Steam & Excursion > British steam documentaries

I am getting a free 90 day package on Direct TV called "Short Docs". It is a channel of good documentaries. They have a segment called "Vintage Shorts" on daily about British lifestyles during the war and later in Britain. Though I'm not a real big fan of European railroading, I enjoy the segments of British steam in the 30's to the 60's. It seems to be Gov't released programming, but it has a lot of info and documentary on the British Railway systems. Today they had a 20 min. documentary called "Night Mail". It was filmed in the early 40's, I'm guessing. It was about the Royal Mail trains running nightly from London to Glasgow, Scotland. They had lots of footage of engines being serviced, cab shots, running, and pacing shots! They even had shots of the helpers working the grades to Glasgow! It was in black and white, but hey....Ya take your steam fixes where you can get 'em, right? If you get this channel, check it out every morning. Lots of steam in it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/13 21:16 by patd3985.

patd3985 Wrote:
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> I am getting a free 90 day package on Direct TV
> called "Short Docs". It is a channel of good
> documentaries. They have a segment called "Vintage
> Shorts" on daily about British lifestyles during
> the war and later in Britain. Though I'm not a
> real big fan of European railroading, I enjoy the
> segments of British steam in the 30's to the 60's.
> It seems to be Gov't released programming, but it
> has a lot of info and documentary on the British
> Railway systems. Today they had a 20 min.
> documentary called "Night Mail". It was filmed in
> the early 40's, I'm guessing. It was about the
> Royal Mail trains running nightly from London to
> Glasgow, Scotland. They had lots of footage of
> engines being serviced, cab shots, running, and
> pacing shots! They even had shots of the helpers
> working the grades to Glasgow! It was in black and
> white, but hey....Ya take your steam fixes where
> you can get 'em, right? If you get this channel,
> check it out every morning. Lots of steam in it!

"Night Mail" is probably the most famous of the government sponsored films about trains. It was actually made by the Post Office. The main locomotive in the film (I am sure there were many) was a Royal Scot class ten wheeler with original parallel boiler. Scots were 3 cylinder locomotives and performed well but were later rebuilt with taper boilers.

Many of these films are available on YouTube - you can spend many a happy hour going from one to the next.

If you're interested in British steam, I strongly urge you to check into Fred Dibnah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Dibnah). Fred was a character, an old-tyme steeeplejack, as well as a lover of steam. In his later life, he became a popular BBC presenter on steam and industrial preservation. There are several great DVDs out there, but as none have ever been produced for US audiences, you have to purchase them from UK sources, and have a multregion DVD player that can handle region 2 DVDs.

Also, go out to the BBC website and search on "Rocket 150". This was a major event held in 1981 for the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. British Rail shut down the main line between Liverpool and Manchester for three days straight, and ran their Cavalcade of Trains at Rainhill. Over three hours of watching beautifully preserved locomotives under steam passing by miles of grandstands on parade.

Note that the video can only be played if you are coming from a UK ip address. There are several services (one free one is called "ExPat Shield) that will spoof your IP so you can watch it.