selective about video submissions. Only those videos that capture rare and unusual or unique events, or are of historical and documentary value, will be accepted for inclusion in the permanent collection of the gallery. Run of the mill videos of trains running past a station or ordinary trackside clips will not be accepted.
Formats: For images, JPEG (.jpg), GIF, or PNG files are acceptable. For videos, MPEG1 format files are acceptable. Please contact us to discuss uploading other formats. Please do not upload uncompressed AVI video files. There are many good and free MPEG1 encoders available. See the video conversion guidelines or contact us at gallery@irfca.org for help.
Information: Please provide information about the picture you are uploading as described below. Pictures without this information may be rejected.
- Clear and concise description of the subject, date, and location.
- Your name, or the photographer's/author's name, and contact e-mail address.
- Loco details, train names and numbers, etc., are very desirable.
- Avoid station codes like 'SBC', or acronyms and abbreviations that may not be widely understood; spell these out in full.
- Mention loco classes like this: WDM-2, not like WDM2, or WDM 2, or WDM/2, etc. Mention loco numbers preceded by # like this: #20219. This helps searching in the gallery.
- Keep dates in the format yyyy-mm-dd, e.g., 2004-03-19. Again, this helps searches.
- Additional descriptive details such as background information, photographic equipment used, etc., are also welcome, however please keep it concise; larger detailed reports should be mailed to the IRFCA list.
Size: Please ensure the image pixel dimensions are between 800x600 and 1280x1024 for images as this range is best suited for viewing on most common computer screens. Video resolution should be 320x240 or less. Video files should be of about 60 seconds footage or less. Longer sequences can be split up. Image files should not exceed 250KB. Video files should be kept under 4MB, and preferably under 3MB. Videos should keep the video bitrate to 300kbps or less and the audio bitrate to 64kbps or less. Please follow the video capture and conversion guidelines before uploading video files. Large images will get automatically resized when uploaded, and their quality will deteriorate. Large video files may result in broken links. Contact us if you have any files of an unusual nature with different size requirements.
Quality: Photographs and videos should adhere to these quality guidelines:
- Subjects (trains, locos, etc.) should be framed properly and clearly visible without excessive shadows or obstructions, or distracting extraneous objects in the composition. Items with clutter in the foreground or dark shadows on the subject will be rejected.
- Photographs should not be blurry, unfocused, grainy, overly dark or bright or of bad contrast, excessively distorted, or be badly exposed.
- Subject outlines should be discernible in timed exposure or low-light photographs.
- Photographs with level horizons are preferred as opposed to tilted viewpoints. Please use walls, telegraph or catenary poles, etc., to maintain the level when taking pictures.
- Avoid excessive shake and swaying in videos by using a tripod or restricting the use of high zoom. Blurry pictures will be rejected.
- If scanning photographs or other material, ensure that there be no extraneous matter on the photographs: clean your prints or slides, remove traces of adhesive from photo corners or tape, (gently) erase smudges. It is best to avoid writing anything on the front surface of any print or even on the back as the impression can come through and be seen in the scan of the front. Ensure your scanner is clean without traces of dust, hair, or smudges or dirt on the scanner's surfaces. Please remove excess white borders added by the scanning process.
- If you have a print or slide that is worn, damaged, or composed badly, it may still be acceptable provided you crop it and level it appropriately after scanning it.
- Avoid using the automatic date/time stamping feature of your camera as this can distract from the main subject.
- You may use standard operations in image or video editing software such as sharpening, removing dust, adjusting brightness or contrast, etc., to improve the quality of submitted items. Image manipulation that materially changes the depiction of the subject is generally not acceptable, but you may submit such material after clearing it with the webmasters in advance if such manipulation is done for artistic reasons or compelling technical reasons.
- Please do retain the EXIF data embedded in photographs by digital cameras (which has details of the camera, exposure, etc.) when you re-size or otherwise post-process photographs.
- Do not include text captions in your photographs or videos. A small copyright notice that is not distracting is acceptable but we would prefer not to have these. Large notices, distracting watermarks, or other captions, etc., will result in the photographs being rejected.
- For videos, the soundtrack should have good quality, be in sync with the video, and should preferably be just the sound of the subject of the video with perhaps an occasional voiceover comment for information. Excessive voiceover or background music, etc., are to be avoided.
Some of these criteria may also be waived for old and rare photographs or images of unusual or under-represented subjects or locations, or where the photographs have artistic merit, but please contact us in advance about these.
Repetition: Please do not submit repetitive pictures of the same subjects. Attempt to introduce some variations, such as taking pictures from different vantage points, to make the pictures more interesting. Pictures that are substantially the same (same subject, same angle or viewpoint) will generally be summarily rejected. Remember, quality is far more important than quantity! One good picture is better than a dozen poor ones.
Copyright Issues: Please upload only those items which you are allowed to submit to the site: you should be the photographer, videographer, or creator, or you should have permission from the original owner. Do not submit images from web sites, magazines, etc., for which you do not have copyright permission! Please understand that you jeopardize the very existence of this web site by engaging in copyright violation, by opening the web site up to legal action. The maintainers do not have the resources to verify copyrights, nor to engage in lawsuits; therefore, the policy will be to be as conservative as possible in terms of rejecting images for which copyright permission cannot be easily established.
Restricted material: Please DO NOT submit any images or videos of illegal activities such as footplating locomotives without official permits, or trespassing on railway property. Please DO NOT submit any material which may place railway staff in compromising situations and subject them to disciplinary action or harassment by their superiors. Any such material will be deleted. In addition, any material deemed to be offensive in any way to our site's usual web-viewing audience will also be deleted.
Lastly, please note that notwithstanding conformance to the guidelines above, submitted material will be accepted only at the discretion of the webmasters. Material that does not, in the view of the webmasters, fit the overall purpose of the IRFCA web site as a focal point for promoting and disseminating information about railways in India will not be accepted. In particular, please note that the gallery is not intended to be a permanent display area for railfans' personal photographs nor a showcase for artistic photographs, and preference will always be given to items that document important, unusual, or under-represented areas of railways in India. Items uploaded to the gallery may be deleted without prior warning, at the sole discretion of the webmasters and without any reason necessarily being assigned. You should keep a copy of any submitted images for your own purposes and not expect the copy on the server to be available indefinitely.

Registered Users and Comments

It is not necessary to use a user id to upload material to the gallery through either of the albums above. User ids are needed only if you wish to add comments to pictures in the First Class album. However, if you have been issued a user id, please do use it by logging in to the gallery in all cases when uploading pictures or videos, as it helps us track submissions and attribute them correctly to you.

User ids for commenting in the gallery are issued on request by the webmasters. Contact gallery@irfca.org. User ids may be withdrawn at any time at the discretion of the webmasters if they are used inappropriately.

Unregistered users may post their comments to the IRFCA mailing list, or submit them to the webmasters by e-mail at gallery@irfca.org.

Comments in all cases should be brief, and provide additional clarifications on one or two specific points regarding the photograph or other item. Anything more extensive should be posted for discussion to the IRFCA mailing list.

Legal

Photography Permits

Please read the section on railfan photography for information on when official permission is needed for photography (including still or video/movie recordings) of railway subjects, and how to obtain permission from IR for photography in such cases. In most cases, photography on railway premises such as at stations requires a permit. Stringent restrictions are applicable at sheds, yards, workshops, etc. Also, there are generally legal restrictions surrounding photography of structures such as bridges and tunnels in India. You must comply with all applicable regulations and laws when taking photographs of railway subjects, and ensure that you obtain an official permit or appropriate permission from the authorities where needed. The webmasters of the IRFCA.org site assume all photographs or other material sent to us were taken in compliance with regulations and laws governing photography. The webmasters cannot carry out any verification of such compliance, and do not take responsibility for enforcement of such regulations or laws nor accept liability resulting from non-compliance. Please see the legal disclaimers regarding material on the web site as well as the following conditions for uploading material to the site.

Please note: The webmasters of IRFCA.org are unable to provide assistance in obtaining any photography permits from any branch of Indian Railways. You must obtain appropriate permits or permission yourself.

Disclaimer, Licence, and Copyright

By uploading any image, video, or other material here, you are certifying that you own the copyright for the material or have secured written permission from the copyright owner for the use of the material on this web site (IRFCA.org). You also certify that the material is not proprietary information or a trade secret that is not available for or suitable for public dissemination. You take full responsibility for all violations of copyright law, of laws governing trade secrets and proprietary information, or of any laws related to the publication or dissemination of material deemed inappropriate, obscene, or illegal in any jurisdiction applicable, where such violations are caused by your upload of material to this web site. The maintainers of this web site are not liable for copyright violations, violations of laws governing trade secrets or proprietary information, or any other laws governing publication or dissemination of inappropriate or illegal content, caused by the upload of material to this web site.

By uploading any material you are also giving IRFCA.org permission and licence to make it available to the general public and use it in any manner on the IRFCA.org web site, in the picture gallery, or on other sections of the site, in its original form or transformed or edited in any way. You are also giving IRFCA.org permission to transmit the material in its original form or after editing and transformations, by electronic mail, postal mail, facsimile, or any other means to mailing lists, discussion forums, or to any specific individuals whether or not affiliated to IRFCA and the IRFCA.org web site; and to archive, store, copy, circulate, or re-publish it in any medium including but not limited to print and electronic media, in original form or after editing and transformation.

In particular, material uploaded here may be mailed to the irfca or irfca-derailed mailing lists, or other mailing lists reasonably connected with topics of railways (e.g., any mailing list of the Indian Steam Railway Society, mailing lists on IR modelling, etc.). Re-publication or distribution of your material outside the IRFCA.org web site and mailing lists such as irfca will occur only in cases where, in the judgement of the webmasters, such publication or distribution aids in spreading information on railway topics to railfans, furthers the cause of the hobby of railfanning, or where the parties who will further re-publish or distribute the material are serving the railfan community in a bonafide manner. For instance, if a railfan group asks for permission to host a copy of a photograph from the IRFCA site on their own web site, we will generally allow it. Likewise, if an online encyclopaedia or a print magazine requests some material for an article on railways we will generally allow it. In all cases we will try to get your permission specifically before allowing such republication by third parties, but we cannot always reach the submitters of material because of invalid e-mail addresses or other problems.

In particular, please note that images, video files, or other material may be edited, annotated, compressed, resized, cropped, or re-formatted for placement on various web pages on this site or for publication elsewhere. Text captions may be embedded in the material itself in some cases. In some cases the images or videos may be manipulated to improve the quality for presentation. The material may be presented with hyperlinks to or from other sections of the site and may be placed along with other images, videos, or text on the site at the discretion of the site maintainers.

In all cases you or the owner of the material retain copyright to the material you upload, and as far as possible the material will be attributed to you. Please contact the maintainers at webmaster@irfca.org with any inquiries about the use of your material.

You also certify that you understand that by submitting any material to this web site (IRFCA.org) you are making it available to the general public and that your material may be downloaded by anybody from the web site. The maintainers of this web site (IRFCA.org) are not liable for any misuse or copyright violation carried out by any third parties who happen to download material from this web site or who obtain it from any transmittal of the material to mailing lists or publication in any medium.

Thank you for your submissions!