An interesting application of the instantaneous method of photography was
recently made by a firm of photographers at Henley-on-Thames. These
artists were successful in photographing the Great Western Railway
express train familiarly known as the “Flying Dutchman,” while running
through Twyford station at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. The
definition of this lightning-like picture is truly wonderful, the details
of the mechanism on the flying locomotive standing out as sharply as the
immovable telegraph posts and palings beside the line. The photographers
are now engaged, we believe, in constructing a swift shutter for their
camera which will reduce the period of exposure of the photographic plate
to 1-500th of a second. The same artists have also executed some
charming pictures of the upper Thames, with floating swans and moving
boats, which cannot but win the admiration of artists and all lovers of
the picturesque.
—_Cassell’s Family Magazine_, Nov. 1880.