British Transport Films Collection

Forward to First Principles (4x8)

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Railways have existed in Britain for more than 300 years. In the nineteenth century the railway spread across Britain and changed the geography, history, economy and the entire life of the nation but primitive lines had already been moving coal and other minerals from the pits and quarries up navigable water and roads. This film scans the present and the past to show how these economic principles that governed the early railways have been rediscovered as a basis for modern freight trains.