The Train Now Departing - EP 5 Lines of Industry (1988)

The Train Now Departing documentary aired on the BBC in the United Kingdom from 1988-1989. This is the fifth episode in the Series of 6, this episode details the history of steam usage in the industry of Britain.

[@adamquirke6024]

Just the sound of this program is wonderful. My grandad recorded 1 episode of this series for me back in the 90's and I found it fascinating. Think it helped kick off my passion for railways at the age of 4

[@Rogsie-p6l]

Gosh… Gordon Kobish, my old Wellesbourne PE teacher from half a century ago. Almost absolutely wonderful!

[@saltspringrailway3683]

Excellent series.

[@marvwatkins7029]

The brewery loco is particularly ingenious.

[@NewController01]

Amberley Chalk Pits Museum, one place I recommend to many to visit :)

[@chrishampton1981]

A lovely place to visit indeed. I live in Horsham and it's an easy drive to get there

[@alexhando8541]

Of all the episodes. This one is by far the most poignant. Anthony Smith's narration was and remains sublime, and the comments he makes upon the state of transport at the time, and questions around how we preserve our industrial heritage are near-prophetic. But what perhaps makes this episode so striking is the way that it ends. Class 58s on a merry-go-round train at a coal-fired power station, all three practically extinct now. Just as that was the modern way then, like so many railway practices, it has all but disappeared into the shrouds of time, with only writing, drawings and photographs left to show that this method of transport and power-generation existed where they once did. The folk tune (and theme for the programme) "Bare Necessities" plays in the background while the Class 58 slowly pulls its wagons as they drop their coal loads into the conveyers for stockpiling. For me, this is incredibly evocative, almost like a subtle visual metaphor harking back to the earliest days of the railway, where horses hauled coal along waggonways down to the canal wharves, where the coal was dropped down chutes into barges below. Those 58s, just as those horses; strong, slowly-moving beasts of burden, working day-in-day-out.

[@marvwatkins7029]

Love the occasional dry humour of the writer/narrator.

[@philipm1009]

im irish im happy to see there is another example Guinness steam locomotive in England along with it Irish gauge special truck

[@NJPurling]

At just past 4:00 the passenger on the footplate of the Peckett 0-6-0ST looks like the Rev Teddy Boston. He also appears on foottage of the Kettering Furnaces system & their old Black Hawthorn locomotives. He must have been out with Ivo Peters.

[@RiflemanMoore]

They were good friends, Ivo used to visit Cadeby quite regularly I understand.

[@eliotreader8220]

@@aussiepom I understand he was very good at driving steam engines. he was good friends with the rev Wilbert Awdry creator of Thomas the tank engine

[@alanhindmarch4483]

6:00, Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ never worked on the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

[@hoof2001]

The preservation societies need bums on seats (and their fares plus gift shop/cafe takings) to keep them running. I can imagine it’s really difficult to represent the important industrial uses

[@carbidejones5076]

Cheers. Take pride in your past.

[@Oscar-xj1nd]

Rusty is having a nice time

[@timwebster8122]

Ironic the modern views are now history. Class 58s delivering uk mined coal to a power station

[@marvwatkins7029]

'Overheating world': he foresaw global warming and climate change.

[@martin-mi3cg]

Yes, fast forward 35 years and we have indeed lost nearly every cooling tower and coal tip

[@matttredrea2500]

The Train Now Departing - EP 5 Lines of Industry (1988)