Comprising train and track footage quickly shot just before a heavy winter's snowfall was melting, the multi-award-winning classic that emerged from the cutting-room compresses British Rail's dedication to blizzard-battling into a thrilling eight-minute montage cut to music. Tough-as-boots workers struggling to keep the line clear are counterpointed with passengers' buffet-car comforts.
The British Railways modernisation programme of the 1960s radically changed the rail network, and the British Transport Films unit and the TV news were there to capture it. Compiled here is never before released colour footage of Southern steam at Waterloo (with Nine Elms depot), all the major London stations, The Blue Pullman and early diesels, The Golden Arrow and Night Ferry service, goods and mail, steam on the Metropolitan Railway and building the Victoria Line.
In every industry men still need skill and knowledge, but the addition of a dash of imagination will often mean more pleasure from the job as well as greater efficiency. The film presents four examples: the invention of a ratchet device for turning rails; reshaping worn spanners at a locomotive works; speeding up the replacement of old escalator slats by means of an attachment to a drill; and finally, the thoughtful porter working at a country station who goes out of his way to warn a regular passenger of a change in the timetable.
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.
Twenty-four hours in the story of the British Railways Channel ferryboats, the 'link spans' directly joining the roads and railways of Britain with those of France and all the Continent. The Lord Warden laden with an assortment of road vehicles from Dover, and the Night Ferry from Newhaven carrying passengers bound for Paris, Vienna or Rome are two of the ferries illustrated in this film; and freight is not forgotten.
First transmitted in 1969, this documentary follows the construction of the world’s most advanced underground system. Macdonald Hastings narrates the story of one of the most complex tunnel engineering feats of its time. He reveals the isolation felt by the miners who spent six years burrowing deep beneath the streets of London, shows what they did beneath one of London's most famous department stores and explains why the ground at Tottenham Court Road had to be frozen during the hottest weeks of 1966. The result is a brave new world of transport with automated trains, two way mirrors, automatic fare collection and closed-circuit television, all choreographed by a computer programme played out by an updated version of a pianola located in a control room somewhere near Euston station.
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.
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.
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 re-signalling of 1000 track miles from the River Weaver to the Clyde brings the whole line from London to Glasgow under one system of push-button control and colour light signals, and completes the main line electrification. The film follows the intricate production of equipment, and its installation over, under and between trains. The whole project adds up to a piece of modern technology unsurpassed anywhere in the world.
'Water', says the transport man, 'is lovely stuff' - and the development plan for British Waterways is based on this belief. The film shows parts of the plan in action, then goes to the N.E. Division, where a skipper is taking 110 tons of newsprint from Hull to Nottingham. 'As a drink', says the transport man, 'you may not think much of it. But used like this...'
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.
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.
Lively holiday in Blackpool, with jazz accompaniment.
A British Transport Film.
In a single year, for stores, materials and fuel British Railways must spend one hundred and thirty million pounds. The purchasing, warehousing and distribution of stores on a gigantic scale, the manufacture of some items, the repair of others, the recovery of salvage and the sale of unwanted residues - this is the work of the railway stores department, whose task it is to provide whatever is needed both for maintenance work and for building programmes, and to provide it at the right time, wherever it may be wanted throughout the railway system.
As a training exercise for their apprentice camera operators, British Transport Films used surplus roll end length of film to record the daily lives of their neighbours from the roof of their building Melbury House.
A fond farewell to London's trams - whose peculiarly endearing qualities were discovered only at the threat of their disappearance.
Underlines the importance of waterways as mans of modern transport. Details the way in which the network of waterways covers britain.
The Channel Islands have had a varied and exciting history. Jersey and Guernsey are ideal places for holidays. Jersey offers a wide variety of attractive bays for sport and relaxation; Guernsey still preserves something of an eighteenth-century atmosphere, and is a place for quieter enjoyment. It is an ideal centre for exploring the other smaller islands, and the film ends with a journey by boat to Herm.
