British Transport Films

Lively holiday in Blackpool, with jazz accompaniment.

Comprising train and track footage quickly shot just before a heavy winter's snowfall was melting, the multi-award-winning classic that emerged from the cutting-room compresses British Rail's dedication to blizzard-battling into a thrilling eight-minute montage cut to music. Tough-as-boots workers struggling to keep the line clear are counterpointed with passengers' buffet-car comforts.

A short documentary about the transportation of goods and livestock by train around the UK.

When a schoolboy's day-dream of a fantasy sports day includes events where acts of vandalism and trespass are required, dire consequences ensue. Originally created as an educational film, this somewhat surrealist short has a serious message at its core. This won't be a lesson you'll forget in a hurry.

First transmitted in 1969, this documentary follows the construction of the world’s most advanced underground system. Macdonald Hastings narrates the story of one of the most complex tunnel engineering feats of its time. He reveals the isolation felt by the miners who spent six years burrowing deep beneath the streets of London, shows what they did beneath one of London's most famous department stores and explains why the ground at Tottenham Court Road had to be frozen during the hottest weeks of 1966. The result is a brave new world of transport with automated trains, two way mirrors, automatic fare collection and closed-circuit television, all choreographed by a computer programme played out by an updated version of a pianola located in a control room somewhere near Euston station.

A film looking at the first 100 years of the Underground Railway in London from 1863 to 1963. A range of well known people and senior managers speak alongside some excellent archive film.

Between the Tides is a 1958 short documentary directed by Ralph Keene for British Transport Films.It is a study of the animal and plant life of Britain's shores. The film show the fascinating and colourful marine life of shoreline and rock pool, filmed in the inter-tidal zone of a typical and attractive rocky shore of southwest England. The amazing diversity of creatures must be seen to be believed; periwinkles, top-shells, starfish and lump suckers, the self-concealing flatfish, the gaper and razor fish and the commuting and breeding seabirds. Beautifully photographed in glorious Technicolor by resident cameraman Ron Craigen, the film was awarded fifteen international film honours, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

The British Railways modernisation programme of the 1960s radically changed the rail network, and the British Transport Films unit and the TV news were there to capture it. Compiled here is never before released colour footage of Southern steam at Waterloo (with Nine Elms depot), all the major London stations, The Blue Pullman and early diesels, The Golden Arrow and Night Ferry service, goods and mail, steam on the Metropolitan Railway and building the Victoria Line.

The Peak District waits invitingly within a sixty-mile reach of half the population of England. To this green centre of a great industrial area, the first of the National Parks, holidaymakers come throughout the year to enjoy a wide variety of scenery and of pastimes. Some visitors come to glide, others to go 'caving' or climbing, boating or fishing. The lovely surroundings vary from the windy flat tops of heath with their rocky outcrops to the lush sheltered dales of the Manifiold, the Derwent and the Dove; from the simple stone cottages of the quiet villages to the historic architecture of Ashbourne, Bakewell and Buxton, and the great houses of the past like Chatsworth and Haddon Hall.

Britain operates the most experienced diesel and electric railway in tne world. A century and a half ago she invented the steam engine and introduced a new system of transport; and in only nine years British Rail and the British locomotive industry designed, built and tested enough diesel and electric locomotives to replace fifteen thousand steam engines. The transition from steam to new forms of motive power, and its effects on rallwaymen and passengers, is the subject of this film. Produced in association with the Central Office of Information, the British Locomotive Allied Manufacturers' Association and the British Electrical Manufacturers' Association.

The re-signalling of 1000 track miles from the River Weaver to the Clyde brings the whole line from London to Glasgow under one system of push-button control and colour light signals, and completes the main line electrification. The film follows the intricate production of equipment, and its installation over, under and between trains. The whole project adds up to a piece of modern technology unsurpassed anywhere in the world.

A look at British involvement in the construction of the new double-track railway from Kowloon, on Hong Kong's harbour, to the Chinese border.

Exploration of the Slimbridge Wild Fowl Trust in Gloucestershire, England, which boasts the largest collection of living wild fowl in the world.

Report No. 9 in a series of 13 topical films, covering: Euston; ships - Freightliner II, Antrim Princess; container handling Parkeston Quay; Merry-go-round coal trains; permanent way lining and tamping machine; off loading cable troughing; strengthening the Royal Albert Bridge; Old Course Hotel, St Andrew's; car bodies by train - factory to assembly line; Beckenham train control; speed up of West of England expresses.

This fly on the wall-style documentary from 1961 won an Oscar for best documentary, and shows the changing patterns of human emotions during 24 hours in the life of Waterloo Station.

In the Hull Docks, the steamer S.S. Bravo arrives from Gothenburg with cargo.

Originally intended as an advertising short, this film follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London to Edinburgh along the East Coast Main Line. A nostalgic record of the halcyon years of steam on British Railways and the ex-LNER Class A4.

As a training exercise for their apprentice camera operators, British Transport Films used surplus roll end length of film to record the daily lives of their neighbours from the roof of their building Melbury House.

How the London Transport Board, with the aid of modern technology, is tackling the problems brought about by an ever increasing volume of traffic. Collected in BFI's "London on the Move."

Explores the possibilities of the upcoming Channel Tunnel between Britain and France. The final BTF production shot on film.