Great film. Reminds me of when my parents took me on holiday to Swanage in 1958, I was brought up on GWR but I well remember pulling into Salisbury and seeing Southern Region engines for the first time and, much to the consternation of my mother, as soon as the train stopped I was out and rushing up the platform to the newsagents to buy a Southern Region Ian Allan ABC. Since then I've always had a soft spot for the Southern. Great memories
What great memories of happy days. Trainspotting in those days was great fun, I remember as a young lad with my mates we used to go down to our local station and watch the Bullied Pacific's or West Country Pacific locos come through.!! Amazing stuff! Many thanks for sharing these wonderful memories!
Superb film and one of the best I have seen of the BR Southern Region. I note the loss of the BR totem signs by the later 1960s. This film captures the last days of when British Railways was still BRITISH RAILWAYS!
I have to agree with all the positive content on the wide and varied content. What really strikes me though is the wonderful filming, for example one moving train from another. Your dad was a marvellous cinematographer.
I well remember from Waterloo to Portsmouth via Guildford and then the ferry across to the Isle of Wight. The train along the pier and unloading the familyat Ryde esplanade and the trudge up the hill to the lodgings for our holiday . Memories flooding back . The train rides , and the villages , Blackgang Chine after dark . Wonderful film 👍🇬🇧
Priceless historical footage and very skilfully shot if I may say so. I recall being taken to my dad's cricket club in the late 50s and being much more interested in the steam trains going by on the embankment which flanked the ground in Dulwich!
Very good film of Kensington Olympia and the steam service to and from Clapham Junction, from 10:22 to 19:54. Includes specials and a visiting 'King' but mostly Southern steam. Good shots of Imperial Wharf, Battersea Bridge and the Thames. Kensington Olympia was by 1966-67 the one London 'terminus' of the Southern Region that still operated steam all day. The last days of steam in London, well-captured.
I am really enjoying these films. They seem much more "real" than other films. Maybe its the good mix off all types of traffic. I think some film makers forget that the railways where built and run for more than express passenger trains. Thank for sharing them with us.
Some wonderful footage, very varied. It's fascinating to see such a random selection of everyday scenes, with the "specials" being outnumbered by ordinary trains from a different age. Your Dad had a useful habit of including signage in his film, which is really helpful, especially to those less familiar with the Southern region. Thanks for sharing another fantastic time capsule.
A good job, well done, converting that lot and sharing it with us all. The basic camera work was nice, subject to the limitations of the equipment available at the time. Better than some things captured via modern kit. I appreciate the choice of using ‘widescreen’ rather than the original format as well (assuming that 8mm would have used something like 4:3).
Wonderful footage from your Dad Ian. He even shows the Park and Bridge I used to view from at New Malden. The slew of the Up local in Platform 5 at Wimbledon was amazing and something I had not heard of before. Thanks for sharing Ian.
Wonderful film. I didn't know any of this area at the time as I lived in Scotland but I am familiar with many of the locations as they are now. Very interesting to note the things that haven't really changed much. I think some of the viewpoints would be much harder to access now.
Fabulous film. As a 1972 Dorking-born person this shows me a time I wasn’t part of but is no less fascinating to see with such clarity. A class 33 6:35 and a little bit of BR blue and yellow there!! Wonderful stuff thanks for sharing. People like your dad are to be celebrated for having such prescience filming something that at the time, I assume he just did because he liked trains, but turned out to be a fascinating historical document!
What memories - we used to travel to Dorchester from Waterloo - I always remember the advertising hoardings just before Clapham Junction (on the left going south) - one said "Take Courage!", and the other "You are heading for the Strong Country!" with Shire Horses etc - I can't remember which you saw first... Wonderful footage, especially the LMR - not much H&S with people all over the track - were we more sensible in those days, and could be trusted to look after ourselves?
Interesting to see the Kensington totem in white. No regional affiliation there. Even though there’s plenty of brown enamel in evidence in other shots. And the LNWR pattern signal box, still operating when I drove( as the 2 nd man) through on the Brighton inter regionals. In the early nineties. Lovely to see the Latchmere jnc to Clapham down Brighton slow section as well. Looking a tad grassy even in the late sixties.
First time I've seen, or even heard of, a white totem. I'm assuming these were used where a station was shared between regions. Were there many other "white" locations? Can anyone point me to any other footage/photos of similar signage please?
Whilst you have to admire the whole system, down from designers, engineers,drivers,firemen et al,....you have to concur that everything could only run safely with the diligence of the operating systems and finally the signalmen who bore massive responsibilities for the success or calamitous ensuing disaster of any mistakes on their part!? All beautifully orchestrated! Cheers
Interesting to note that at 4:00 there appears to be a green mark 2 first class coach in the background. I had never thought about the possibility of mark 2 stock being in anything other than corporate blue and gray at that time.
Wonderful memory reviver as I was there at the time, especially liking the shots of one of the (the?) Longmoor open days which I went to at least one of.
The one thing I remember from this video was the signal box that spanned all the tracks collapsed. Clapham I think. The steel leg supports had rusted out but they just painted over the rust until one day....
Great video Ian, thanks for posting this. I was particularly interested in the 1966 shots from Wimbledon with the up goods yard in the distance, with a rake of BR mineral wagons. I know that coal concentration depots were introduced in 1964, and had thought that coal handling at Wimbledon would have stopped when Tolworth was opened. I wonder if these were just dumped there at this point. Appreciate you were about 7 at the time, so not expecting you to answer this! Perhaps someone out there knows the answer. 🙂
Excellent, especially pleased to see the shots of the level crossings at Poole and the Bournemouth Central/loco shed scenes. Fascinating Thames side footage around Battersea. Good idea by Mary Watkins to get someone to narrate the film. Unusual name Docwra, anything to do with the construction company ?
Many thanks. No relation, but that is where most people recognise the name from. It comes from Cumbria. The trouble with a narration would be that so many of the scenes are so brief that commentary would quickly lag behind.
Amazing footage !!!!. Thanks for sharing with us !!!. I thought that we never had A4's running on Southern region ??? Also some of those locations look quite familiar, for example near East and West Croydon and London Bridge !!!!
Valuable footage. Thanks for posting it. Lovely to see that old green, in preference to the later, revolting, migraine-inducing, garish, cheap-looking commercial graffiti used subsequently.
Very good film, I remember all that, but I did not see the rundown state of the railway at the time with carriages on Bournemouth trains out of place even on The Bournemouth Belle. The Brighton Belle was a travesty repainting carriages in Nanking blue a la Midland Pullman; some cuckoo idea from a high ranking British Rail higher up. The Midland Pullman has one set running; it looks like an HST.
Thanks. No, it originates in Cumbria. Many people assume Polish owing to the centre 'w'. The building contracting company (now called 'Clancy Docwra') is nothing to do with us, I'm afraid.
If your father took this film, how come he was at multiple locations to film the same train.(4:24 to 5:30). The special train headed by the then already preserved LNER A4 "Sir Nigel Gresley" on its 1967 trip from Waterloo to Weymouth & return. With film of this train passing Clapham Junction, three separate views some distance apart at New Malden, including two views of the special overtaking the same EMU (2 x 4SUB) at New Malden, and then passing Woking, all southbound ! Even a Harrier jump jet wouldn't have got him to all these locations in time ??????
Indeed - he roped in my mother (who had her own cine camera)! I suspect there may have been two workings, too, which confused me at first. BTW, there is no shot at Woking - the last scene is at Wimbledon with the up train.
Wonderful! Thank you so much for posting this, and your father for making this record. Amazing how often an electric train annoyingly got in the way of the view of a steam engine, my experience too in my boyhood "linesiding" days in the Petts Wood area during the 1950's! Fascinating footage of the then little-known line across the Thames at Battersea, and the "Kenny Belle" the off-timetable service between Clapham Junction and Kensington Olympia for the workers at the Post Office Savings HQ in Blythe Road (how often I posted my book there to make a withdrawal - banking was very different in those days!) I've read somewhere that the train was actually an "Official Secret", as was the location of the Post Office Savings HQ, if so, it was a badly kept one as far as the railway enthusiasts of the time were concerned! The train consist included one of the experimental BR Standard suburban coaches with glassfibre bodies, the very "shiny" vehicle at one end of the train. One thinks with trepidation what would have been the fate of the passengers had it ever been involved in an accident! And the Isle of Wight footage, shot at the end of steam as the "third rail" was being laid, in typical IoW weather. It brought back so many memories of crossing to the Island with my Mother in the 1950's on day trips from our hotel in Southsea during the school Easter holidays. The Portsmouth Corporation trolleybus ride to Portsmouth Harbour Station, buying the combined ferrry/train tickets to our IoW destination, and walking through the station, hoping to get a glimpse of a steam engine on one of the cross-country services which ran to and from the south coast amid all the electric trains, then embarking on the ferry, usually one of the motor vessels "Southsea" or "Brading", the paddle ferries being brought into service during the busier summer months. There were views of the naval dockyard and HMS Victory, and the Gosport ferry seen in this film was a rather more modern version than the ones used in the 1950's. We crossed Spithead past the forts, and arrived at Ryde Pierhead to make our way across the landing stage to the Pierhead Station, closed in this film while being redeveloped for the electric train service. The little O2 tank engines bustled about, their Westinghouse brake pumps panting, as we found our train of aged compartment stock, often with old sepia framed prints of locations served by the erstwhile LSWR displayed on the partition walls, and droplight windows in the doors, operated by stout leather straps, which I was forbidden to touch in case I got my fingers trapped! Meanwhile the Solent washed at the piles of the pier below as waited to depart, The run down the pier was always interesting, keeping pace with the petrol-driven cars of the Pier Tramway, also operated by BR, and then after Espanade station, we entered the tunnel under the town of Ryde, coming out near St Johns Road, the hub of railway services after Newport and the Cowes line were closed. At Sandown, I witnessed the exchange of line staffs between train crew and signalman, Mum had to explain to me the principle of "single line working" and the importance of the train staff in ensuring safety. My last visit to the Island in steam days was on a week-long school trip to Sandown in 1959, when there was the added attraction of a run down the line from Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour aboard one of the old 4-COR "Nelson" electric trains. Oh! The memories ! Thanks again for posting this, and reviving them for me.
I'm so glad you (and so many others) enjoyed it. What a fulsome comment - thank you! There are a few particularly fascinating scenes - not least the special headed by A4 4498 - I seem to remember Dad got Mum to film it as well, hence the different views of the same train (she had her own cine camera). Yes, electrics did get in the way, but they too have their own interest, e.g. the all-steel 2HAL glimpsed at Clapham Junction. The sheer variety of stock was so much greater then, with many lash-ups of EMUs, possible because their operating systems were so much simpler than today's rolling computers! My father would have been astounded at the ability to reach so many viewers on line now.
As for so called "secret" locations, the BT Tower or PO Tower as it was at first, was one impossible to hide, no Postcode and a blank area on the A-Z, but had a public restaurant at the top!
...beautiful archive film, especially now in 2022 worth it's weight in gold, thank you 👌
Great film. Reminds me of when my parents took me on holiday to Swanage in 1958, I was brought up on GWR but I well remember pulling into Salisbury and seeing Southern Region engines for the first time and, much to the consternation of my mother, as soon as the train stopped I was out and rushing up the platform to the newsagents to buy a Southern Region Ian Allan ABC. Since then I've always had a soft spot for the Southern. Great memories
What great memories of happy days.
Trainspotting in those days was great fun, I remember as a young lad with my mates we used to go down to our local station and watch the Bullied Pacific's or West Country Pacific locos come through.!! Amazing stuff! Many thanks for sharing these wonderful memories!
So many memories. Thanks for sharing
Superb film and one of the best I have seen of the BR Southern Region. I note the loss of the BR totem signs by the later 1960s. This film captures the last days of when British Railways was still BRITISH RAILWAYS!
Well, Dad would have been pleased to hear your positive comment - thanks.
I have to agree with all the positive content on the wide and varied content. What really strikes me though is the wonderful filming, for example one moving train from another. Your dad was a marvellous cinematographer.
Very kind - thank you. I like to think I learned much of my filming technique from him.
An amazing look back in time. Thank you.
I well remember from Waterloo to Portsmouth via Guildford and then the ferry across to the Isle of Wight. The train along the pier and unloading the familyat Ryde esplanade and the trudge up the hill to the lodgings for our holiday . Memories flooding back . The train rides , and the villages , Blackgang Chine after dark . Wonderful film 👍🇬🇧
Thanks so much for sharing your Dads wonderful cine films........
Great video of your Dad's movie's thank you for Sharing them .😊
This video is sensational , probably one of the best covering late BR/SR steam out there
Priceless historical footage and very skilfully shot if I may say so. I recall being taken to my dad's cricket club in the late 50s and being much more interested in the steam trains going by on the embankment which flanked the ground in Dulwich!
A pity there is not some footage of steam loco scrapping/cutting etc.
Very good film of Kensington Olympia and the steam service to and from Clapham Junction, from 10:22 to 19:54. Includes specials and a visiting 'King' but mostly Southern steam. Good shots of Imperial Wharf, Battersea Bridge and the Thames. Kensington Olympia was by 1966-67 the one London 'terminus' of the Southern Region that still operated steam all day. The last days of steam in London, well-captured.
Fabulous footage of the times
I am really enjoying these films. They seem much more "real" than other films. Maybe its the good mix off all types of traffic. I think some film makers forget that the railways where built and run for more than express passenger trains. Thank for sharing them with us.
For me see this material is fantastic.Thanks from Valencia .Spain.You have an great work, is a Jewell.
Wonderful stuff. Not only the trains and places, but glimpses of empty roads and elegant people. Clearly progress is not all it's cracked up to be.
amazing! And look how everyone was able to go onto the tracks all around the trains and nobody stopped them...
Wonderful film especially with all the location signs captured on camera
Your father captured great sequences here, thank you. Ah, the architectural gem that was Basingstoke Power Box...not!
Well observed and technically very proficient filming. A fascinating archive.
Fantastic coverage,I will be watching quite a few times,thanks for sharing.
I can see your Father was a good cameraman and captured some fine clips , Thankyou for sharing them
Brilliant film . Loved every minute .I even liked the BUA VC10 advert at Clapham . Evoques the era
I loved watching this . Especially the Kenny Belle scenes .Thank you for uploading
Great film collection. Brings back many memories. Thank you for sharing.
Some wonderful footage, very varied. It's fascinating to see such a random selection of everyday scenes, with the "specials" being outnumbered by ordinary trains from a different age. Your Dad had a useful habit of including signage in his film, which is really helpful, especially to those less familiar with the Southern region. Thanks for sharing another fantastic time capsule.
Thank you for this. So many maemories recalled. How I wish that I had a camera at the time.
Great historical document. Well done and good choice of views. I LOVE it !
An excellent record of better times. And wow KGV on the Bulmer Cider Pulllman.
That a fantastic record and resource for modelers everywhere. Great job, you must be so proud!
A good job, well done, converting that lot and sharing it with us all. The basic camera work was nice, subject to the limitations of the equipment available at the time. Better than some things captured via modern kit. I appreciate the choice of using ‘widescreen’ rather than the original format as well (assuming that 8mm would have used something like 4:3).
Thanks for sharing it with us. many memories
Thank you for sharing this wonderful film of days gone amazing footage 👍
Thank you thank you for sharing with us
Lots memories of these events.
Amazing footage. Only 50 years ago, but a completely different world.
Thank you for the memories.
Excellent. Thank you for showing this.
Wonderful footage from your Dad Ian. He even shows the Park and Bridge I used to view from at New Malden. The slew of the Up local in Platform 5 at Wimbledon was amazing and something I had not heard of before. Thanks for sharing Ian.
We lived in New Malden until 1980 and I frequented the very wide footbridge just east of the station.
@@iandocwra1169 I was away in 1970 to Wimbledon and then Haslemere. Where in Malden did you live?
@@rjathomas2990 We were in Mount Road, off Elm Road.
@@iandocwra1169 Amazingly, just around the corner, Fairmead Close of Poplar Grove from 1963 to 1970.
Wonderful film. I didn't know any of this area at the time as I lived in Scotland but I am familiar with many of the locations as they are now. Very interesting to note the things that haven't really changed much. I think some of the viewpoints would be much harder to access now.
Superb bit of nostalgia - Thanks for sharing your late fathers films
9.08. Drivers don’t change.
Really great film and pretty coherent ,the longer shots make it so much more evocative. Many thanks.
Fabulous.
Absolutely bloody fantastic thankyou for sharing this and you dad had brilliant camera skills as some lovely views there thankyou.
Fabulous film. As a 1972 Dorking-born person this shows me a time I wasn’t part of but is no less fascinating to see with such clarity. A class 33 6:35 and a little bit of BR blue and yellow there!! Wonderful stuff thanks for sharing. People like your dad are to be celebrated for having such prescience filming something that at the time, I assume he just did because he liked trains, but turned out to be a fascinating historical document!
At 9:11 the blue & white RL Bedford truck waiting at the level crossing.
this is wonderful....thanks!
What memories - we used to travel to Dorchester from Waterloo - I always remember the advertising hoardings just before Clapham Junction (on the left going south) - one said "Take Courage!", and the other "You are heading for the Strong Country!" with Shire Horses etc - I can't remember which you saw first...
Wonderful footage, especially the LMR - not much H&S with people all over the track - were we more sensible in those days, and could be trusted to look after ourselves?
Clean Bulleids - awesome!
Interesting to see the Kensington totem in white. No regional affiliation there.
Even though there’s plenty of brown enamel in evidence in other shots. And the LNWR pattern signal box, still operating when I drove( as the 2 nd man) through on the Brighton inter regionals. In the early nineties. Lovely to see the Latchmere jnc to Clapham down Brighton slow section as well. Looking a tad grassy even in the late sixties.
First time I've seen, or even heard of, a white totem. I'm assuming these were used where a station was shared between regions. Were there many other "white" locations? Can anyone point me to any other footage/photos of similar signage please?
This is just epic. Steam and diesel electric era .... thanks for uploading this.
Whilst you have to admire the whole system, down from designers, engineers,drivers,firemen et al,....you have to concur that everything could only run safely with the diligence of the operating systems and finally the signalmen who bore massive responsibilities for the success or calamitous ensuing disaster of any mistakes on their part!? All beautifully orchestrated! Cheers
Interesting to note that at 4:00 there appears to be a green mark 2 first class coach in the background. I had never thought about the possibility of mark 2 stock being in anything other than corporate blue and gray at that time.
Indeed, and there were a few LMR examples delivered in maroon.
Very nice.
fantastic
Wonderful memory reviver as I was there at the time, especially liking the shots of one of the (the?) Longmoor open days which I went to at least one of.
The one thing I remember from this video was the signal box that spanned all the tracks collapsed. Clapham I think. The steel leg supports had rusted out but they just painted over the rust until one day....
That was really interesting. Thanks for putting it up :)
Fantastic!
Brilliant, my only memories of steam as a very small child were Waterloo, Southampton, and Ryde!
WHAT a fantastic film it really does capture something
Very nice capture.
Great video Ian, thanks for posting this. I was particularly interested in the 1966 shots from Wimbledon with the up goods yard in the distance, with a rake of BR mineral wagons. I know that coal concentration depots were introduced in 1964, and had thought that coal handling at Wimbledon would have stopped when Tolworth was opened. I wonder if these were just dumped there at this point. Appreciate you were about 7 at the time, so not expecting you to answer this! Perhaps someone out there knows the answer. 🙂
I at class 2 tank, 41312, is now resident on the Watercress Line
Like the shot just captured of the electro diesel at Clapham with the green Mk2 first behind it.
Is that you and your mother at 2:41? What an awesome piece of nostalgia. Thanks for sharing
Yes! We were travelling down to Bournemouth on the new-fangled electrics (I think it was an 11TC rake with a 73, but not certain).
awesome
Excellent, especially pleased to see the shots of the level crossings at Poole and the Bournemouth Central/loco shed scenes. Fascinating Thames side footage around Battersea. Good idea by Mary Watkins to get someone to narrate the film. Unusual name Docwra, anything to do with the construction company ?
Many thanks. No relation, but that is where most people recognise the name from. It comes from Cumbria. The trouble with a narration would be that so many of the scenes are so brief that commentary would quickly lag behind.
At Barnstaple Junction I saw an ex SR Q1 on a local passenger train
Amazing footage !!!!. Thanks for sharing with us !!!. I thought that we never had A4's running on Southern region ??? Also some of those locations look quite familiar, for example near East and West Croydon and London Bridge !!!!
The A4 (4498 'Sir Nigel Gresley') was working a railtour (yes, they ran even back then!) - it was already preserved, even by 1967.
fascinating glimpse of a more interesting age...
I recall these well
I rode on it in 1964: excellent.
It’s easy to forget that mark 2 coaches in blue and grey were steam hauled... And blue and yellow diesels mixed with Bullied pacifics too!
Valuable footage. Thanks for posting it.
Lovely to see that old green, in preference to the later, revolting, migraine-inducing, garish, cheap-looking commercial graffiti used subsequently.
Nice film!
great film. for a moment at Olympia i thought we were going to see a steam hauled motorail train!
Wow! That's all I can say!
I'm a train and I approve this video!
Had all the Bulleid Pacifics had their name plates removed by BR, or had they been stolen by souvenir hunters? All the name plates seem to be missing.
Most had been removed by BR I believe.
Interesting.
Very good film, I remember all that, but I did not see the rundown state of the railway at the time with carriages on Bournemouth trains out of place even on The Bournemouth Belle. The Brighton Belle was a travesty repainting carriages in Nanking blue a la Midland Pullman; some cuckoo idea from a high ranking British Rail higher up. The Midland Pullman has one set running; it looks like an HST.
Great stuff. Would nice is you could put in chapters split up via locations 👍
Great...your surname...is it Polish? My son has married a Polish girl and I used to see the name on vans a lot. best regards
Thanks. No, it originates in Cumbria. Many people assume Polish owing to the centre 'w'. The building contracting company (now called 'Clancy Docwra') is nothing to do with us, I'm afraid.
Great footage. Was that Mallard?
No, 4498 was 'Sir Nigel Gresley', by then already preserved.
4:35 why is it still wearing LNER colors?
4498 had already gone into preservation by this time and was in LNER guise as such.
If your father took this film, how come he was at multiple locations to film the same train.(4:24 to 5:30). The special train headed by the then already preserved LNER A4 "Sir Nigel Gresley" on its 1967 trip from Waterloo to Weymouth & return. With film of this train passing Clapham Junction, three separate views some distance apart at New Malden, including two views of the special overtaking the same EMU (2 x 4SUB) at New Malden, and then passing Woking, all southbound ! Even a Harrier jump jet wouldn't have got him to all these locations in time ??????
Indeed - he roped in my mother (who had her own cine camera)! I suspect there may have been two workings, too, which confused me at first. BTW, there is no shot at Woking - the last scene is at Wimbledon with the up train.
Is there no sound?
No, I don't add music to silent films.
@@iandocwra1169 ah right thx, wondered if my speakers were messed up. Great cinematography either wau
Great footage from your skilled dad. But you should get someone to narrate it.
Wonderful! Thank you so much for posting this, and your father for making this record. Amazing how often an electric train annoyingly got in the way of the view of a steam engine, my experience too in my boyhood "linesiding" days in the Petts Wood area during the 1950's!
Fascinating footage of the then little-known line across the Thames at Battersea, and the "Kenny Belle" the off-timetable service between Clapham Junction and Kensington Olympia for the workers at the Post Office Savings HQ in Blythe Road (how often I posted my book there to make a withdrawal - banking was very different in those days!) I've read somewhere that the train was actually an "Official Secret", as was the location of the Post Office Savings HQ, if so, it was a badly kept one as far as the railway enthusiasts of the time were concerned! The train consist included one of the experimental BR Standard suburban coaches with glassfibre bodies, the very "shiny" vehicle at one end of the train. One thinks with trepidation what would have been the fate of the passengers had it ever been involved in an accident!
And the Isle of Wight footage, shot at the end of steam as the "third rail" was being laid, in typical IoW weather. It brought back so many memories of crossing to the Island with my Mother in the 1950's on day trips from our hotel in Southsea during the school Easter holidays. The Portsmouth Corporation trolleybus ride to Portsmouth Harbour Station, buying the combined ferrry/train tickets to our IoW destination, and walking through the station, hoping to get a glimpse of a steam engine on one of the cross-country services which ran to and from the south coast amid all the electric trains, then embarking on the ferry, usually one of the motor vessels "Southsea" or "Brading", the paddle ferries being brought into service during the busier summer months. There were views of the naval dockyard and HMS Victory, and the Gosport ferry seen in this film was a rather more modern version than the ones used in the 1950's. We crossed Spithead past the forts, and arrived at Ryde Pierhead to make our way across the landing stage to the Pierhead Station, closed in this film while being redeveloped for the electric train service. The little O2 tank engines bustled about, their Westinghouse brake pumps panting, as we found our train of aged compartment stock, often with old sepia framed prints of locations served by the erstwhile LSWR displayed on the partition walls, and droplight windows in the doors, operated by stout leather straps, which I was forbidden to touch in case I got my fingers trapped! Meanwhile the Solent washed at the piles of the pier below as waited to depart, The run down the pier was always interesting, keeping pace with the petrol-driven cars of the Pier Tramway, also operated by BR, and then after Espanade station, we entered the tunnel under the town of Ryde, coming out near St Johns Road, the hub of railway services after Newport and the Cowes line were closed. At Sandown, I witnessed the exchange of line staffs between train crew and signalman, Mum had to explain to me the principle of "single line working" and the importance of the train staff in ensuring safety. My last visit to the Island in steam days was on a week-long school trip to Sandown in 1959, when there was the added attraction of a run down the line from Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour aboard one of the old 4-COR "Nelson" electric trains.
Oh! The memories ! Thanks again for posting this, and reviving them for me.
I'm so glad you (and so many others) enjoyed it. What a fulsome comment - thank you! There are a few particularly fascinating scenes - not least the special headed by A4 4498 - I seem to remember Dad got Mum to film it as well, hence the different views of the same train (she had her own cine camera). Yes, electrics did get in the way, but they too have their own interest, e.g. the all-steel 2HAL glimpsed at Clapham Junction. The sheer variety of stock was so much greater then, with many lash-ups of EMUs, possible because their operating systems were so much simpler than today's rolling computers! My father would have been astounded at the ability to reach so many viewers on line now.
A great comment, adding colour to the already excellent visuals.
As for so called "secret" locations, the BT Tower or PO Tower as it was at first, was one impossible to hide, no Postcode and a blank area on the A-Z, but had a public restaurant at the top!