Trains at Work

Beryl Armstrong's film starts with two locomotives being prepared in a loco-shed at the Sittingbourne end of the narrow-gauge railway. As firemen fill each engine with coal and water, they are photographed by many visitors. An engine, complete with spark-arrestor chimney, trundles along the track, pulling its train of carriages. At the Kemsley terminus a fireman couples the carriages to the reversed engine. We also see several engines awaiting restoration in the yard.

New Zealand born Beryl Armstrong began making films while living in India in the early 1960s. For the next thirty years her output was prolific and Beryl’s films, which often captured aspects of rural life in Sussex and Hampshire, appeared at local amateur film making festivals and competitions, where they won trophies and certificates of merit. She also wrote articles for film magazines and taught her sons Richard and Anthony, who often appeared in her productions, the art of filmmaking. Both went on to create their own collections of short documentaries, comedies and animations. Beryl is also a successful author, publishing twelve novels as well as a book about designing and building doll's houses.