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[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: The Driving Force (1966)

In 1966, BR was coming up to the home stretch of their 15-year modernisation plan. Steam had just a couple more years to go, and the new diesels and electrics had already started to prove their worth. This film was but one of many BTF productions to address this transition between old and new - but unusually, it was not made on behalf of BR itself. Rather, it was made for the Central Office of Information with overseas distribution in mind - selling British engineering expertise to potential export markets.

BTF was obviously pretty pleased with the footage they'd shot for this film, because in 1971 they used it as the basis for a shorter production, Plumb-Loco - which I covered in a previous Saturday Movie Night some months ago.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Joe Brown At Clapham (1965)

Joe Brown is probably best known today as one of the biggest rock 'n' roll singers and guitarists of the past sixty years, but what isn't so well known about this cheeky Cockney sparrow (other than that he's actually from Lincolnshire) is that he spent a couple of years in the late-50s working as a fireman for BR. He gave it up when the diesels started coming in, but that experience stood him in good stead when he starred in this film, which was made as part of a national railway safety contest. With his inimitable cheeky-chappy style, Joe takes us on a whistle-stop tour of Britain's railway history - from Stephenson's Rocket to the Blue Pullman - via some of the exhibits at the Clapham Transport Museum, one of the forerunners of the present-day National Railway Museum.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: The Victoria Line (1965 to 1968)

That's right, folks, it's what you might call a quadruple whammy! Remember a couple of months back when I said we'd be returning to the subject of the Victoria underground line? Well, here are four of the five films which BTF made covering the subject.

Report 1: Over & Under (1965) - Provides a general introduction to the project, and covers the initial stages of construction. The highlight is the erection of a steel umbrella over Oxford Circus, enabling road traffic to continue while the new station is built below.

Report 2: Down & Along (1965) - Covers further construction work, with particular emphasis on the basic tunnelling operation. We also see how the concrete tunnel lining rings are made - it is a truly national operation, with components being made in Essex, Teeside and even as far as Glasgow.

Report 3: Problems & Progress (1967) - Looks at some of the tremendous technical and logistical challenges faced by the engineers. In particular, much thought had to go into the modification of existing stations, and the threading of the new tunnels around existing ones at King's Cross.

Report 4: Equip & Complete (1968) - Takes us into the home stretch, with the completion of tunnels, tracks, stations and trains. The Victoria Line now undergoes rigourous testing, with both track and trains being put to the test. Meanwhile, Oxford Circus finally loses its steel umbrella, and a power station in Chelsea is upgraded - without ever coming off-load - to help feed the energy demands of the new line.

Report 5: London's Victoria Line (1969) - The upload doesn't include this final report, but that's no real loss, seeing as it's just a consolidation of the first four films. All you really miss is the formal opening of the line by the Queen in March 1969, plus a few additional details not previously covered in the previous films.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Moving Millions (1947)

So far, most of the films I've shared have been made under the auspicies of British Transport Films. Here is a rare exception, made for overseas audiences by the Crown Film Unit, then part of the Central Office of Information. Much like BTF later on, the CFU had a knack for making gripping material out of rather dry subject matter, and it's this knack which helps liven up what is by all accounts a rather unremarkable look at the transport infrastructure of post-war London.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Overhaul (1957)

Aldenham Works (which is actually located on the edge of Elstree) was opened in 1956, for the sole purpose of repairing, maintaining and overhauling London's eight thousand-strong fleet of buses. As this film ably demonstrates, the city's venerable old Routemasters were designed with a place like this in mind - the use of standard, interchangable components enabled Aldenham to dismantle, service, refurbish and replenish up to fifty buses a week, and just as quickly send them out again to serve London's travelling public.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Moving London (1983)

In 1983, London Transport celebrated fifty years since its creation in 1933, under the auspices of Chairman Lord Ashfield. This history is told to us by then-recently retired LT employee Walter Harriss - aided by footage from past BTF productions, and LT's own archives. Harriss shares many keynotes in LT's half-century - from the dark days of the Second World War, to the post-war rising from the ashes, and the mad rush by LT to keep up with the rapid expansion of London itself. We see the expansion of services to Heathrow and the new towns, and the opening of the hotly-anticipated Victoria and Jubilee underground lines.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: London Transport Cine Gazette 10 (1951)

As mentioned in a previous Saturday Movie Night, London Transport ran its own series of twice-yearly newsreels between 1947 and 1957. These films generally ran to a length of about ten minutes, and were comprised of shorter, unrelated news items.

This particular edition - the second made by BTF on LT's behalf - is a game of three thirds. The first item, Chiswick - On the Skid Patch, covers a visit to the famous skid pan at Chiswick by cars from the 1951 London Motor Show, as well as cameras from BBC Television. The second item, Overhaul at Acton, demonstrates the systematic stripping, repair and renovation of a complete tube train. Finally, Croydon Food Production Centre leaves us with a recipe which should satiate the appetite of a hundred thousand hungry LT staff each day.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Omnibus 150 (1979)

It was in 1829 that coachbuilder George Shillibeer first began operating his Omnibus between Paddington and Bank - the first bus service of its kind anywhere in London. There then followed a century and a half of development, as London itself evolved, and the masses had to keep inventing ever more efficient means of getting themselves around. That century and a half is compressed into just fifteen minutes for this film, made by BTF to celebrate 150 years since Shillibeer's original bus for all.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Under Night Streets (1958)

Every night, when the last tube trains have gone, and most good Christian souls should be abed, a workforce of eleven-hundred-odd people descend on London's underground lines to begin their shifts. They must clean, maintain, restore and replace - and it must all be done in just four hours, before the first trains of the morning head out. Not an easy task when you've got over two-hundred miles of track and nearly three hundred stations to look after - and that's before a broken rail is discovered...

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: London Transport Cine Gazettes 11 & 14 (1953/1955)

It's a double-feature this week, as this was the only upload I could find of either of these two films. Both come from a series of Cine-Gazette newsreels made by London Transport. The films, usually about ten minutes in length, ran twice a year from 1947 to 1957, and consisted of a number of smaller unrelated news items. The first eight films were made by London Transport itself, but all subsequent films were made on their behalf by British Transport films.

Cine Gazette 11 - School For Service stresses the importance of an efficient and highly-trained staff, and some new recruits are shown being taught the ropes at LT's railway training centre in Lambeth. We follow one particular recruit through the course, until he finishes up as a motorman on the Tube.

Cine Gazette 14 - Do You Remember, meanwhile, looks at a more unusual aspect of LT operations. At the time, twelve million people used the network of buses, trains and tubes every day, and a good percentage of them sometimes forgot to take their belongings with them. This was such a huge problem that LT actually had a dedicated lost property office at Baker Street to help reunite missing articles - from ladies' gloves to pet tortoises - with their owners.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: The Nine Road (1976)

The Nine Road, as London Transport staff call it, is one of London's oldest surviving bus routes - with its origins going all the way back to 1851. For most of its life - and during the time this film was made - the Nine has operated between Mortlake in the west and Liverpool Street in the east. This film showcases a typical day in the life of the men and women who work the route - from the garage and schedule management teams, through to the drivers, conductors and mechanics.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Our Canteens (1951)

An army marches on its stomach, and so did the hundred-thousand-odd staff who worked for London Transport in the 1950s. They were served by over two hundred canteens across the London area - which were themselves kept well-stocked by LT's food production base in Croydon. This film was aimed at new recruits looking to work in the canteens, and gently introduced them to this rather bewildering new world. It also emphasised the importance of a friendly, efficient environment which contributed not only to LT staff's wellbeing, but also to their service to the general public.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: All That Mighty Heart (1963)

This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky... ...The river glideth at his own sweet will, And all that mighty heart is lying still!

So wrote William Wordsworth about the London of 1802, and so also begins this day-in-the-life look at the London of 1963 - as seen through the eyes of those who run this city's vast transport network, as well as those who use it. The day starts with tube trains and buses leaving their depots to help deal with the morning rush to work. After the commuters come the tourists, day-trippers and shoppers. Then an afternoon of sports and sightseeing before an evening at the theatre, and the final rush home.

All the while, we see London Transport as it is, and a little bit of what it hopes to become - LT's big project in the 60s was the construction of the Underground's new line from Victoria to Walthamstow, and we thus get a few glimpses of the tunnelling work (remember this project - it'll turn up a few times over the coming weeks!).

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Manhandling (1962)

With a title like that, and a lovely lady in the thumbnail, you could be forgiven for thinking there's something untoward going on in this week's film. But fortunately, it's all rather more innocent than it appears. The manhandling in question is the heavy lifting which used to happen in stations and goods depots right across the BR network. As many railwaymen will know (and some may have learned to their cost), there are many wrong ways to lift heavy loads by hand, but only one right way. With the help of stunt performer and strongwoman Joan Rhodes, we learn how to work without the risk of aches, pains, strains, sprains or slipped discs.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Points & Aspects (1974)

One of the biggest challenges in BR’s modernization plan was the full electrification of the West Coast Main Line. This had been carried out in stages, and by 1966, the wires had gone up as far north as Crewe, and the secondary lines to Liverpool and Manchester. In 1970, BR gained permission to electrify the northern portion, between Crewe and Glasgow. This they did over the next four years, and as always, BTF sent their cameras up to film everything.

BTF had of course already made one film covering the Crewe-Glasgow electrification - Wires Over The Border, released the same year - but that film provided more of a broad overview of the work. Points & Aspects, meanwhile, approaches the subject from a more technical angle - focussing as it does on the process of building and installing the new colour-light signals and other equipment, bringing the whole WCML into a whole new age of push-button signalling.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Under The Wires (1965)

One of the biggest challenges in BR’s modernization plan was the full electrification of the West Coast Main Line. This had been carried out in stages, and by 1966, the wires had gone up as far north as Crewe, and the secondary lines to Liverpool and Manchester. As touched upon in previous Saturday Movie Nights, BTF was assigned the task of filming the work for posterity, and this was the first of many films they made covering the West Coast electrification.

[feigeroman]

Saturday Movie Night: Measured For Transport (1962)

Historically, the railways were obliged to carry just about anything they were offered, no matter what it was, or how great the distance was between A and B. This was usually a fairly straightforward exercise, but sometimes the nature of the consignment meant a bit of head-scratching to work out how best to move it.

Such was the case in the early-60s, when BR were asked to help move a brand-new power transformer - weighing some 123 tons - to the site of a new hydroelectric power station being constructed near Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales. Now, the railways have never been strangers to shifting big bulky loads for major construction projects, and so BR were able to draw upon years of experience to move this transformer. However, there were a few factors - such as the remoteness of the power station, and the fact that the transformer had to be taken along the winding Conwy Valley line - which created some unusual problems for the transport men...