British Transport Films Collection

A swift journey across Britain reveals some of the changes taking place under the British Transport Commission's plan for an improved transport system. At Woodhead a century-old tunnel is being replaced by a new one, where a single electric locomotive will soon replace the work of up to four steam engines on the heavy coal trains across the backbone of England. Further north, Argyllshire is the scene of an experiment in a co-ordinated road haulage service. At Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire the marshalling of wagons is being speeded by radio communications; while in Bristol bus operators are analysing the problems of congestion that beset most modern cities. Between Calais and Dover, the Golden Arrow steamer, running into mid-Channel fog, is brought safely into harbour by radar.

After 16 days in traffic, number 73020, a standard Class 5 locomotive, goes back to the sheds for cleaning inside and out and a detailed mechanical check-up. A team of men, each with his special job, sets about the task. The parts are inspected and reassembled. Steam-raising begins again. After vacuum tests by the crew, coal is taken on and water topped up. Then, less than 27 hours after entering the sheds, 73020 is back on duty.

People will always need transport and transport will always need people. Addressed particularly to boys of school-leaving age and to young men completing their military service, this film shows some of the wide variety of careers British transport has to offer, whether in railways or at the docks, on the roads or on the nation's network of canals. The good transport worker, we learn, combines individual initiative with teamwork, and the work of the transport team is vital to the nation.

As the electrification of the line extends from Shenfield to Southend, the last steam train leaves Liverpool Street and stands down to make way for a new stage in modernisation plan for British Railways. Service for Southend shows how it was done and the men who did it.

The forward-looking windows of the new diesel multiple-unit trains reveal a new world of signs, signals and railway sights to those who ride behind the driver - and the children on board are particularly fascinated. This film communicates something of their excitement and wonder as well as some of the wry, unintentional humour with which their pertinent and amusing questions and comments are so often interlarded.

In 1952 the BBC produced a short novelty filler under the title London to Brighton in Four Minutes. Filmed from the front of a train at two frames per seconds and then run at the standard 24, it gave the illusion of a spectacularly high-speed journey. This technique proved so popular with audiences that it was copied many times by other film units. Let's Go to Birmingham was British Transport Films' first attempt. To the accompaniment of Johann Strauss's Perpetuum Mobile, the film speeds the viewer from Paddington to Birmingham Snow Hill in five and a half minutes - at about 960mph! Inside the train, passengers eat and drink, sleep or read, oblivious to the giddy speed at which they seem to travel. Shot from the cab of one of British Railway's new 90mph Diesel Luxury Express Blue Pullmans, this film is a wonderful time capsule from the steam-to-diesel crossover period, as seen from the driver's view.

In 1961 the railways were under close public scrutiny and the House of Commons commissioned several committees to investigate whether and how the network could make money. Alongside the Select Committee report, a unit of businessmen known as the Stedeford Group argued that the railways could and should be run as a commercially profitable undertaking. The solution, in their eyes, was to break up the unwieldy British Transport Commission and put the railways under a board that would be commercially driven and directly responsible to the Transport Minister.

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.

Sheffield is renewing itself, but until recently the city's railway network exemplified the confusion and inefficiency created by competitive railway expansion in Victorian times.Now British Railways has swept away the small depots and the conflicting lines, and has centralised its goods operations in a new freight terminal, a diesel maintenance depot, and on one of the most modern marshalling yards in Europe, providing freight services fit for Sheffield's needs.

Electrification, and the railwaymen of Rugby adopt new methods and use new machines. In this film they tell in their own words of the struggle to adapt to great technological changes. As with seamen and farmers, railwaymen even today remain curiously close to nature - and gain flexibility of mind from the relationship.

The New Tradition shows how the Freight-liner has become integral to the British economy, speeding daily up and down the country carrying goods ranging from royal holiday baggage to fat-stock beef.

Aspects of the precision and drama of locomotive manufacture, composed to form a lively pattern in picture and sound.

Number 12 in the series of films that includes The New Tradition, illustrating commercial and technical developments on British Rail, new freight loads, air-conditioned carriages, and ultrasonic test train for checking the permanent way, a lecture train, and a new station for motorists.

With specially composed music by David Gow and no commentary, Overture: One-Two-Five was the last complete production to be shot on 35mm film by British Transport Films. It was produced to mark the new Inter-City 125 High Speed Train services between Paddington and Bristol. One of the last big budget productions, it was treated to a coat of Technicolor and a theatrical cinema release.