Building a British Railway

An account, in human and non-technical terms, of the electrification of the West Coast main line railway from Crewe to Glasgow

Skill, ingenuity and gravity, combined with a ‘hump’ or slope, have produced Europe’s first automated yard for organising thousands of railway wagons at Margam, Port Talbot.

An engineering feat: Second city civil engineers complete a new bridge to carry traffic over New Street's tangled railway intersections.

A tide of flat-capped rail factory workers is ushered past the camera after a day's work.

British Rail Class 35 no. 7017 Diesel Engine and the locomotive Vulcan await their fate at Taunton Train Yard

Dockers move timber, a signalman moves points: Chris Jenkins, amateur film-maker and proprietor of a Cardiff hair salon, tries his hand at filming an industrial landscape.

A grand parade of locomotives to celebrate 100 years of railways and the world’s first passenger trains

Follow the journey of the empty ‘Mineral’ train (small, cheap wagons used to transport mine products) from Brymbo Steelworks to Minera (limestone) Quarry via Coedpoeth.

“Help”, “Save me”, “I need a home”, are the cries inscribed on the scrapped engines at Woodham Brothers Scrapyard, Barry. Other messages are warnings e.g. “Do not take parts!!”.

Examining a day in the life of what was then the busiest railway system in the world – British Railways.

This is a fascinating, and somewhat puzzling, film of railway workers assembling a large section of crossover track, apparently not in situ.

What with all the loose shunting, it isn’t surprising that buffer stops were given a gruelling examination, although both the buffers and the tests are rather unconvincing.

Like a scene from Dr Zhivago, this train struggles through spectacular blizzards as gangs of men armed with shovels attempt to clear the 30 foot high snow drifts over the Pennines.

Between the power station and the coal mine, British Rail runs a coal train service right around the clock

A time when milk floats were commonly seen on our roads, along with Ariel motorcycles, helmets with leather ear coverings and the local corner shop was advertised on a hoarding.

With not a high vis vest in sight, dozens of men in overcoats, welding shovels and crowbars, seemingly just lolling around, get to work replacing large sections of railway track.

A workman balances on the edge of a swing bridge, some 80 foot above the Ouse, instructing the placement of a 680 ton girder. Is this an extension or just running repairs?

New colliery opens at Calverton in Nottinghamshire and a visit to Rugby Locomotive Testing Station

The life of a railway sleeper is not an easy one, and here they get prepared for the rain, the snow and ice, and the thousands of tons of steel hurtling over them, day in day out.

Desolate stations, abandoned locos and derelict tracks under grey skies become transformed by dedicated volunteers, unmotivated by money, into a marvellous steam railway.

Injured British Rail employees are put on the railroad to health at Swindon Works

Magnificent glimpses inside Crewe’s famous works - where a steam loco takes shape before our eyes

Railwaymen learn to love work study in this fascinating training film.

150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway: the official film

There’s an obliging pose for the camera by a brawny and tattooed docker as his fellow workers push the freight along Yarmouth’s Rail Line.

From diesel to electrification - a miscellany of railway footage in Cheshire.

Is nationalisation the answer to Britain's post-war railway problems? The Labour government thinks so.

Scotland is celebrated as a crucible of the modern age in this profile of a "strange, restless, enquiring country"

A variety compilation of British Railways' first generation of diesel locomotives on display and in action.

The Grosvenor Railway Bridge gets a 1960s upgrade while trains continue to thunder over it - an impressive engineering feat

The lengthy process of building a Claughton class locomotive is shortened through the magic of moving image

Cartoon calamities are in store for the proper Charlie in this rail worker safety message, but there's serious advice too

A 1920 mistitled re-release of the construction of a Great Western Railway 'Star' Class locomotive at Swindon.

From Cheshire to Cornwall, Lincoln to the Rhondda, a round-Britain tour via British Rail’s parcel service.

Countless men, women and children spill out on to the screen from "The Plant" at the heart of the Yorkshire railway town.

Coal touched all our lives, as this issue of the cinemagazine demonstrates with items on a miner's wife turned mayor, a Coal Board chess team and more.

An all-male Edwardian crowd is filmed leaving work in the north western town.

Despite the thousands of railway films, there must be few that show the detailed construction of sections of railway track inside a workshop just after the last war, as seen here.