All freight movements over Britain's rail network are monitored and controlled by an advanced computer-based system known as TOPS (Total Operations Processing System). The film follows the progress of a wagon load of equipment from Truro to the Midlands and shows how TOPS makes it possible to accommodate a last minute change of plan.
When a schoolboy's day-dream of a fantasy sports day includes events where acts of vandalism and trespass are required, dire consequences ensue. Originally created as an educational film, this somewhat surrealist short has a serious message at its core. This won't be a lesson you'll forget in a hurry.
This fly on the wall-style documentary from 1961 won an Oscar for best documentary, and shows the changing patterns of human emotions during 24 hours in the life of Waterloo Station.
A light and somewhat satirical look at the problems and pleasures of Continental holiday travel. A passenger on the Hook Continental Express from Liverpool St. imagines the possible destinations of his fellow passengers.
Illustrates the reconstruction and electrification of the main railway line between Manchester and Sheffield. Showing the plan for the modernisation and re-equipping of British Railways. This film was produced for televising by the BBC during the evening that the plan was debated in parliament.
Lively holiday in Blackpool, with jazz accompaniment.
Kay Mander kept training and social issues to the fore in the 1940s with her innovative documentaries. Mander, now living in Kirkcudbrightshire, recalls her life and work, with clips from many of her films.
An American couple tour Britain with a teenage girl, visiting London, Canterbury, Cambridge, the West Country, Caernarvon, etc.
A tour of East Anglia, with its waterways and low-lying country.
"Rail" captures British Railways at a major turning-point in its history. In certain respects, this was a period of considerable upheaval and loss. There was a facing-up to the increasing need for a big modernisation drive. Full and speedy electrification, or the wider promotion of diesel-power on remaining lines, became a matter of top priority. Geoffrey Jones recorded a rapidly disappearing world of everyday steam travel, with its labour-intensive rail workforce : some of the footage in "Rail" (recognisable from "Snow") dates from around 1962.
A romantic overview of England in the Elizabethan Age.
Donald Houston plays a Welshman who tells the story of what it's like to live in small town Wales and how the train service helps.
The Peak District waits invitingly within a sixty-mile reach of half the population of England. To this green centre of a great industrial area, the first of the National Parks, holidaymakers come throughout the year to enjoy a wide variety of scenery and of pastimes. Some visitors come to glide, others to go ‘caving’ or climbing, boating or fishing. The lovely surroundings vary from the windy flat tops of heath with their rocky outcrops to the lush, sheltered dales of the Manifold, the Derwent and the Dove; from the simple stone cottages of the quiet villages to the historic architecture of Ashbourne, Bakewell and Buxton, and the great houses of the past like Chatsworth and Haddon Hall.
The Yorkshire Dales - 'from which no traveller wishes to return'. Sheltering under the Pennines, the Dales have escaped the human ravages of time. There is magic here; skysweeping hillsides and weirdly weathered rocks; Wensleydale cheese; ruined abbeys and castles and standing drystone walls; fellracing and potholing, photography, traditional songs and a commentary spoken by Robert Shaw.
Made for senior and middle British Rail management and supervisory staff, to stimulate discussion and provoke action, by alerting them to their responsibilities for staff safety, and the pressing need to reduce accident figures.
Journey into Spring is a 1958 British short documentary film directed by Ralph Keene, and made by British Transport Films. The film -- partly a tribute to the work of the pioneering naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White (1720-1793), author of The Natural History of Selborne -- features a commentary by the poet Laurie Lee, and camerawork by the wildlife cinematographer Patrick Carey. The journey suggested by the title is through time rather than space. In fact, two such journeys are made: the first back to the eighteenth century to pay tribute to the work of White, and the second studies the changing natural landscape near White's home town of Selborne in Hampshire between a typical March and May. It was nominated for two Academy Awards -- one for Best Documentary Short, and the other for Best Live Action Short.
When Joe Miller breaks his ankle on the shop floor, he is sent with some trepidation to the British Railways rehab centre, a cross between a modern gym and an old-school metalwork classroom.
Southampton, a deep-water port with four tides a day, is an ocean terminal for the world's largest liners. Their coming and going, and the people who work with them are the subject of this film as they reflect in their personal lives some of the drama and romance of its situation. Among them are a tug skipper and his crew, a stewardess on a Cape ship, an assistant wharfinger in charge of handling baggage and freight, a taxi driver, and a pilot taking a great liner down Southampton water at night.
The holiday attractions of the Lancashire coast, including a beauty contest in Morecambe, Southport flower show and Blackpool Fun Fair.
Documentary from British Transport Films
