Britains Railways Then & Now – British Railway

This programme featuring rarely seen archive footage offers a glimpse into British Railways and Britain s Railways as it recalls how things have changed from the 1950s and the glory days of steam to recent times. We see the dramatic changes that have happened with the elimination of steam, pre- and post-Beeching closures, the loss of freight traffic to road haulage and long distance passenger traffic to planes and cars. We travel along the Woodhead Route, a flagship electrification project for BR and the Metropolitan Line running out of London to the suburbs and beyond. Next our visit takes us to South Wales and the locos that served the coal industry, many of which were steam powered long after the rest of the country was steam free and also to the Somerset and Dorset railway with its vast array of Pacifics, Stanier 8Fs and Standard 4s, most of which have been cut up.