ARTIST INTERVIEW
Illustrating Heritage on the East Coast Main Line
Interview with Abbie Mooney, illustrator and author of Journal of Illustration 13.1 Visual Essay
25 Sep 2026
Cover image: Abbie Mooney, Stencils from Ribblehead Viaduct print (2026) - Monoprint
25 Sep 2026
Cover image: Abbie Mooney, Stencils from Ribblehead Viaduct print (2026) - Monoprint
Abbie Mooney is an illustrator, printmaker and tutor based in Leeds whose practice is underpinned by her interests in industrial heritage and how we can use printmaking to give voice to stories of the past, bringing heritage to new audiences.
Abbie created a visual essay for the Heritage issue of the Journal of Illustration, and in this interview, Rachel Emily Taylor talks to her about her work, the process and research behind it, and the ways she approaches the themes of heritage and collective memory.
Abbie created a visual essay for the Heritage issue of the Journal of Illustration, and in this interview, Rachel Emily Taylor talks to her about her work, the process and research behind it, and the ways she approaches the themes of heritage and collective memory.
INTERVIEW
— You were recently published in The Journal of Illustration Volume 13 Issue 1 with your visual essay, ‘Illustrator as witness: Exploring traditional print as heritage-making in response to the rail tours of Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley on the East Coast Mainline’. Can you tell us more about the project?
— My illustration research carries a continuous thread of stories of British industrial heritage and this visual essay was a result of an extended research project into how illustration can enliven hidden narratives and amplify voices of industrial heritage through the lens of British railways. At the time of submitting an abstract to the journal (2025), I was coming to the end of my second year studying for a masters in Illustration with Graphic Novel at Leeds Arts University and my work at that time had been moving through a wider investigation into material processes as heritage-making and how decisions made in media and the construction of images could potentially give weight to heritage narratives. This preliminary research was shared as a poster at the 14th International Illustration Research Symposium, Illustration and Heritage: Sharing Histories to Draw out Futures (2024). I had been examining a range of industrial heritage topics through traditional printmaking techniques, primarily through collagraph and monoprint as these processes invite ink and material to be manipulated to replicate or evoke the subject they are intended to represent. Collagraph continues to be my primary medium and it has earnt this place due to a collagraph plate's unique quality to serve as both a vehicle for transporting an image from ink to paper, and existing as a visual object in its own right. One can build layers and textures that can hold tones of ink to print an illustration of an object, or one can build a model, or a miniature so to speak, of the object itself, layering aluminium, tapes and textured material to create the printmakers own railway sleeper, or semaphore signal or whatever the collagraph may need to be.
Abbie Mooney (2025)
Collagraph process images
Collagraph process images
Abbie Mooney, Illustrator as Participant (2025) - Research Poster
Over the course of my masters, the research had moved from touching on multiple heritage industries, to becoming more closely and eventually, exclusively, focussed on railways and locomotives in a project I called ‘Blazing Away’ (Mooney, 2024). For me, railways offer a heritage space that is uniquely alive. Locomotives such as 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, 60103 Flying Scotsman and 30532 Blue Peter, are just three examples of steam locomotives still blazing valiantly up and down the East Coast Main Line today. They are symbols of an industrial heritage that continues to operate a very real living presence and are each occupying space as living objects. From my own experiences both trackside and on the rails, I feel passionately about communicating the human benefits of the railways to create community, enhance wellbeing and keep stories alive, but I was also very aware of the prominence of locomotives on static display in museums and I needed to find a way to distinguish between the role of the archival object and the living object. My theory was that an active illustration project could mobilise the heritage narrative, bringing the stories and experience of the railways to wider audiences rather than the audience having to come to the rails, or, to the museum. The illustrator has the potential to uncover already present stories waiting, or hiding in the spaces in which these objects are preserved, or observe moments trackside for the very first time. This for me, positions the illustrator as both a witness and a participant in the heritage story.
Early on in the project, I spent a few days at the National Archive of Railway Oral History at the National Railway Museum (NRM), York, and it was here that I encountered a term that has driven much of this project. In a newspaper clipping from The Northern Echo, train enthusiast, campaigner and reporter Brian Redhead described the locomotives in the NRM as in ‘dignified slumber’ (2008). It was this distinction between what I had been trying to communicate as ‘living’ on the tracks and that which was ‘sleeping’ in the museum that really became the driving force behind the illustrations as something that could amplify rail stories from both spaces.
Early on in the project, I spent a few days at the National Archive of Railway Oral History at the National Railway Museum (NRM), York, and it was here that I encountered a term that has driven much of this project. In a newspaper clipping from The Northern Echo, train enthusiast, campaigner and reporter Brian Redhead described the locomotives in the NRM as in ‘dignified slumber’ (2008). It was this distinction between what I had been trying to communicate as ‘living’ on the tracks and that which was ‘sleeping’ in the museum that really became the driving force behind the illustrations as something that could amplify rail stories from both spaces.
Abbie Mooney, Photographs from the 137th Durham Miners Gala (2023) and 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at York station on a main line railtour (2023)
The framework of the project was centred on first-hand experiences on the railways, mainly special events or charter services, and recorded through photography, emotive storytelling and process-led imaging making. A defining moment that laid much of the groundwork for the project was being trackside at York Railway Station to see 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley during one of her main line railtours in 2023. When I reviewed the photographs I’d taken from the platform, the scenes felt instantly reminiscent of another industrial heritage event I’d attended earlier that year; the 137th Durham Miners Gala. The photographs I’d captured on both occasions recorded an overwhelming sense of anticipation, community and pride, and a collective moment of remembering. These photographs became a springboard for ‘Blazing Away’ from which I began exploring the emotive experience of trainspotting, the sense of togetherness, combined with visual recordings of the engineering and technical details of the railways. Textural collagraphs recorded complex details of engineering while monoprint could capture a more gestural feeling of the sensory moment and these were combined using risograph to bring traditional print together with vivid colour to bring heritage railways to a wider audience through a contemporary illustration language.
The project has continued to evolve and gathered a lot of momentum around the bicentennial of passenger railways in Britain (2025), when the illustrative outcomes could take on a more commemorative function. The visual essay for the Journal of Illustration focuses on the illustrative process; the first-hand experience recorded in print, the act of illustration as observation, and the act of heritage-making through this process.
The project has continued to evolve and gathered a lot of momentum around the bicentennial of passenger railways in Britain (2025), when the illustrative outcomes could take on a more commemorative function. The visual essay for the Journal of Illustration focuses on the illustrative process; the first-hand experience recorded in print, the act of illustration as observation, and the act of heritage-making through this process.
— The work developed from a poster at the 14th International Annual Research Symposium into a visual essay for The Journal of Illustration. How did you approach adapting the project for a different format and audience?
— The visual essay for the journal initially evolved quite naturally from my research poster, from a more generalised inquiry into materiality and heritage, into a much more streamlined focus through the lens of British railway heritage. The evolution of the research from poster to essay moved in tandem with the research I was undertaking in the later stages of my MA and I was fortunate to be supported by peer reviewers and editors who really lent on the aspects of the railways I’d unlocked in my initial abstract and early submissions. My first draft was still fairly loose in the sense that it was an expansion on the more generalised investigation I had presented on my poster, touching on the role of the illustrator in heritage-making and on illustration as a social process, but the feedback from the peer review stage really drove the work to become led by topic first and process second.
Around the time of receiving the peer reviewers comments, I’d not long since completed my final MA project and dissertation which meant I had a much tighter grip on what I was trying to communicate. The work was no longer just about materiality and process in illustrative responses to heritage, but was now driven by illustration as a means of experiencing heritage first-hand and most specifically, the illustrative experience of heritage railways.
Developing the poster into a visual essay also moved the investigation from speculative to assured. Honing the content to my specialist research area, railways, enabled me to develop a piece that was personal and despite its short form, offered an opportunity to share something that for me, had been a fairly exhaustive enquiry. The nature of a short form piece with limited word count meant that we had a lot of back and forth to really hone the exact pathway the piece would take and how we could achieve such across 2 pages. A decision to treat the visual essay as one cohesive image across 2 pages became the springboard for the final outcome and I’m really pleased that we were able to resolve the work into one narrative piece that captures the very feeling of experiencing and illustrating the railways.
— The visual essay for the journal initially evolved quite naturally from my research poster, from a more generalised inquiry into materiality and heritage, into a much more streamlined focus through the lens of British railway heritage. The evolution of the research from poster to essay moved in tandem with the research I was undertaking in the later stages of my MA and I was fortunate to be supported by peer reviewers and editors who really lent on the aspects of the railways I’d unlocked in my initial abstract and early submissions. My first draft was still fairly loose in the sense that it was an expansion on the more generalised investigation I had presented on my poster, touching on the role of the illustrator in heritage-making and on illustration as a social process, but the feedback from the peer review stage really drove the work to become led by topic first and process second.
Around the time of receiving the peer reviewers comments, I’d not long since completed my final MA project and dissertation which meant I had a much tighter grip on what I was trying to communicate. The work was no longer just about materiality and process in illustrative responses to heritage, but was now driven by illustration as a means of experiencing heritage first-hand and most specifically, the illustrative experience of heritage railways.
Developing the poster into a visual essay also moved the investigation from speculative to assured. Honing the content to my specialist research area, railways, enabled me to develop a piece that was personal and despite its short form, offered an opportunity to share something that for me, had been a fairly exhaustive enquiry. The nature of a short form piece with limited word count meant that we had a lot of back and forth to really hone the exact pathway the piece would take and how we could achieve such across 2 pages. A decision to treat the visual essay as one cohesive image across 2 pages became the springboard for the final outcome and I’m really pleased that we were able to resolve the work into one narrative piece that captures the very feeling of experiencing and illustrating the railways.
Abbie Mooney, 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley (2025) – Monoprint and monotype
Abbie Mooney, Photograph of 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at Doncaster Works (2026)
— For readers who may not be familiar with the subject, could you introduce Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley and explain why you chose this locomotive as the focus of your project?
— Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley is a Class A4 Pacific steam locomotive designed by her namesake, Sir Nigel Gresley, and built in 1937 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, for the London North Eastern Railway. The locomotive is historically significant for countless attributes of her speed and design, but what gives this locomotive her unique significance is her continued running on the mainline. She continues to operate on the East Coast Main Line running many of the journeys she was built for in the golden age of steam and is a living symbol of a time, people and place. Unlike 4468 Mallard, also a Class A4 Pacific locomotive, which sadly resides in ‘dignified slumber’ in the National Railway Museum (Redhead, 2008), Sir Nigel Gresley is a living symbol of railway heritage who continues to operate on and breathe life into our railway network as living storyteller of what it was and is to experience steam travel in Britain.
Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley has a distinct legacy in the industrial heritage of my own community in Yorkshire having been built in Doncaster to work the East Coast Mainline that runs through York, but what gives 60007 the presence that interested me as an illustrator is her loyal supporters and community of enthusiasts the world over. There is a palpable feeling of admiration, and in some ways, otherness, surrounding 60007. Her presence on the tracks embodies the magnificence of a living being and she has an unfailing strength to bring people together; inspiring and elucidating, reminding and creative stories anew.
2025 marked 200 years since the first passenger railways services at the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The bicentennial placed the railways at the forefront of the heritage-engagement landscape and brought rail heritage into the public eye. This presented a once in a generation opportunity to communicate the human benefits of trains through their power to create and recall personal stories, establish communities and give voice to forgotten pasts. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley played a vital role in celebrations up and down the country and was blazing the way for a stronger future for railway heritage. It felt only right that I should focus my active illustration project on a locomotive that continues to play such an active role in the railway heritage landscape, and one that is very close to my heart.
— Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley is a Class A4 Pacific steam locomotive designed by her namesake, Sir Nigel Gresley, and built in 1937 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, for the London North Eastern Railway. The locomotive is historically significant for countless attributes of her speed and design, but what gives this locomotive her unique significance is her continued running on the mainline. She continues to operate on the East Coast Main Line running many of the journeys she was built for in the golden age of steam and is a living symbol of a time, people and place. Unlike 4468 Mallard, also a Class A4 Pacific locomotive, which sadly resides in ‘dignified slumber’ in the National Railway Museum (Redhead, 2008), Sir Nigel Gresley is a living symbol of railway heritage who continues to operate on and breathe life into our railway network as living storyteller of what it was and is to experience steam travel in Britain.
Nº60007 Sir Nigel Gresley has a distinct legacy in the industrial heritage of my own community in Yorkshire having been built in Doncaster to work the East Coast Mainline that runs through York, but what gives 60007 the presence that interested me as an illustrator is her loyal supporters and community of enthusiasts the world over. There is a palpable feeling of admiration, and in some ways, otherness, surrounding 60007. Her presence on the tracks embodies the magnificence of a living being and she has an unfailing strength to bring people together; inspiring and elucidating, reminding and creative stories anew.
2025 marked 200 years since the first passenger railways services at the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The bicentennial placed the railways at the forefront of the heritage-engagement landscape and brought rail heritage into the public eye. This presented a once in a generation opportunity to communicate the human benefits of trains through their power to create and recall personal stories, establish communities and give voice to forgotten pasts. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley played a vital role in celebrations up and down the country and was blazing the way for a stronger future for railway heritage. It felt only right that I should focus my active illustration project on a locomotive that continues to play such an active role in the railway heritage landscape, and one that is very close to my heart.
Abbie Mooney (2025) Railway 200 posters – Collagraph, monoprint and risograph
Recalling the sensory observations of the lived experience, the illustrator experiences the moment for a second time, processing it and reimagining it through material, almost like an interpreter translating the experience into a tactile visual language.
— Your title describes the illustrator as a ‘witness’. What does this mean within your practice, and how can illustration contribute to conversations around heritage and collective memory?
— Recording observations through making allows the illustrator to experience the occasion for a second time. Firstly as a spectator, in this case observing the sound, sight and smell of the locomotive, and secondly, through tactile material observation, translating that moment into print. Recalling the sensory observations of the lived experience, the illustrator experiences the moment for a second time, processing it and reimagining it through material, almost like an interpreter translating the experience into a tactile visual language.
Engaging in making allows for a more intimate encounter with the subject. For 60007, I built a model in collagraph to observe the human hand of engineering behind this icon of the railways. Not dissimilar to making a scale model, I was piecing together a near like for like image, with cut pieces of aluminum and textured tapes to record an illustration that served as a functional printing plate. In carefully observing my own photographs from occasions with this loco, I was processing fine details to build a material response that was accurate to the heritage object. This became an iterative process of revisiting, re-observing and reimaging and ultimately, I relived those moments on the railway time and time again until I had created an illustrated object that was true to the feeling of the moment.
In an exhibition documentary shown at the National Railway Museum which recalls personal connections with the locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman, Sophie Vora described the locomotive as ‘a moving memory machine’ (2023: 2307). For me, it is this inherent power of visual objects to foster memory and meaning that highlights the real value of illustration in our collective memory. The locomotive is a living object, a live illustration of railway heritage and an invitation to remember and make memories anew. To then illustrate, through print or other visual media, those moments on the railways where communities are engaging with locomotives first-hand, takes that illustrative tool and gives it agency to reach outwards into wider audiences and bring what was witnessed into a space for all.
— Recording observations through making allows the illustrator to experience the occasion for a second time. Firstly as a spectator, in this case observing the sound, sight and smell of the locomotive, and secondly, through tactile material observation, translating that moment into print. Recalling the sensory observations of the lived experience, the illustrator experiences the moment for a second time, processing it and reimagining it through material, almost like an interpreter translating the experience into a tactile visual language.
Engaging in making allows for a more intimate encounter with the subject. For 60007, I built a model in collagraph to observe the human hand of engineering behind this icon of the railways. Not dissimilar to making a scale model, I was piecing together a near like for like image, with cut pieces of aluminum and textured tapes to record an illustration that served as a functional printing plate. In carefully observing my own photographs from occasions with this loco, I was processing fine details to build a material response that was accurate to the heritage object. This became an iterative process of revisiting, re-observing and reimaging and ultimately, I relived those moments on the railway time and time again until I had created an illustrated object that was true to the feeling of the moment.
In an exhibition documentary shown at the National Railway Museum which recalls personal connections with the locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman, Sophie Vora described the locomotive as ‘a moving memory machine’ (2023: 2307). For me, it is this inherent power of visual objects to foster memory and meaning that highlights the real value of illustration in our collective memory. The locomotive is a living object, a live illustration of railway heritage and an invitation to remember and make memories anew. To then illustrate, through print or other visual media, those moments on the railways where communities are engaging with locomotives first-hand, takes that illustrative tool and gives it agency to reach outwards into wider audiences and bring what was witnessed into a space for all.
Abbie Mooney, Exhibition display of MA Railway 200 project (2025)
— Can you share with us any inspirational quotes or references?
— ● Laurajane Smith, “‘cultural and social tools in remembering and memory making’” (Uses of Heritage, 2006, p. 196) and “‘Modernity’s concern is with ‘eyewitness’ accounts to document and legitimize the authenticity of memory and meaning’” (Uses of Heritage, 2006, p. 201).
● Rachel Emily Taylor, “‘Illustration (noun) is a tangible outcome’, while ‘Illustrative (verb) is an intangible process’” (Illustration and Heritage, 2024, p. 25).
● Sophie Vohra, “Using the Past to Shape the Future: The Mobilities of Objects and Narratives in the Commemoration of British Railway’s East Coast Main Line”, Mobility Humanities, 1.2 (2022), pp. 117–140.
● David Wray on miners’ galas and banners: galas, marches and parades as part of a “social process”. He acknowledges the idea of the living object through the mining banner: “to some extent, it is as if the banners have gone through some anthropomorphic process and become individuals who possess the collective memory of the community they were created to represent” (International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 76, 2009, p. 162).
— ● Laurajane Smith, “‘cultural and social tools in remembering and memory making’” (Uses of Heritage, 2006, p. 196) and “‘Modernity’s concern is with ‘eyewitness’ accounts to document and legitimize the authenticity of memory and meaning’” (Uses of Heritage, 2006, p. 201).
● Rachel Emily Taylor, “‘Illustration (noun) is a tangible outcome’, while ‘Illustrative (verb) is an intangible process’” (Illustration and Heritage, 2024, p. 25).
● Sophie Vohra, “Using the Past to Shape the Future: The Mobilities of Objects and Narratives in the Commemoration of British Railway’s East Coast Main Line”, Mobility Humanities, 1.2 (2022), pp. 117–140.
● David Wray on miners’ galas and banners: galas, marches and parades as part of a “social process”. He acknowledges the idea of the living object through the mining banner: “to some extent, it is as if the banners have gone through some anthropomorphic process and become individuals who possess the collective memory of the community they were created to represent” (International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 76, 2009, p. 162).
Abbie Mooney on Instagram