Vintage railway film - Speedrail to the south - 1967

[@AndreiTupolev]

A Merchant Navy with a Stanier hooter? Sound effects man to my office immediately!

[@trainsontuesday]

I was 17 in 1967 and living just north of London. This stirred some memories. Thank you.

[@stephenmiddleton2340]

The picture quality is exceptional and colour rendition is better than today's standard

[@Thunderer0872]

Proper 35mm movie film no video then, apart from NASA or CBS in the states, but even that can't compare to proper film stock!

[@acciid]

Err do you have one of those analogue mobiles or computers that can directly play 35mm film?

[@dodgydruid]

This film sums up quite a lot of me life, born in '67, to a BR dad, in the eighties I was the lad that came up and changed the lamps on the Exeter expresses as seen at 4:17 and today having left south London I live almost next door to Gillingham station served by those selfsame Exeter trains. It kinda hit home how long ago that was as one of the guards on a train to Salisbury pulls me aside and asked me if I was the young lad who did all that back then and I was really flattered he remembered me, he like me are old 'uns now, he was back then a newly qualified chap and we had a good ol' chat about halcyon times and some mirth on how I got sacked by BR.

[@patrickdunning9820]

BR phased out breakfasts and dinners sometime in the late seventies, replaced by scolding microwaved burgers etc. VEPs were always cozy and warm, fast even... comfortable, and one could smoke away!

[@Ben-xe8ps]

I recall the full restaurant car service on the VEP's on the Bournemouth route. As all 1st class accommodation was compartments, unusually on this route the restaurant service was at tables in a 2nd class open coach.

[@tanyajackson3833]

It was the REPs that had restaurant cars. They were tractor units that pulled and pushed unpowered TC units.

[@pauljb6207]

OMG, Lulu's back in the charts...

[@CasaOsso]

What an excellent video quality!

[@JamesPetts]

This is a joy.

[@johncanna7856]

Many thanks for your continued uploads. All the best.

[@Sam_Green____4114]

Basingstoke at 07:53 with the class 47 coming off the Great Western lines from Reading onto the LSWR / Southern lines from Waterloo!

[@Smithy67]

Thank you for uploading, I really enjoyed this.

[@nickbartlett5928]

I'm sat on my REP Buffet Car seat watching this. It could have been one of the ones in the film!

[@DrivermanO]

Best music I've heard yet!

[@buchanloon6544]

"He'll be in his London office in 105 minutes." So just a three hour 30 minute commute then! Wonderful. 😱 Great film.

[@laurencefraser]

I assume you're making a remark about delays and such? Because if not, your maths is off.

[@Cjbx11]

@@laurencefraser Maths is correct assuming he’s coming home again in the evening.

[@Spookieham]

I did Folkestone to London as a commute for 6 months in 2002 before the high speed link. That was an easy 3 hours total a day just on trains and that was on a good day.

[@AndreiTupolev]

1 hour 45 each way

[@kevinheard8364]

I'm a new subscriber.... this is a GREAT channel! I'm in the US; but really informative and enjoyable footage. Congrats

[@patrickdunning9820]

VEPs certainly did their job well, and were cozy in winter, cool in summer (open enough windows!) Also I noticed briefly a Class 25? in green....ahh, the good ol' days. Dunno if the young folk would be listening to Herp Albert in those days, eh!!

[@5centsr]

The steam shots are gorgeous, the true glory of railroading!

[@Geordie_Maggot]

Nice looking redhead too.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

BR(SR) painted its long-distance EMUs in plain Corporate Blue instead of the InterCity Blue/Grey livery due to, legend has it, misunderstanding the instructions about the new livery.

[@shaibalsarkar9508]

I miss these steam giants

[@Sam_Green____4114]

Anyone remember the old post office building in the background @ 02:12 ? And when they demolished it about 97/98 the whole are there was covered in red brick dust? The street canopy the Morris 1100 drove under by then was long gone!

[@Thunderer0872]

Fire damaged wasn't it? I do remember it when the REP's were on their way out for 442 units.

[@moshihus]

Thought this was an advert for the Austin 1100!........and the fashion.....did we really look like that? LOL!

[@jimeditorial]

With all this modernity, I guess Britain's lead in rail transportation must be permanent

[@RoadCone411]

RIP to anybody in this film with gray hair. It was probably filled 55 years ago, a different era indeed. I wonder what a passenger from back then would think of our rail service today (good and bad?)

[@COIcultist]

Narrator? Blast they opened the soft drinks cans and we didn't see them doing that. At the time a punch would be used that cut a triangular hole in the top of the can.

[@phaasch]

The white- jacketed buffet car attendant would have done that for them. I remember the Pullman steward on the Brighton Belle doing the same for me, around this time, even though I was only about 9 or10. Loved it!

[@gabrieljennings5255]

35028 at the beginning! Glad she is still in service.

[@Ashley_van_Schooneveld]

She's kept in storage at Stewarts Lane

[@mce_AU]

Nice.

[@davidstubley4957]

Great!

[@brianriley5383]

Oh how I miss those coach corridors and the compartments with sliding doors, slid back by a bow tied white jacketed steward. " Tea and coffee now being served " Or a brief encounter with an attractive member of the opposite sex in the narrow corridor - which way will she turn to let you pass?

[@willduffay2207]

Ah, back when stations has porters and the staff looked smart.

[@keef71]

at 2:50 and 5:35 at Winchester - did they still have air-raid sirens?? :-)

[@donotwantahandle1111]

1:58 an Austin land crab!

[@simonf8902]

It’s an Austin 1100. The Austin 1800 was the landcrab.

[@Sameoldfitup]

Great 💙

[@island29]

Happy days

[@sylviaelse5086]

105 minutes from Bournemouth to office? Good luck with that. Most services take at least 2 hours from Bournemouth to Waterloo.

[@htimsid]

At 01:04: "Clean, quiet, and frequent". What is ?

[@urjaman0]

fast

[@AndreiTupolev]

"Fast", I think

[@John900C]

The tone reminds me a bit of The Prisoner. I suppose that was Patrick McGoohan's observation of the age of social science when we thought rational technology would be the savior of our post empire world.

[@simonf8902]

But it wasn’t.

[@sanchoodell6789]

1:57 The music, for a moment, sounded almost Drum & Bass! WTF!

[@390h8er]

I know for a fact, the music at 3:17 was sampled in 2009 by P Money for his track ‘Left the Room’. Look it up!

[@tangerinedream7211]

Goodness knows how much breakfast on the train was, good job its on expenses then .😉

[@computeraddic675]

So electrification was pretty late in the UK?In 1967 all trains in the netherlands were electric already.

[@nativenewlondoner]

Not all lines in the Netherlands are electrified, still in 2021!

[@DCS1967]

The LSWR started electrifying lines around London around 1910 with 3rd rail, the LB&SCR started slightly earlier, but with a different system. After grouping in 1923 the Southern Railway standardised on 3rd rail. The line in this video was one of the last Southern main lines to be electrified in 1967. The part from Bournemouth to Weymouth was only electrified in the late 1980s, and on the cheap!

[@Ashley_van_Schooneveld]

The last main line steam hauled train in passenger service ran on 11 August 1968.

[@Thursdaym2]

At 8.05 the commentator refers to London airport and then there was a shot of a mini coach with London airport on the rear. Gatwick was opened in 1958 . Was Heathrow still called London airport at that time?

[@Ashley_van_Schooneveld]

London Airport was renamed London Heathrow in 1966.

[@keithwoodburn7895]

I know this is a railway film but that looks like P&O Oriana at 1:45

[@simonf8902]

It sure does !

[@CA-ee1et]

Is that meant to be a pastiche of Anton Karas' Third Man theme?

[@angienorthey]

What was the point of those awful orange curtains, did anyone ever use them?

[@DCS1967]

Yes, they were often used! Especially when it was sunny! The compartments also had blinds on the corridor too, so you could completely isolate yourself! These trains had curtains in them until they were withdrawn in the late 80s/early 90s. Although by the end some had been changed to white curtains.

[@LordTantrums007]

By 1967 Beeching had naffed up the national railway network!

[@bobtudbury8505]

rubbish beeching had no power.the labour party closed the lines

[@CA-ee1et]

Got rid of utterly unsustainable branch lines to tiny villages (or more like it, empty stations about a mile and a half from the village it was meant to serve)

[@bobtudbury8505]

@@CA-ee1et the railways were a mess. they didn't even know how many people it employed

[@LordTantrums007]

@@bobtudbury8505 The Tories initiated the Beeching report etc. and the first wave of closures. Barbara Castle aka Labour Witch carried on with the closures when Harold Wilson was PM later 1960s.

[@LordTantrums007]

@@CA-ee1et Partly true however there were many examples of line closures that were totally wrong and two examples being the Great Central Line (European Loading Gauge) and the Barnstaple to Ilfracombe line. The Beeching cuts were necessary but went way too far.

[@AndreiTupolev]

And what the hell was0:47?? Sounded like an American air horn

[@JRBRailstuff]

That's Big Mac from the TV series "Tugs" whistle pitched up by 2 semitones I think.

[@brickleyyard4966]

Cute u think Bournemouth beautiful

[@petergrossett6763]

Railways were far better in the 50s and 60s up until the end of steam. Freight on railways much safer than on over crowded road. Modernisation was a 100% fail.

[@VictorGate]

Commuting 25 miles into Birmingham and from Birmingham - London regularly from 1958 - 1968. No way to go back to steam. Diesels were a massive improvement and then Electrification meant journey times down 25% and far more and cleaner trains. The whole vintage rail movement is very laudable but in no way reflects the reality. Mr Perks was never on a platform near me.

[@dannypeck96]

@@VictorGate i think he refers to how up until the 60's and the end of steam, freight was mostly moved by rail and after its shifted towards lorries, which is clearly the wrong move when we look at it with retrospect, both in terms of safety and also in regards to the enviromental impact of lorries. steam trains are a wonderful thing in very small amounts, the future however must be electric freight and passenger carriage, both long distance via train and last mile via public transport or electric lorries.

[@D66DuCane]

Give me dirty, noisy, smelly steam powered travel anyday!

[@ivanahavitoff7308]

Bottles of sauce on la table. None of your sachet shit!

[@brickleyyard4966]

Note how thay failed to mention the problems with reliability Ann the over price fears untidy and damp and darkened dinghy rolling stock not to mention the poor consumer service but hey thay have to sell the crap so lie to you if thay must

[@CasinoWoyale]

So what rivers did these services interconnect with that necessitated the use of dinghies?

[@simonf8902]

The BR dinghys were quite sturdy. They only leaked slightly.

[@phaasch]

I remember when these trains were introduced- they seemed so clean and smart, after the grimy, bumpy old 4-LAVs. And oh, for the days of a real buffet car. Don't even get a bloody trolley anymore.

[@AndreiTupolev]

Damp and darkened dinghy?

[@simonf8902]

@@AndreiTupolev dingy dinghy

[@simonf8902]

Crap railways with crap BMC cars. Britain at the bottom.

[@michaellane1620]

The commentator what a toffee nosed oaf, awful upper crust voice on films of this age.....................