British Rail Journeys - Northern England DVD

Advantages: Another great loco programme
Disadvantages: None

...This DVD follows the steam locomotive King Edward I. According to the sleeve notes, the DVD is the most comprehensive ever coverage of a steam rail journey, because of the amazing number of lineside locations employed in the filming of the journey. A staggering total of 50 individual camera locations! Not to mention the hours and hours that were recorded on the train itself and helicopter-based camera crews, too. The DVD is produced by Green Umbrella and has exactly the same rigorous and sympathetic production values as the other videos in the series Classic Steam Trains. (Please see my other review for those comments.) In June 1999 the Great Western Locomotive, 6024 King Edward I was deployed to take a special rail tour from London to Bristol and then back as far as Didcot. Due to having to keep to a relatively high speed to keep up... Read review

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Advantages: Even more great steam footage
Disadvantages: None

...opens with very dramatic footage and atmospheric music as a youthful cub TV news reporter makes his way through one of the saddest places in Britain (for a steam rail fan) the scrapyards in Barry, South Wales, which were the resting place for many steam engines. It had become a place of pilgrimage for steam fans from all over the UK. It was 1967. The young reporter was seen (in black and white, of course!) mournfully examining some of the 250 steam engines that were awaiting the cutting torch in the yards, standing, wheels locked by rust, their fate, or so it seemed, sealed by Beaching. The reporter boarded one steam engine to deliver his moving eulogy to British steam. By some quirk of fate it transpired that the train that the reporter had decided to use as his pulpit on the death of steam trains was the engine featured in this DVD... Read review

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Advantages: Fantasitc footage of the last days of steam
Disadvantages: None

...This is another in the eminently professionally produced DVD programmes on steam train released through Green Umbrella. With the Very Best of British Steam of Yesteryear, you are given a real feast for the eyes and also, for the memory, of course. Well, for those of us old enough to remember when steam trains regularly plied their business up and down the main lines of the United Kingdom. The last regular steam runs in Britain came to a very sad halt in August 1968. That's slightly under a year before the first manned space flight to the moon, for those interested in transport trivia. Without an unsung bunch of dedicated enthusiasts and professional and semi-professional film makers in the previous two decades, these wonderful steam trains would not be available to the general public. They would only exist as the personal memories... Read review

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