This is the most beautiful, and poignant, ode to railways I've seen. The production and direction, to have covered such a wealth of trades, from upholstering, to victualing, scheduling, signalling and driving, are masterful.
As one who travelled annually on The Elizabethan and its predecessor The Capitals Limited from 1948 for at least eight years, I found this short movie very nostalgic, especially as one of my trips included a trip up the train and through the tender for a half hour on the footplate of Kingfisher (60024) travelling at 90 mph or so. It's all very much as I remember it, including the livery of the dining car attendants and the taxis waiting at Waverley Station! Thank you for posting the movie!
The days of stuff you saw are long gone. I wish we had that what you had in North America. Our Amtrak services are sporadic and unreliable whereas you guys have been running 99% reliable high speed 100 mile an hour services since the mid 1970s.
The sound, the smell of steam/oil/smoke, and the elegance of a steam locomotive is magnificent. I come from that time, as a boy, counting coal trucks, and collecting numbers. The work was labour intensive and hard, involving many men of many trades, at all hours of the day and night, in foul and good weather, but still even for that, wonderful. No deisel can evoke such passion as a steam locomotive in full flight. Just look at Silver Fox go through her paces, with that special siren whistle. You needed skill and experience to operate one of these locos. Not just a switch! No just chucking coal into the firebox, there is an art to it, and only correct placement and quantity will raise the required steam pressure. Drivers too, had to be on their toes with signals, and control of the engine in all weathers, be it day or night. My grandfathers both were steam engine drivers, one uncle senior instructor at BR, three other uncles firemen, and one uncle top link engine driver on the expresses out of Euston. The A4 Class Silver Fox, seen here on the Elizabethan none stop service, was a top link beauty of an engine as were the Princess Coronation Class locos out of Euston. If steam had continued, this is definitely what I would be doing right now! Steam, it is in my blood!! Just watching this film shows you why every boy wanted to be a loco driver. I miss this time!!
Only the wonderful English can add such beautiful language to this film. The excellent skills of these workers and their pride in their craft is apparent and sadly disappearing. 🇺🇸
A beautiful and profoundly moving little film that depicts an era much better than now in which people rose to challenges and took pride in what they did, no matter how humble.
Yeah i agree. These people working are the silent generation, the ones who fought the war, sadly not many of them left now. Really the saying the past is a foreign place springs to mind.
My parents were war generation people who took pride in their work and lived their lives around the money they actually earned. Today the attitude is totally different, the salary comes first and the job a very very distant second!!
Yes indeed! Hard- working, dignified people who could not even imagine what kind of absolute garbage their country would have turned into in just a generation- time !!!!
Young lads watching trains and being invited sometimes on to the footplate were a real encouragement to youth, I remember working at Euston in the early 1970s and reproving other porters for telling such people to 'clear off'. Then even in recent times I wanted a platform ticket to see a relative off and was told I was "not allowed on the platform for health and safety reasons"! What happened to some of us 'in authority' over the course of my lifetime?
Mister Mungo had a tough job. Excellent video. Love the poetry. The 1950's were a better, simpler time. I was 10 yrs old in 1954 and had the opportunity to experience those old locos at Union Station in Columbus Ohio. The steam, acrid smoke and the sounds are memories I will take to my grave.
Those station scenes reminded me so much of the early 1950's travelling with my parents and brothers to a holiday destination in Wales. The smell, the grime, soot and steam.
I used to stand on the footbridge at Cheddington and breathe the coal smoke. No way would I do this for a diesel! The smoke was like a perfume...nobody understands me when I mention this now!
I really enjoyed the video, from an era when the railway was high in society where pride and service were the priority, people showed respect and the trains efficiently run, before privatisation and crew reductions...The poetry narration was well done, great photography, a splendid effort in all and thank you.
If I could travel back in time I’d put myself on this train, can’t imagine how amazing travel like this must’ve been, seeing a different era is so magic Love being on the footplate, about 3 years ago for my 21st birthday I did a driving experience at the Great Central Railway honestly it was fantastic.
A marvellous film.Great Narration.Remarkable photography and editing.Mainly a a fabulous theme.So much hard work and team work goes in to run a prestigious train faultlessly.A nostalgic and admirable film indeed.
Can I just put in a word for Paul Le Saux who wrote the commentary.? It fits perfectly with Jimmy Ritchie's photography . I worked for BTF in its final years and have great respect for the unit. The camera department under the leadership of Ron Craigen, a consummate technician, had three cinematographers of which Jimmy Ritchie was the greatest, although the other two Billy Williams and David Watkin did pretty well after leaving BTF, both winning Oscars for Gandhi and Out of Africa respectively. Times have now moved on and in the age of the selfie films like those produced at BTF will never be made today.
Hey Bogglesham;with all this inside info on these brilliant film people what you should do is write a book on this subject.Fascinating stuff,well done.
Absolutely smashing! It isn't merely the train that is nostalgic, the scenery, dirty environment and people play their part. I reckon we were better off post-war than we are now?...
Mm I often ruefully wonder if the good old days were as good as I choose to think of them..but time does not stand still .our lose of good slucution and expressing our slves in the way of great orators such as the narrator of this wonderful film We are to blame for the disappearance of or verbal culture which serves as a aural balsaminour crude hi tech world.
It's wonderful how these films have become important social documents. Beautifully filmed by a unit that knew how to make a film. Whilst they may be great social documents today there sole purpose then was to get people onto trains and buses, they were commercials, pure and simple. I believe the unit had a couple of days with Silver Fox, there's a moment in the workshops when another A4 was featured but has a well positioned coat covering up the locomotives number as this wasn't 60017. There is often much criticism of the 'dated, rhyming commentary' but I love it, Paul Le Saux, the writer created a masterpiece and his words crop up in many BTF films.
Great video, brought back memories of steam train travel when I was a kid. LMS line from Sheffield, Thames Clyde Express, Master Cutler etc. Thank you.
I recently saw some rather sad photos of Silver Fox in the 1960's awaiting scrap and already with some bits stripped off. What a magnificent locomotive she looks here.
Interesting to think that the locomotive was named for the Silver Jubilee of King George V, and the service was named for Queen Elizabeth II. There had been two other monarchs in the intervening period!
How nice to watch these images of a time gone by..... I can stil get carried away by this picture.... being 60 years of age I can stil connect.... younger people probably can’t anymore.... grown up in an also technical world.... but a digital one.... mechanical perfection is taken for granted by now... Greetings from the Netherlands,thanks ever so much for this vid!!!!
Amazing BTF film my little boy 4 yrs old makes us put this on at least twice a day. Bless him he loves A4's I really don't know where he gets it from apart from Spencer on Thomas The Tank Engine.. I remembered this film as a child and searhed it on here. Vastly underrated and what amazing dialogue and music, great film and thanks for uploading
Less miles of track, many more layers of management, thousands of computers, no integrated and passenger friendly timetables, un - affordable ticket prices, uncomfortable seats, no parcels service, unstaffed and unsafe stations, no "Ladies'" rooms, no buffet service, mobile phone racket everywhere, disgusting toilets, no sense of corporate responsibility or ethos of providing quality service, many fewer sleeper trains, no overnight trains - and all provided by rude and surly staff - if you can find any of them. Progress!!
If amtrash could make it four hours late it would be triumph. The guberment regulates the unsubsidized railroads, then demands priority usage for their overpriced, poorly staffed, attempt at passenger railroading --- Sorry, our extended trains, to eff the unions and crews won't fit in the hole -- the guberments passenger trains will have to wait
Tony Thompson was married to my Granny's sister. Died quite young - I never met him. I've tried to find him on the internet before without luck. And now suddenly - I can see the film he was most known for. For some reason the version on the BFI site is cut short at 15 minutes.
I wish I was in the 1950s. Everything seems so elegant and the post war economy was booming. Everyone was not staring constantly at their smartphones. They appreciated the world, they talked, they laughed. I feel like a man out of my time.
^^^ this I get that people have a lot of nostalgia about the past even for when you weren’t even alive but the world is just as shitty and problematic as it ever was
The asbestos was in the air, the lead in the pipes and paint and petrol, medicine was significantly less advanced, you could be arrested for being gay, you could be had much less chance at upward mobility in society, you couldn't yet dream of a holiday abroad really, you'd have to breath everyone elses ciggy smoke and everyone showered much less so enjoy the stink. Truly you'd get there and be crying to come back in about 20 minutes.
A brilliant documentary of the Elizabethan and the Silver Fox and her expert crews . Most people never see how hard a train driver and his fireman actually had to work.
A beautiful piece of film. It takes me back to a time when skilled people were plentiful and we knew how to make things. Either the staff in the film were old or just looked it. There's no substitute experience.
Yes, the loco crews on the most prestigious trains would be the oldest/most experienced crews, having worked their way up from cleaner, fireman, to driver, and then from doing local work and goods trains to doing the major expresses.
@@RJSRdg By the time a driver made it to the Top Link, he wouldn't be far off retirement age. There was nothing about the game he didn't know by then - as you say, experience is everything. And unlike today, in steam days we even had 'star' drivers: the Hooles, Sparshatts, and such like. Days long, long gone.
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?” ― Tennessee Williams.....
The engine was Silver Fox, LNER class A4, the fourth built in that series of engines where Mallard was the most famous one. Built on 18 December 1935, she was withdrawn on 20 October 1963. She achieved 113 mph in 1936. Unfortunately, she was not preserved. Legendary 2512.
@@philipkay8116 2509 (60014) was the most important British locomotive to succumb to the cutter's torch. 112mph twice on her maiden run on 27th September 1935, and 70 miles at an average of 100 or more. The high speed train was born on that day. It was a tragedy that the locomotive was lost.
Hi Mike. C/O R&G and Trevor. What a wonderful film. Think it's set in the 50s before Dr. Richard Beeching destroyed our railways. How brilliant seeing the A4 in all its glory. Made me laugh with all the smokers, one guy almost dropped his ash in his tea.😄 Thanks Rob and Grace and Trevor for sharing this wonderful film of our great past. Thing is I was almost there. Wow I'm old.😒 Thumbs up thumped 👍 Have a wonderful new year guys.🍾🍾 .... Pete and Su....
What a grand Railway Information Film one of many produced by British Transport Films. Alan Wheatley, one of the speakers, was an Actor who appeared in The Adventures of Robin Hood as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I particularly liked the comment about the experience of dining on a train depends on the state of the track. Travelling at speed on a narrow gauge track always produces a rocking motion even at the best of times. I remember travelling on an express from Bath to London in the 1960s. I had missed lunch and was famished so I decided to eat on board. A student grant didnt run to a banquet so I settled on mushroom soup and a bread roll. As the train picked up speed it started rocking wildly. I watched fascinated as the waiter with my soup came staggering from side to side down the aisle with the plate adeptly held aloft in one hand, using the other to steady himself. He arrived at the table and stood swaying for a moment while he judged the best moment to place the plate on the table. Which he did with a fast deft movement. Of course the minute the plate hit the table the soup sloshed from side to side and within seconds there was soup all over the place. Just enough left on the plate for me to wipe up with my bread roll 😂
I have read his book 48 years on the footplate, Roland Ruffell, he has a bench named after him at Levisham station on the north Yorkshire moors railway.
An absolute favourite, every time I see it. I love the rhymes. It is such a joy to see how we used to live. Again I watch and listen in December 2024. When this advertising piece was created I doubt they thought it would last so well.
At least the last of the original "Silver" lot of Sir Horace Nigel Gresley's creations gets a bit of what it is due: "The speed of a grey hound, the strength of a boar!"
@@paullubliner6221 Yeah definitely!! A4’s…shame I don’t remember them, however had the pleasure of travelling behind 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley on the NYMR. Brilliant locomotives
@@danielanderson2331 If you sarted as a cleaner in your teens pre-war, you might make it to top link driver by your 50s and only then be qualified to drive the train in the above video.
Saw this one last year...absolutely absorbing, super film. A4 Pacific Silver Fox...what a beast :) The only things that stood out, were the signal box levers being pulled with no towel, and unwrapped food being loaded on the train, poultry above cakes...horrendously dangerous if it was uncooked.
In 2019 when we thought the union of South Africa boiler ticket was up, I travelled to the ELR autumn steam gala. It was supposed to be the last time and on the last train of the day as she piloted the last train of the day, I pretty much receited this word for word in the carriage behind! Brilliant!! And that hooter!!
wonderfully preserved film! would be fun to see a contemporary (2020) version of the same train line. It'd probably have to be a satire though. 66 years later the landscape and the service will have changed considerably.
The film would be three minutes long. All the b roll of the station and then "we are sorry to announce that the 09:30 LNER service to Edinburgh has been cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable
They were tough cookies all right in them days! I think I saw this back about 1980 at a WLLR film night in a pub in Llanfair Caereinion when I was a volunteer there, and it's really great to see it again! Thanks for posting.
When I was a youngster, in the 1950s, I sort of assumed that the fireman popped a bit of coal on from time to time. After all, that’s what we did at home on the living room fire! How wrong I was. The fireman is actually shovelling coal on and off for the entire journey and placing it across the firebed floor and adjusting the fire door angle to get steam when it’s needed and not when it isn’t. It’s a precision that deserves enormous respect. There’s an instructional film on UA-cam about how the smoke leaving the chimney tells you all about the fireman’s role and how he knows wether he’s getting it right or not: ua-cam.com/video/6QwfBCDZqxY/v-deo.html
My husband started as a fireman at Toton yard in 1962 way before I was born in 1973. He had muscles and built like a brick wall back then. He is 74 now and still recalls the early days. He trained as a driver and spent 40 years on passenger and freight but later on passenger which is where I met him 22 years ago. We've been married nearly 2 years now
Hi Brian, Yes, I've seen that instructional film on UA-cam. What dreadful graphics! Just imagine those LMS employees in their MICs (Mutual Improvement Classes) loyally watching this kind of film and taking it all in. What an inspiring bunch of real men - men's men.
@@terinasargeant138 Hello Terina. I'm so sorry, I missed seeing your reply until now. Your husband sounds wonderful. In hindsight, I wish I had worked on the railways. He sounds like the sort of man I would love to chat with. It would be great to hear about life on the footplate. I'm 75 so he and I (and you?) are a of the same generation, We grew up through the 1950s. I wish you every happiness together.
"Watch fireman mungo doing his stuff" . Taking water at high speed was a skilled job so I am told. Lowering the scoop too early would damage the troughs, and not getting it up quick enough would cause the tender filler cap to overflow causing the first two coaches to get a soaking and anybody else sat inside that had windows open!.
48firefox That happened to me in September 1961. 5:00 PM from Newcastle to Kings Cross. Behind Sir Nigel Gresley at 95 MPH south of Darlington, I was standing in the doorway of the lead coach, the door window was open. Suddenly I was drenched as the loco picked up water from the troughs. Of course, my mates in the lead compartment almost died laughing. I worked for British Railways in those days travelling many thousands of miles behind steam loco's. I could tell many tales, for example 80 MPH behind 92113 between Church Fenton and York. w
As a boy travelling from London to Edinburgh for summer hols to visit family with mum and dad this brings back happy memories. But one in particular was the scene where they pick up water.... I was looking out of an open window when we hit the water trough.... gota bit wet. So into the toilet with dad to get dry and a small wash.... 😁
I think we all do. Purely because rather than seeing it as old film with bad audio and no colour like this, it would look exactly like it does now. It's hard to believe.
Wouldn't be able to do that kind of thing today unless you have a ticket as most stations now have those prison style automatic ticket barriers. I truly believe they are there to restrict your freedoms and movements and it's nothing to do with checking whether you're ticket is legit. Walk into any big station today and the feeling of oppression is evident.
Oh the nostalgia of it all.... The short back & sides, the dollops of Brilcreme. Weights cigarettes and cough. The pre-computer office, where pen & paper ruled the day. But more than anything.......the pre-immigrant England.
I was taken by the scenes as the train departed Kings Cross. So many well-wishers waving goodbye to the passengers. Not something that happens any more, sadly.
@@geoffcrisp7225 Almost certainly they would have been in the services (WWII wasn't long previously, and we still had conscription), so the polished shoes would have been habit.
A stark (factual) reminder of how railway development has unfolded over the decades since this classic film was made The distance by train between London Kings Cross and Waverley Stations is approx 575km, which in 1954 took 6 hours plus non-stop (according to the film's narrative) Today, the approx same journey (distance) takes just under 4 hours 30 mins Compare that with France where a journey from Gare Montparnasse in Paris to Bordeaux St. Jean, distance approx 545km, can be made in just 2 hours 5mins! It seems dear old blighty has been left behind, firmly in the slow lane!
...and here in Japan, the roughly same distance between Tokyo and Nagoya takes 1 hour and 40 minutes with the Shinkansen. When it becomes this fast, it makes it possible to make a business trip in a day and still have enough hours to meet with colleagues or customers and leave and reach home at reasonable hours. The travelling times are to be shortened greatly more when the Linear Shinkansen comes into service. Yes, "dear old blighty" has been left behind. Way behind.
London to Edinburgh non-stop must be one of the longest non-stop train schedules of all time. Amtrak tried a non-stop New York to Washington train once, but that was electric power, and the distance was 100 miles shorter than Kings Cross to Waverly. Santa Fe once entrusted passenger trains from La Junta, CO to Los Angeles, CA, over 1,100 miles, behind a single 4-8-4 locomotive, but that wasn't non-stop. The New York Central's 20th Century Limited ran non-stop from Chicago to Buffalo (westbound) and Toledo to Albany (eastbound) as far as the pampered passengers were concerned, but it stopped several times during the night to change crews. The special tenders that allowed crews to be changed while the train was moving were unique, or at least rare, in the steam era.
Both my grandfather and uncle were steam locomotive drivers working out of dawshom sheds maryhill Glasgow I started in the railway with BR as a fireman 1974 sadly I missed the steam days but I had my uncle as my driver on the diesels and he told me all about the steam days when we worked at eastfield traction depot springburn Glasgow just wish I could have worked a steam locomotive
My Dad and grandad where both steam drivers , Grandad never drove diesels , Dad liked steam but wouldn't have gone back to steam ,said they were dirty old things to drive / fire . I have worked 37 years on railways maintaining freight locos shunting and yard driving , now my youngest daughter is a driver , got few runs out with here on class 60's 66's "now on passenger ) . Was nice for my dad to see her driving before he passed away 5 years ago
How civilised! Tea in a real cup and a proper meal service. Also a bar and compartments too! First class rail has moved backwards - certainly by Cross Country.
Such well spoken narration. I wish people still spoke like that today.
Well said Sir
It sounds like actor Alan Wheatley.
We have fallen. Very low.
I agree
@@colinmcnab6145 19:12
This is the most beautiful, and poignant, ode to railways I've seen. The production and direction, to have covered such a wealth of trades, from upholstering, to victualing, scheduling, signalling and driving, are masterful.
Terminus is another gem.
Recall the beehives being on the roof of Waterloo station when I joined the Southern!
One of the absolute best of post war docos. Genius work.
As one who travelled annually on The Elizabethan and its predecessor The Capitals Limited from 1948 for at least eight years, I found this short movie very nostalgic, especially as one of my trips included a trip up the train and through the tender for a half hour on the footplate of Kingfisher (60024) travelling at 90 mph or so. It's all very much as I remember it, including the livery of the dining car attendants and the taxis waiting at Waverley Station! Thank you for posting the movie!
What an absolute privilege to be on that footplate.
90mph. Surely no way
90+was coman in steam days .I know I was a loco fireman in the 1950s at 26c Bolton.
ua-cam.com/video/XsMBEJ7DA-g/v-deo.html 1976 Cegléd
The days of stuff you saw are long gone. I wish we had that what you had in North America. Our Amtrak services are sporadic and unreliable whereas you guys have been running 99% reliable high speed 100 mile an hour services since the mid 1970s.
The sound, the smell of steam/oil/smoke, and the elegance of a steam locomotive is magnificent. I come from that time, as a boy, counting coal trucks, and collecting numbers. The work was labour intensive and hard, involving many men of many trades, at all hours of the day and night, in foul and good weather, but still even for that, wonderful. No deisel can evoke such passion as a steam locomotive in full flight. Just look at Silver Fox go through her paces, with that special siren whistle. You needed skill and experience to operate one of these locos. Not just a switch! No just chucking coal into the firebox, there is an art to it, and only correct placement and quantity will raise the required steam pressure. Drivers too, had to be on their toes with signals, and control of the engine in all weathers, be it day or night. My grandfathers both were steam engine drivers, one uncle senior instructor at BR, three other uncles firemen, and one uncle top link engine driver on the expresses out of Euston. The A4 Class Silver Fox, seen here on the Elizabethan none stop service, was a top link beauty of an engine as were the Princess Coronation Class locos out of Euston. If steam had continued, this is definitely what I would be doing right now! Steam, it is in my blood!! Just watching this film shows you why every boy wanted to be a loco driver. I miss this time!!
That was so well put! :D ~Cindy! :)
Mr. Moggyman, what year were you born? Your comment is wonderful.
👌👌👌❤️
Thanks for that. A rare gem on here.
I agree but still very inefficient 3% - 7%. Still lovely though, especially with a good dose of dear John Betjamin.
Only the wonderful English can add such beautiful language to this film. The excellent skills of these workers and their pride in their craft is apparent and sadly disappearing. 🇺🇸
That world is long gone , sadly, and not only in Britain!!
I first viewed this film at a NRHS chapter meeting in the 1970s. It never gets old.
A beautiful and profoundly moving little film that depicts an era much better than now in which people rose to challenges and took pride in what they did, no matter how humble.
Absolutely
Yeah i agree. These people working are the silent generation, the ones who fought the war, sadly not many of them left now. Really the saying the past is a foreign place springs to mind.
My parents were war generation people who took pride in their work and lived their lives around the money they actually earned.
Today the attitude is totally different, the salary comes first and the job a very very distant second!!
Yes indeed! Hard- working, dignified people who could not even imagine what kind of absolute garbage their country would have turned into in just a generation- time !!!!
Young lads watching trains and being invited sometimes on to the footplate were a real encouragement to youth, I remember working at Euston in the early 1970s and reproving other porters for telling such people to 'clear off'. Then even in recent times I wanted a platform ticket to see a relative off and was told I was "not allowed on the platform for health and safety reasons"! What happened to some of us 'in authority' over the course of my lifetime?
Mister Mungo had a tough job. Excellent video. Love the poetry.
The 1950's were a better, simpler time.
I was 10 yrs old in 1954 and had the opportunity to experience those old locos at Union Station in Columbus Ohio. The steam, acrid smoke and the sounds are memories I will take to my grave.
Those station scenes reminded me so much of the early 1950's travelling with my parents and brothers to a holiday destination in Wales. The smell, the grime, soot and steam.
Agreed - the open concourse shots being Victoria (Eastern side)!
I used to stand on the footbridge at Cheddington and breathe the coal smoke. No way would I do this for a diesel! The smoke was like a perfume...nobody understands me when I mention this now!
at 84 yrs this brought out emotional feelings. thank you
I really enjoyed the video, from an era when the railway was high in society where pride and service were the priority, people showed respect and the trains efficiently run, before privatisation and crew reductions...The poetry narration was well done, great photography, a splendid effort in all and thank you.
If I could travel back in time I’d put myself on this train, can’t imagine how amazing travel like this must’ve been, seeing a different era is so magic
Love being on the footplate, about 3 years ago for my 21st birthday I did a driving experience at the Great Central Railway honestly it was fantastic.
A marvellous film.Great Narration.Remarkable photography and editing.Mainly a a fabulous theme.So much hard work and team work goes in to run a prestigious train faultlessly.A nostalgic and admirable film indeed.
Can I just put in a word for Paul Le Saux who wrote the commentary.? It fits perfectly with Jimmy Ritchie's photography . I worked for BTF in its final years and have great respect for the unit. The camera department under the leadership of Ron Craigen, a consummate technician, had three cinematographers of which Jimmy Ritchie was the greatest, although the other two Billy Williams and David Watkin did pretty well after leaving BTF, both winning Oscars for Gandhi and Out of Africa respectively. Times have now moved on and in the age of the selfie films like those produced at BTF will never be made today.
I'm *_Charles_** Potter's* son.
Hey Bogglesham;with all this inside info on these brilliant film people what you should do is write a book on this subject.Fascinating stuff,well done.
Absolutely smashing! It isn't merely the train that is nostalgic, the scenery, dirty environment and people play their part. I reckon we were better off post-war than we are now?...
Mm I often ruefully wonder if the good old days were as good as I choose to think of them..but time does not stand still .our lose of good slucution and expressing our slves in the way of great orators such as the narrator of this wonderful film
We are to blame for the disappearance of or verbal culture which serves as a aural balsaminour crude hi tech world.
It's wonderful how these films have become important social documents. Beautifully filmed by a unit that knew how to make a film. Whilst they may be great social documents today there sole purpose then was to get people onto trains and buses, they were commercials, pure and simple. I believe the unit had a couple of days with Silver Fox, there's a moment in the workshops when another A4 was featured but has a well positioned coat covering up the locomotives number as this wasn't 60017. There is often much criticism of the 'dated, rhyming commentary' but I love it, Paul Le Saux, the writer created a masterpiece and his words crop up in many BTF films.
In actual fact, No17 was rarely used on the non-stop.
Great video, brought back memories of steam train travel when I was a kid. LMS line from Sheffield, Thames Clyde Express, Master Cutler etc. Thank you.
This film deserves some sort of an award!
I recently saw some rather sad photos of Silver Fox in the 1960's awaiting scrap and already with some bits stripped off. What a magnificent locomotive she looks here.
She sure is magnificent. Every single time i see photo of A4 at the scrapyard my heart aches, but when i see Silver Fox there, i always shed a tear.
Interesting to think that the locomotive was named for the Silver Jubilee of King George V, and the service was named for Queen Elizabeth II. There had been two other monarchs in the intervening period!
She would have looked even more magnificent in the original silver/grey colour scheme.
Absolute sacrilege to send a living breathing machine like the silver fox to scrap
How nice to watch these images of a time gone by..... I can stil get carried away by this picture.... being 60 years of age I can stil connect.... younger people probably can’t anymore.... grown up in an also technical world.... but a digital one.... mechanical perfection is taken for granted by now...
Greetings from the Netherlands,thanks ever so much for this vid!!!!
An entire documentary done completely in limericks? This is clearly something magical.
Amazing BTF film my little boy 4 yrs old makes us put this on at least twice a day. Bless him he loves A4's I really don't know where he gets it from apart from Spencer on Thomas The Tank Engine.. I remembered this film as a child and searhed it on here. Vastly underrated and what amazing dialogue and music, great film and thanks for uploading
I just love the poetry that this is set to...heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time..
*engine oil in saliva left the chat* but the rest is true
Wow! Quite a production. Well shot and edited. Love the B&W photography.
1954: We're going to be 4 mins late on a 6.5 hr journey - disaster!
2020: We're going to be 4 mins late on a 6.5 hr journey - triumph!
True haha
2021: We're going to be 3 minutes late on a 4.5 hour journey- success!
1954: We're going to be 3 minutes late on a 4.5 hour journey- failure!
Less miles of track, many more layers of management, thousands of computers, no integrated and passenger friendly timetables, un - affordable ticket prices, uncomfortable seats, no parcels service, unstaffed and unsafe stations, no "Ladies'" rooms, no buffet service, mobile phone racket everywhere, disgusting toilets, no sense of corporate responsibility or ethos of providing quality service, many fewer sleeper trains, no overnight trains - and all provided by rude and surly staff - if you can find any of them. Progress!!
If amtrash could make it four hours late it would be triumph.
The guberment regulates the unsubsidized railroads, then demands priority usage for their overpriced, poorly staffed, attempt at passenger railroading ---
Sorry, our extended trains, to eff the unions and crews won't fit in the hole -- the guberments passenger trains will have to wait
i missed a train in switzerland cos i was 1 minute late...
Tony Thompson was married to my Granny's sister. Died quite young - I never met him. I've tried to find him on the internet before without luck. And now suddenly - I can see the film he was most known for. For some reason the version on the BFI site is cut short at 15 minutes.
I wish I was in the 1950s. Everything seems so elegant and the post war economy was booming. Everyone was not staring constantly at their smartphones. They appreciated the world, they talked, they laughed. I feel like a man out of my time.
A different world but it's only one or two generations ago. My mother used to get on a steam train to school in the 1960s
Nostalgia isn't reality, the world was just as shitty in the 1950s.
^^^ this
I get that people have a lot of nostalgia about the past even for when you weren’t even alive but the world is just as shitty and problematic as it ever was
The asbestos was in the air, the lead in the pipes and paint and petrol, medicine was significantly less advanced, you could be arrested for being gay, you could be had much less chance at upward mobility in society, you couldn't yet dream of a holiday abroad really, you'd have to breath everyone elses ciggy smoke and everyone showered much less so enjoy the stink.
Truly you'd get there and be crying to come back in about 20 minutes.
Cheer up you miserable sod....
A brilliant documentary of the Elizabethan and the Silver Fox and her expert crews . Most people never see how hard a train driver and his fireman actually had to work.
A beautiful piece of film. It takes me back to a time when skilled people were plentiful and we knew how to make things. Either the staff in the film were old or just looked it. There's no substitute experience.
Yes, the loco crews on the most prestigious trains would be the oldest/most experienced crews, having worked their way up from cleaner, fireman, to driver, and then from doing local work and goods trains to doing the major expresses.
@@RJSRdg By the time a driver made it to the Top Link, he wouldn't be far off retirement age. There was nothing about the game he didn't know by then - as you say, experience is everything. And unlike today, in steam days we even had 'star' drivers: the Hooles, Sparshatts, and such like. Days long, long gone.
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?” ― Tennessee Williams.....
The engine was Silver Fox, LNER class A4, the fourth built in that series of engines where Mallard was the most famous one. Built on 18 December 1935, she was withdrawn on 20 October 1963. She achieved 113 mph in 1936. Unfortunately, she was not preserved. Legendary 2512.
Interesting info of A4 class. I was lucky enough when I was aged 6 to travel on The Union of South Africa twice now fortunately preserved.
Silver Link
Silver King
Quicksilver
Silver Fox
Built for the Silver Jubilee train.
@@philipkay8116 2509 (60014) was the most important British locomotive to succumb to the cutter's torch. 112mph twice on her maiden run on 27th September 1935, and 70 miles at an average of 100 or more. The high speed train was born on that day. It was a tragedy that the locomotive was lost.
Hi Mike. C/O R&G and Trevor.
What a wonderful film.
Think it's set in the 50s before Dr. Richard Beeching destroyed our railways.
How brilliant seeing the A4 in all its glory.
Made me laugh with all the smokers, one guy almost dropped his ash in his tea.😄
Thanks Rob and Grace and Trevor for sharing this wonderful film of our great past.
Thing is I was almost there. Wow I'm old.😒
Thumbs up thumped 👍
Have a wonderful new year guys.🍾🍾
.... Pete and Su....
What a grand Railway Information Film one of many produced by British Transport Films. Alan Wheatley, one of the speakers, was an Actor who appeared in The Adventures of Robin Hood as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I particularly liked the comment about the experience of dining on a train depends on the state of the track. Travelling at speed on a narrow gauge track always produces a rocking motion even at the best of times. I remember travelling on an express from Bath to London in the 1960s. I had missed lunch and was famished so I decided to eat on board.
A student grant didnt run to a banquet so I settled on mushroom soup and a bread roll.
As the train picked up speed it started rocking wildly. I watched fascinated as the waiter with my soup came staggering from side to side down the aisle with the plate adeptly held aloft in one hand, using the other to steady himself.
He arrived at the table and stood swaying for a moment while he judged the best moment to place the plate on the table. Which he did with a fast deft movement. Of course the minute the plate hit the table the soup sloshed from side to side and within seconds there was soup all over the place.
Just enough left on the plate for me to wipe up with my bread roll 😂
Unbelievable looking at them tapping in those shims, and having machine shops to refine the running parts - yes, I don't know what they are all named.
what a lovely non fictional film made during the age of steam. I remember watching this just before I
went off to College back in 2012
I have read his book 48 years on the footplate, Roland Ruffell, he has a bench named after him at Levisham station on the north Yorkshire moors
railway.
An absolute favourite, every time I see it. I love the rhymes. It is such a joy to see how we used to live.
Again I watch and listen in December 2024. When this advertising piece was created I doubt they thought it would last so well.
A true master piece of filmography
Wonderful. The station master's top hat at the end is the icing on the cake.
Nice commentary in form of poetry.
Thanks Mikeknell.
My grandpa (standing) at exactly 1 minute into the film. Donald Bolton was his name. Great man, interesting railway career and lovely grandpa. ❤
How can one to miss something that never had? I do not know... but I know I miss that time... Thanks for post.
Another class British Transport Film.
A first rate film that is always a real joy to watch even including the opening concourse sequence filmed at Victoria (Eastern Section). 🙂
Why not King's Cross, the Elizabethan's actual terminus?
@@esmeephillips5888 Presumably BTF were just asked for a terminus shot, and this was already to hand.
The narration is positively poetic.
How proud must any relative/descendant of the footplate crew must be. Such a responsible job, but so little recognition
At least the last of the original "Silver" lot of Sir Horace Nigel Gresley's creations gets a bit of what it is due:
"The speed of a grey hound, the strength of a boar!"
@@paullubliner6221 Yeah definitely!! A4’s…shame I don’t remember them, however had the pleasure of travelling behind 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley on the NYMR. Brilliant locomotives
If I could travel back in time and do any job it’d be driving an A4 along the East Coast mainline to Edinburgh
Yes, my dad was a fitter at King's X for 35 year's, 1945-80
@@danielanderson2331 If you sarted as a cleaner in your teens pre-war, you might make it to top link driver by your 50s and only then be qualified to drive the train in the above video.
Saw this one last year...absolutely absorbing, super film. A4 Pacific Silver Fox...what a beast :) The only things that stood out, were the signal box levers being pulled with no towel, and unwrapped food being loaded on the train, poultry above cakes...horrendously dangerous if it was uncooked.
First Class and entertaining documentary. Thank you. I well remember those halcyon days.
In 2019 when we thought the union of South Africa boiler ticket was up, I travelled to the ELR autumn steam gala. It was supposed to be the last time and on the last train of the day as she piloted the last train of the day, I pretty much receited this word for word in the carriage behind! Brilliant!! And that hooter!!
Wow, two years before I was born. Totally different times. Beautiful train. 👍😊
This was just great when I was a boy the engine I had was called the silver king Hornby I think thanks for posting
Ein wunderbarer Bericht. Und alles in Versform vorgetragen. TOLL !!!
Da stimme ich Ihnen zu! Und zu den Kommentaren: Heute überall die gleichen Probleme wie bei der Deutschen Bahn...
My uncle drove Q1s at Feltham Yard…….he always said it was bloody hard work pushing trucks up the hump.
Fantastic movie, I subscribed this very interesting channel, cheers Fabrizio
wonderfully preserved film! would be fun to see a contemporary (2020) version of the same train line. It'd probably have to be a satire though. 66 years later the landscape and the service will have changed considerably.
And the worse, Silver Fox is no more.
The film would be three minutes long. All the b roll of the station and then "we are sorry to announce that the 09:30 LNER service to Edinburgh has been cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable
Congratulations.
So nice and beautiful video.
The Narrator is Brilliant. Takes advantage whenever he can rhyme.
They were tough cookies all right in them days! I think I saw this back about 1980 at a WLLR film night in a pub in Llanfair Caereinion when I was a volunteer there, and it's really great to see it again! Thanks for posting.
Those evenings in “The Black” were legendary!
Watching and listening is more enjoyable than travelling.
Absolutely brilliant a masterpiece of film and poetry thanks
This video is fabulous! Thank you for sharing.
When I was a youngster, in the 1950s, I sort of assumed that the fireman popped a bit of coal on from time to time. After all, that’s what we did at home on the living room fire! How wrong I was. The fireman is actually shovelling coal on and off for the entire journey and placing it across the firebed floor and adjusting the fire door angle to get steam when it’s needed and not when it isn’t. It’s a precision that deserves enormous respect. There’s an instructional film on UA-cam about how the smoke leaving the chimney tells you all about the fireman’s role and how he knows wether he’s getting it right or not: ua-cam.com/video/6QwfBCDZqxY/v-deo.html
My husband started as a fireman at Toton yard in 1962 way before I was born in 1973. He had muscles and built like a brick wall back then. He is 74 now and still recalls the early days. He trained as a driver and spent 40 years on passenger and freight but later on passenger which is where I met him 22 years ago. We've been married nearly 2 years now
7 tons on the shovel between King's X. and Newcastle.
Hi Brian, Yes, I've seen that instructional film on UA-cam. What dreadful graphics! Just imagine those LMS employees in their MICs (Mutual Improvement Classes) loyally watching this kind of film and taking it all in. What an inspiring bunch of real men - men's men.
@@terinasargeant138 Hello Terina. I'm so sorry, I missed seeing your reply until now. Your husband sounds wonderful. In hindsight, I wish I had worked on the railways. He sounds like the sort of man I would love to chat with. It would be great to hear about life on the footplate. I'm 75 so he and I (and you?) are a
of the same generation, We grew up through the 1950s. I wish you every happiness together.
@@andrewelliott4436 Seven tons! Can you imagine it!?
"Watch fireman mungo doing his stuff" . Taking water at high speed was a skilled job so I am told. Lowering the scoop too early would damage the troughs, and not getting it up quick enough would cause the tender filler cap to overflow causing the first two coaches to get a soaking and anybody else sat inside that had windows open!.
48firefox That happened to me in September 1961. 5:00 PM from Newcastle to Kings Cross. Behind Sir Nigel Gresley at 95 MPH south of Darlington, I was standing in the doorway of the lead coach, the door window was open. Suddenly I was drenched as the loco picked up water from the troughs. Of course, my mates in the lead compartment almost died laughing. I worked for British Railways in those days travelling many thousands of miles behind steam loco's. I could tell many tales, for example 80 MPH behind 92113 between Church Fenton and York.
w
My paternal grandfather was a fitter with the GIP and CI Railway from 1900 onwards. He was very talented.
Beautiful video of a time and a Britain long gone. Very moving.
看到了這樣近百年的鐵道車站歷史影片、那個年代每個男女的穿搭服裝、都非常高尚、而且、男女帽子的設計也非常精細的、整個超大車站廣場、客服員/火車司機、的制服非常有形、堪稱為最幸福的年代〈歐、美〉最為先進國家！
As a boy travelling from London to Edinburgh for summer hols to visit family with mum and dad this brings back happy memories. But one in particular was the scene where they pick up water.... I was looking out of an open window when we hit the water trough.... gota bit wet. So into the toilet with dad to get dry and a small wash.... 😁
The guard used to do a quick tour of the train to warn passengers of approaching troughs...
Thank you for showing this
The good old days of steam. I wish i was there!
I think we all do. Purely because rather than seeing it as old film with bad audio and no colour like this, it would look exactly like it does now. It's hard to believe.
The narrator rhymes this for me and for you; that’s perfectly fine , ‘cause I like it too!
2:25 4:33 This LNER Gresley Streamlined A4 Pacific Main Line Express Steam Locomotive Sliver Fox Is A Bit Like Mallard. Thanks Mate. X
Same class.
It was Mallard's sibling. Fourth of its Class.
The young lady running beside the train, waving goodbye to someone...broke my heart for some reason...3:22
Wouldn't be able to do that kind of thing today unless you have a ticket as most stations now have those prison style automatic ticket barriers. I truly believe they are there to restrict your freedoms and movements and it's nothing to do with checking whether you're ticket is legit. Walk into any big station today and the feeling of oppression is evident.
Channel 81 Talking Pictures has alot of these films. They are good to watch
Oh the nostalgia of it all.... The short back & sides, the dollops of Brilcreme. Weights cigarettes and cough. The pre-computer office, where pen & paper ruled the day. But more than anything.......the pre-immigrant England.
If only it was the same now, sick and tired of the changing colour.
@@frankwilkinson6328 I'm getting on in years and can't wait to 'clock out'. The Britain of today is not one I want to be a part of.
I was taken by the scenes as the train departed Kings Cross. So many well-wishers waving goodbye to the passengers. Not something that happens any more, sadly.
You can't open a window on trains now. Apparently we're all to stupid not to get our heads knocked off!
so nostalgic! There doesnt seem to be the air of dedication to the job of tending the locos, greeting travellers, or railway manners now!
No, they just want your money off you now, nothing else matters.
Notice how everyone was dressed up in those days.
Even the fireman on the footplate had polished shoes.
That wouldn't happen today.
@@geoffcrisp7225 Almost certainly they would have been in the services (WWII wasn't long previously, and we still had conscription), so the polished shoes would have been habit.
Yup, no chav wear, no sportswear, no trainers etc. And no tubbies either.
Невероятный по впечатлениям фильм ! Аплодирую стоя !
Camera assistant 'WD Williams' is Billy Williams, future cinematographer on 'The Exorcist', 'On Golden Pond' and 'Gandhi'.
very interesting, thanks for posting :)
A beautiful commentary.
A stark (factual) reminder of how railway development has unfolded over the decades since this classic film was made
The distance by train between London Kings Cross and Waverley Stations is approx 575km, which in 1954 took 6 hours plus non-stop (according to the film's narrative)
Today, the approx same journey (distance) takes just under 4 hours 30 mins
Compare that with France where a journey from Gare Montparnasse in Paris to Bordeaux St. Jean, distance approx 545km, can be made in just 2 hours 5mins!
It seems dear old blighty has been left behind, firmly in the slow lane!
It just depends on where you want to put your cash.
And what would you do with the 2 hours 25 minutes you saved?
@@johnriggs4929 What you wouldl do with extra 2 years and 6 months of your productive live extension? ;) Honestly saying NO?
...and here in Japan, the roughly same distance between Tokyo and Nagoya takes 1 hour and 40 minutes with the Shinkansen. When it becomes this fast, it makes it possible to make a business trip in a day and still have enough hours to meet with colleagues or customers and leave and reach home at reasonable hours. The travelling times are to be shortened greatly more when the Linear Shinkansen comes into service. Yes, "dear old blighty" has been left behind. Way behind.
Not the same journey - Virgin Pendolini are on the WCML (ex-Euston): here we're on the ECML from The Cross.
What a different country it was then.
Wonderful memories, my local line when I was a boy in 1950s.
Anyone else notice that the opening shot is actually of Waterloo, not Kings Cross?
The Southern Railway locos give it away.
Yes, it is Waterloo -as you say the Schools gives the game away.
Victoria (Eastern Section) looking east towards Wilton Road.
Schools is in platform 7.
Superb film. I’ll forgive them a little artistic license.
You can actually purchase a jigsaw puzzle of that opening scene which is provided in both pre and post war content. Bloody difficult to complete😂
The good old days but it was bloody hard work great film
London to Edinburgh non-stop must be one of the longest non-stop train schedules of all time. Amtrak tried a non-stop New York to Washington train once, but that was electric power, and the distance was 100 miles shorter than Kings Cross to Waverly. Santa Fe once entrusted passenger trains from La Junta, CO to Los Angeles, CA, over 1,100 miles, behind a single 4-8-4 locomotive, but that wasn't non-stop. The New York Central's 20th Century Limited ran non-stop from Chicago to Buffalo (westbound) and Toledo to Albany (eastbound) as far as the pampered passengers were concerned, but it stopped several times during the night to change crews. The special tenders that allowed crews to be changed while the train was moving were unique, or at least rare, in the steam era.
392.7 miles from King's + to Waverley: the longest scheduled non-stop journey in the world - still.
Absolutely amazing 👏 the poetry 😍 👌
Narration by Alan Wheatley, who played the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1950s series The Adventures of Robin Hood
Die Lok 60017, welche Schönheit! Es war ja einmal eine Zeit...!
Both my grandfather and uncle were steam locomotive drivers working out of dawshom sheds maryhill Glasgow I started in the railway with BR as a fireman 1974 sadly I missed the steam days but I had my uncle as my driver on the diesels and he told me all about the steam days when we worked at eastfield traction depot springburn Glasgow just wish I could have worked a steam locomotive
My Dad and grandad where both steam drivers , Grandad never drove diesels , Dad liked steam but wouldn't have gone back to steam ,said they were dirty old things to drive / fire . I have worked 37 years on railways maintaining freight locos shunting and yard driving , now my youngest daughter is a driver , got few runs out with here on class 60's 66's "now on passenger ) . Was nice for my dad to see her driving before he passed away 5 years ago
What a beautiful film!
I am no poet but that was absolutely brilliant thanks
When Britain was British. Oh, how I’d love to have been there (here) then.
I was there. Alas, I didn't appreciate it enough.
Hats to Mr. Narrator . 👏
Nothing like this today whatsoever. 😢
How civilised! Tea in a real cup and a proper meal service. Also a bar and compartments too! First class rail has moved backwards - certainly by Cross Country.
I served my apprenticeship with the company who made some of the finest rolling stock in the world; Metro Cammell Saltley Birmingham.
What a wonderful film…and so sumptuous the narration, using rhyming verses.