I remember delay after delay after delay and trains being cancelled left right and centre. Are people so blinded by nostalgia that they can't remember how bad BR was? Back then everyone was crying out for it to be privatised!
Forget about the future increases, the existing fares have been a total rip off for years, not only most expensive in europe but more expensive by far, in some cases 10 times more than equivalent journeys on the continent. I checked some journeys from south east to northern destinations, it turned out you could get cheaper RETURN FLIGHTS to many European destinations and even to USA! Rail bosses gave the arrogant monopolist reply 'People are still buying' Shows their disgusting contempt & greed
When it was BR there was a romance associate with the trains. Hanging your head out of a corridor window to get a wiff of the EE or Sulzer engine pulling your train - the rythum of her engine as it wound up to address the grade not to mention the high-pitched ran power of a Paxman Valenta.
All of this new DMU and EMU crap with 60 different color schemes has really robbed the railway of its majesty and grace.
One of the most stupidest decisions ever made in 1996 to privatise the railways. BR was not perfect but at least it was a damn sight cheaper to run in Government subsidies and cheaper for the travelling public who were then not subjected to the TOC's policy of profits first, passengers second. REnationalise the railways and lower the fares - a winning formula!
@Markjuk Brian Mulroney did this to CN where I live in Canada. It used to be something to be proud of, like BR. Now it's run by an American, owned by Americans, and has succeeded in becoming the WorstGroup of Canada. It ran in every province of Canada and one territory, and connected every corner of the country. if you put Doctor Beeching and Maggie Thatcher into one body, and ship him to Canada, you've got Brian! Now the same companies who destroyed the industry in UK are destroying Canada's!
@kavanjh82 In the latest Railway Magazine the Editor says that over the years he's more or less come to expect Labour Governments to invest in the railways and Conservative Governments to do the opposite, but Philip Hammond seems to be bucking the trend by trying to maintain investment despite the spending cuts - it seems the Great Western electrification and the Intercity Express Project are going to go ahead after all!
Fuck British Rail!! I lived all around Europe for fifteen years. You mugs pay 87% more than the next most expensive country Germany and nearly four times more than the cheapest country The Netherlands. You are a nation of whingers but do nothing about it. Do what I do and get a bus and stuff the rail fat controllers.
@RoadhouseKiss "Fuck British Rail"? Not a very wise choice of words, BR was a lot cheaper in the days that it existed, guaranteed, it wasn't the best service in the world, but it was a damn site cheaper than most TOC's today, and taking buses won't solve the problem, traffic congestion in the rush hour won't bring you to your destination on time!
The poem's from the 1936 L.M.S. documentary "Night Mail", written by the British poet W.H. Auden, slightly modernised for the times.
I wish the railways here in the U.S. still ran like they do in Britain, where you practically can catch a train from anywhere to anywhere. That era ended long ago for U.S. railways.
Ah well Amtrak, you'll get it one of these days..
Well maybe I am blaming some of this mess on the Tories. In the early 80s, they allowed a fully modernised electric line between Sheffield & Manchester to be ripped up...thus changing a 35 mins journey between these two great cities into a 75 mins if you are lucky! CALL THAT progress. Even Beeching praised the Woodhead route.
Beeching cuts, Sustrans destroying trackbeds and property developers who would build a house on their mothers grave are partly to blame for the demise of Britains railways
Nobody is blamein it the tories, I'm sure the current sleaze balls running the country will produce something equally glossy and hyped when they have to flog off Network Rail to DB (probably) to pay for various wars and banks they are involved in.
@BarrieBusesandTrains DB through the back door now own a significant chunk of Britain's Railways, Arriva, Chiltern and of course the freight operator EWS.
@shoptothecaf Yeah, but they don't own the tracks, yet. This is one of the many reasons that I'm a Euroskeptic. Of course Thatcher others, but all of Europe had to do this becuase of that piece of toilet peper called the European Directive 91/440, which was made to consider the intrerests of their bankster bosses. and has destroyed the industry. If there wouldn't've been a EU, then the Deutsche Reichsbahn wouldn't get it. I wish I could've been a Beamter, and have a job for life!
@BarrieBusesandTrains And the people who work outside Germany, but are paid by a company of the German Government - DB Schenker, probably would go apeshit at barganing time if they found how good that the DB beamten have when it comes to job security, pensions (the best in Germany), free healthcare, and good pay. If you look at DB's trains in Germany, half of them are covered in graffiti, and run in service with graffiti, with the windows covered with paint. Ruediger Grube needs a new moustache!
This wasn't about how good British Rail was, it was basically a tory propaganda film setting up the ground work prior to privatisation. A bit of corporate spin to get the city types on board. Nobody would want to buy a mouldy old rotten state owned asset unless it was presented in a glossy and sexy manner. No they'd buy it because it was all flogged off on the cheap.
ah what a fantastic advert and reminds us of the national institution that was BR. Shows the pride we had in OUR railway back then. Bring back British Rail!
and what realy gets up my nose is that the tracks used are owned by the people who dont run the trains i know enugh to know that in the days of "the big 4" the trains ran on time and the tracks were fixed
Nothing to do with persuading people to invest in privatisation, more, I think, an "up yours" to the people who trashed our railways in the press and elsewhere.
We had a good railway - and, to be fair, we still do, but no thanks to privatisation.
Given the railways are now carrying more passengers than any time since 1946 (when the network was much bigger), they will be around for a long time to come.
But it was reported recently that they would be closing by the end of the year. What do you think will be the consequences of this? More public spending?
If this video was supposed to envoke pride in our railways in order to get people to invest into privatisng them then it's ironic, because the only thing this video makes me proud of is British Rail. And it's not here anymore.
Long live British Rail. It wasn't perfect but it was something under-rated that Britain could be proud of regardless.
Great video with pride. Lets invest in our railways (Governments gets loads of Dosh out of the motorist) Reopen the Waverley, Woodhead, Great central (HS2) and others lost though draft beeching closures. Train companys that fail First great western lose their contracts
There was an article in the Railway Magazine recently about reopening schemes up and down the country and looking at some of them it's a wonder they closed in the first place!
They said that there obviously isn't a closed line in the country that 'someone somewhere' doesn't want to see open, so it wasn't possible to list them all, but they detailed the ones with more than a slim chance.
I see the old trackbeds and bridges of the GCR on my travels in Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire.....Such a shame they closed it. Hope this Great Central consortium gets the backing to re-open it.
my god what a truely fantastic advert. the pride there was then and all the great things about BR in one 90 second advert. Vangelis track is amazing! And nice view of the 442 in the best livery ever NSE!
BR was an institution funded by the british taxpayer. However I like to think it had an identity. Today there are numerous so called train operating companies with cheap and nasty looking colour schemes, my local one (c2c) sports a very dainty pink and blue! absolutely disgusting! and incidently the private train operating companies are still backed up to the hilt by the british taxpayer even maggie snatcher was moved to say that this was a privatisation too far!
nenevr seen traffic on the tyne bridge flowing so freely like that for a while!!
All the HST's at the end in the same livery - those were days when train companies didn't argue over who should use which lines! when those boards marked "connections" actually had a use, as trains tied up with other trains instead of you getting there and having to wait a couple of hours for a connection, or worse, as Arriva crosscountry is running late, again!
Well okay a state-owned corporation then - the intention was to commericalize it as a corporation that was not dependant on state support, something which everyone should have encouraged. At privatization a 'British Rail PLC' was given serious consideration and it has been rumoured that is was Thatcher envisaged...but slicing and dicing the poor thing is what won the day.
Ps. To the earlier comment Mrs. Thatcher had nothing to do with privatization of the railways and only aided its development from nationalized lost cause to a company operating to conventional corporate standards.
who are you some kind of derainged penis whitehall dick splash i was there when the megger bitch from hell sold me and my colleages to a prick who made millions from calling us virgins and painting the trains red they then over the next 10 years spent 13 million pounds on moderising the WCML thats west coast main line to you oh single celled one which was more than british rail as a whole got in the last 20 years of its operation
On a slight technical point that somewhat diminishes your argument, Mrs. Thatcher did not privatize the railways. John Major did three years after Mrs. Thatcher resigned.
thatcher was the instigator of the wholesale privatisation of many industries and she laid the timetable for the privatisation of the rail industry major completed the hive off no technical point taken as non was breached on a different point i think i got my estimate wrong i think that the present estimate is upwards of 3 billion pounds and it still is not completed
british railonly when roung cose of greed for prvertisation and grad leving it torote to crise point all littel units and confusion on wich dose whant but one wared things are geting better but at a slower pase
This was a hugely expensive advert to make and was first shown at 0900 on the 25/12/1988. The advert actually lasted for 2:30s, with this being the abridged version that misses out some "romantic" bits of the network!
Narrated by Sir Tom Courtenay, directed by Hugh Hudson with music by Vangelis, the commercial is perhaps a fitting reminder of 'British Railways' at the peak of the nationalized era.
This was the outgoing British Rail's last hope to keep the network whole. By the way the sound recordist was none other than Mr Transacord himself Peter Handford.
Absolutely! The film was a well loved icon of British cinema and no doubt BR wanted to play on that. Come to think of it, nowadays BR may almost fit in the 'well loved icon' category given some of the things that have happened since privatisation!
I don't think this could be categorised as a remake. Night Mail was a 25 documentary film specifically about the train - search "night mail" on britmovie co uk for a good summary of the background to the film. Whilst this video certainly pays homage to these origins, it is a one and a half minute advert trying to encompass the wide range of services provided by BR, not an update.
It's not. I think you're refering to the documentary "Night Mail" which featured a poem written by W. H. Auden which the first verse of this is based upon.
Do you know - I've just watched this and was about to say the very same thing - I can't hear the words properly (apart from "Night Mail", which I know off by heart!)
I was just thinking that I'd have to keep replaying the video until I could understand the commentary. Thanks very much for saving me the trouble!
I love the way the line "The passenger train is full of commuters" comes over a shot of a train in a very wold part of the Highlands. But surely by then BR was rapidly losing its freight traffic.
Excellent video with wonderful images. Congratulations.
mota1744 1 month ago
I remember delay after delay after delay and trains being cancelled left right and centre. Are people so blinded by nostalgia that they can't remember how bad BR was? Back then everyone was crying out for it to be privatised!
eamonnca1 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Forget about the future increases, the existing fares have been a total rip off for years, not only most expensive in europe but more expensive by far, in some cases 10 times more than equivalent journeys on the continent. I checked some journeys from south east to northern destinations, it turned out you could get cheaper RETURN FLIGHTS to many European destinations and even to USA! Rail bosses gave the arrogant monopolist reply 'People are still buying' Shows their disgusting contempt & greed
ZaydDepaor 2 months ago
When it was BR there was a romance associate with the trains. Hanging your head out of a corridor window to get a wiff of the EE or Sulzer engine pulling your train - the rythum of her engine as it wound up to address the grade not to mention the high-pitched ran power of a Paxman Valenta.
All of this new DMU and EMU crap with 60 different color schemes has really robbed the railway of its majesty and grace.
iceolated75 7 months ago
One of the most stupidest decisions ever made in 1996 to privatise the railways. BR was not perfect but at least it was a damn sight cheaper to run in Government subsidies and cheaper for the travelling public who were then not subjected to the TOC's policy of profits first, passengers second. REnationalise the railways and lower the fares - a winning formula!
Markjuk 10 months ago
@Markjuk Brian Mulroney did this to CN where I live in Canada. It used to be something to be proud of, like BR. Now it's run by an American, owned by Americans, and has succeeded in becoming the WorstGroup of Canada. It ran in every province of Canada and one territory, and connected every corner of the country. if you put Doctor Beeching and Maggie Thatcher into one body, and ship him to Canada, you've got Brian! Now the same companies who destroyed the industry in UK are destroying Canada's!
BarrieBusesandTrains 4 months ago
cool video I will be over there in 2 weeks rideing behind UK steam
gaycowboy31 11 months ago
Thank the Tories lack of funding throughout the 1980's and 1990's and the privatisation for an apalling rail system in Britiain.
kavanjh82 1 year ago
@kavanjh82 In the latest Railway Magazine the Editor says that over the years he's more or less come to expect Labour Governments to invest in the railways and Conservative Governments to do the opposite, but Philip Hammond seems to be bucking the trend by trying to maintain investment despite the spending cuts - it seems the Great Western electrification and the Intercity Express Project are going to go ahead after all!
Inkyminkyzizwoz 11 months ago
Fuck British Rail!! I lived all around Europe for fifteen years. You mugs pay 87% more than the next most expensive country Germany and nearly four times more than the cheapest country The Netherlands. You are a nation of whingers but do nothing about it. Do what I do and get a bus and stuff the rail fat controllers.
RoadhouseKiss 1 year ago
@RoadhouseKiss "Fuck British Rail"? Not a very wise choice of words, BR was a lot cheaper in the days that it existed, guaranteed, it wasn't the best service in the world, but it was a damn site cheaper than most TOC's today, and taking buses won't solve the problem, traffic congestion in the rush hour won't bring you to your destination on time!
86501freightliner 8 months ago
british rail for the win!
bwarrrrk 1 year ago
The abridged version.
I loved the full version so much more, but I've never actually seen this version, so thanks for the upload!
HoorayforOliver 1 year ago
Is this an actual piece of music, or was it specially made for this advertisment?
HoorayforOliver 1 year ago
THIS AD SHOWS the last gasp of a great piece of British technology before it was trashed by corporatisation !
fordlandau 1 year ago
just makes me miss the 1980s
simonthebailey 1 year ago
The poem's from the 1936 L.M.S. documentary "Night Mail", written by the British poet W.H. Auden, slightly modernised for the times.
I wish the railways here in the U.S. still ran like they do in Britain, where you practically can catch a train from anywhere to anywhere. That era ended long ago for U.S. railways.
Ah well Amtrak, you'll get it one of these days..
Shipwright1918 2 years ago 2
Those were the days!
TurtleGerald 2 years ago
This gives me warm fuzzies inside!
sarahsytubeid 2 years ago 2
Does anyone have the old advert of this when they used steam trains and I think it was in Black and White.
turboandy 2 years ago
Hi, it is on Ytube. Search 'nightmail'.
eezy1972 2 years ago
tyneside-your magnificent
toonmag50 2 years ago
It is going to take a few years,but we will get our railway back.................
peak45 2 years ago 8
Have this on tape.
From 1988
AndrewJimScott 2 years ago
SCOTRAIL 1
iloveflutes1 2 years ago
BRING BACK BRITISH RAIL!!!!
Defn28 2 years ago 36
@Defn28 Are you going to stamp up all the billions of pounds of taxpayers money needed for it then?
theredraven 1 year ago
@Defn28 so true
peak45 9 months ago
bring back british rail!
krazykeys88 2 years ago 6
YES!
Check out the new nation-wide campaign -
Bring Back British Rail (BBBR) by googling or on Facebook.
Message me if you want to get involved.
lewis986 2 years ago 2
I think this is simply brilliant, and interesting, and educational - a feeling of industry and unity.
I wasn't born untill 1985 but looking at this i actually think we've gone backwards. sorry.
I can see how people must have loved this country one upon a time.
bertyUK 2 years ago 7
sounds like the dude from 'A Clockwork Orange'
bongjnr 2 years ago
Well maybe I am blaming some of this mess on the Tories. In the early 80s, they allowed a fully modernised electric line between Sheffield & Manchester to be ripped up...thus changing a 35 mins journey between these two great cities into a 75 mins if you are lucky! CALL THAT progress. Even Beeching praised the Woodhead route.
cleckheatoncentral 2 years ago
Yeah. Apparently even under his second report it would've remained open!
Inkyminkyzizwoz 2 years ago
So Do I.......................
peak45 2 years ago
Before Ernest Marples
Pwndlolhaxbbq 2 years ago
yeah.. this ad doesnt really work without a steamer
andyg3 2 years ago
Beeching cuts, Sustrans destroying trackbeds and property developers who would build a house on their mothers grave are partly to blame for the demise of Britains railways
cleckheatoncentral 3 years ago 5
Nobody is blamein it the tories, I'm sure the current sleaze balls running the country will produce something equally glossy and hyped when they have to flog off Network Rail to DB (probably) to pay for various wars and banks they are involved in.
shoptothecaf 3 years ago
@shoptothecaf If DB gets your railways, that's' the end! Churchill will be turning in his grave!
BarrieBusesandTrains 4 months ago
@BarrieBusesandTrains DB through the back door now own a significant chunk of Britain's Railways, Arriva, Chiltern and of course the freight operator EWS.
shoptothecaf 4 months ago
@shoptothecaf Yeah, but they don't own the tracks, yet. This is one of the many reasons that I'm a Euroskeptic. Of course Thatcher others, but all of Europe had to do this becuase of that piece of toilet peper called the European Directive 91/440, which was made to consider the intrerests of their bankster bosses. and has destroyed the industry. If there wouldn't've been a EU, then the Deutsche Reichsbahn wouldn't get it. I wish I could've been a Beamter, and have a job for life!
BarrieBusesandTrains 4 months ago
@BarrieBusesandTrains And the people who work outside Germany, but are paid by a company of the German Government - DB Schenker, probably would go apeshit at barganing time if they found how good that the DB beamten have when it comes to job security, pensions (the best in Germany), free healthcare, and good pay. If you look at DB's trains in Germany, half of them are covered in graffiti, and run in service with graffiti, with the windows covered with paint. Ruediger Grube needs a new moustache!
BarrieBusesandTrains 4 months ago
Nice HST at 0:48 .
s7o0a0p 3 years ago
This wasn't about how good British Rail was, it was basically a tory propaganda film setting up the ground work prior to privatisation. A bit of corporate spin to get the city types on board. Nobody would want to buy a mouldy old rotten state owned asset unless it was presented in a glossy and sexy manner. No they'd buy it because it was all flogged off on the cheap.
shoptothecaf 3 years ago
this just shows what us brit can do BR was just so good i wish it was still around !! returning on the 6.42 lol
fergfergferg123 3 years ago 4
The 6.42 will arrive one day bring back BR
peak45 3 years ago 4
the little boy at 1:13 is now 23 and is my boyfriend. wasnt he so cute??
helzbellz24 3 years ago 3
I've made a song about the origins of the British railway. search "Dan Bull - Origins of the British Railway"
douglby 3 years ago
ah what a fantastic advert and reminds us of the national institution that was BR. Shows the pride we had in OUR railway back then. Bring back British Rail!
gregmc21 3 years ago 6
and what realy gets up my nose is that the tracks used are owned by the people who dont run the trains i know enugh to know that in the days of "the big 4" the trains ran on time and the tracks were fixed
elixaristhedragon 3 years ago 3
Thanks for this - great advert.
Nothing to do with persuading people to invest in privatisation, more, I think, an "up yours" to the people who trashed our railways in the press and elsewhere.
We had a good railway - and, to be fair, we still do, but no thanks to privatisation.
calstock 3 years ago
calstock - When is British Rail planning to close?
dowling1981 3 years ago
Given the railways are now carrying more passengers than any time since 1946 (when the network was much bigger), they will be around for a long time to come.
As for poor old British Rail......
calstock 3 years ago
But it was reported recently that they would be closing by the end of the year. What do you think will be the consequences of this? More public spending?
dowling1981 3 years ago
Don't know where you read that but I wouldn't trust anything else you see there.
Nothing is closing.
calstock 3 years ago
It was in The Times. Who do you think will be replacing them? I certainly hope prices go down
dowling1981 3 years ago
Yes but its the fat cats that get rich and us we have to pay more for them ??????
peak45 3 years ago
BR is long gone mate for at least 10 years
elixaristhedragon 3 years ago
Do you think that they should go the way of Northerner's Rock?
dowling1981 3 years ago
no its gone
elixaristhedragon 3 years ago
But the Northerner's Rock is due to close, nein?
dowling1981 3 years ago
If this video was supposed to envoke pride in our railways in order to get people to invest into privatisng them then it's ironic, because the only thing this video makes me proud of is British Rail. And it's not here anymore.
Long live British Rail. It wasn't perfect but it was something under-rated that Britain could be proud of regardless.
TheAmazingDannyKing 3 years ago 37
@TheAmazingDannyKing couldn't agree more :(
scratchedguitar 1 year ago
@TheAmazingDannyKing i agree
SUPERPCFLYER1111 3 weeks ago
Great video with pride. Lets invest in our railways (Governments gets loads of Dosh out of the motorist) Reopen the Waverley, Woodhead, Great central (HS2) and others lost though draft beeching closures. Train companys that fail First great western lose their contracts
cleckheatoncentral 4 years ago
Hear hear!
There was an article in the Railway Magazine recently about reopening schemes up and down the country and looking at some of them it's a wonder they closed in the first place!
They said that there obviously isn't a closed line in the country that 'someone somewhere' doesn't want to see open, so it wasn't possible to list them all, but they detailed the ones with more than a slim chance.
Inkyminkyzizwoz 3 years ago
I see the old trackbeds and bridges of the GCR on my travels in Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire.....Such a shame they closed it. Hope this Great Central consortium gets the backing to re-open it.
robthemod58 2 years ago 2
my god what a truely fantastic advert. the pride there was then and all the great things about BR in one 90 second advert. Vangelis track is amazing! And nice view of the 442 in the best livery ever NSE!
Hazmaz1 4 years ago 3
47515 Nightmail, a late lamented friend from my childhood ............... I'll get my anorack
Trotsky130 4 years ago 2
When Britain still had pride in its railways...
simierski 4 years ago 8
Yep - them were the days!
Come back, BR, dear old friend - all is forgiven!!!
(oh, and while you're at it - can we have the Night Mail back too, please?)
Inkyminkyzizwoz 4 years ago 6
47476 NIGHT MAIL i loved BR
peak45 4 years ago
BR was an institution funded by the british taxpayer. However I like to think it had an identity. Today there are numerous so called train operating companies with cheap and nasty looking colour schemes, my local one (c2c) sports a very dainty pink and blue! absolutely disgusting! and incidently the private train operating companies are still backed up to the hilt by the british taxpayer even maggie snatcher was moved to say that this was a privatisation too far!
rodjames98 4 years ago 5
51 to 54s the best, good old Forth Bridge, best build bridge in the world.
iloveflutes1 4 years ago
I remember that ad, good old British Rail! We want our Railway back!
bert031078 4 years ago 3
nenevr seen traffic on the tyne bridge flowing so freely like that for a while!!
All the HST's at the end in the same livery - those were days when train companies didn't argue over who should use which lines! when those boards marked "connections" actually had a use, as trains tied up with other trains instead of you getting there and having to wait a couple of hours for a connection, or worse, as Arriva crosscountry is running late, again!
mazeteam 4 years ago
Nice line up at the end of the three BR liveries carried by the HST :)
Noogle888 4 years ago
Well okay a state-owned corporation then - the intention was to commericalize it as a corporation that was not dependant on state support, something which everyone should have encouraged. At privatization a 'British Rail PLC' was given serious consideration and it has been rumoured that is was Thatcher envisaged...but slicing and dicing the poor thing is what won the day.
lewis986 4 years ago
Excellent advt. Ah, for a pre-Reagan, pre-Thatcher world, eh?
alfie22aa 4 years ago
This was during Thatchers time....
jssuiter 4 years ago
What a fantastic advert..and company.
BRING BACK BRITISH RAIL.
Ps. To the earlier comment Mrs. Thatcher had nothing to do with privatization of the railways and only aided its development from nationalized lost cause to a company operating to conventional corporate standards.
lewis986 4 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
who are you some kind of derainged penis whitehall dick splash i was there when the megger bitch from hell sold me and my colleages to a prick who made millions from calling us virgins and painting the trains red they then over the next 10 years spent 13 million pounds on moderising the WCML thats west coast main line to you oh single celled one which was more than british rail as a whole got in the last 20 years of its operation
llofffy 3 years ago
sorry guys just sounding off to some-one probably william hague who thinks thatcher did a good job
llofffy 3 years ago
On a slight technical point that somewhat diminishes your argument, Mrs. Thatcher did not privatize the railways. John Major did three years after Mrs. Thatcher resigned.
I agree though - a complete disaster.
lewis986 3 years ago 2
thatcher was the instigator of the wholesale privatisation of many industries and she laid the timetable for the privatisation of the rail industry major completed the hive off no technical point taken as non was breached on a different point i think i got my estimate wrong i think that the present estimate is upwards of 3 billion pounds and it still is not completed
llofffy 3 years ago
and its 10 billion in debt thanks to her
elixaristhedragon 3 years ago
british railonly when roung cose of greed for prvertisation and grad leving it torote to crise point all littel units and confusion on wich dose whant but one wared things are geting better but at a slower pase
screammac 4 years ago
and you, my friend, need to learn how to spell, thats the most spelling errors in one statement I have seen online. No mean feat!
sheep21 4 years ago
the crackling adds to the music
tugsrule4 4 years ago
spose it reflects a lost era
tugsrule4 4 years ago
What went wrong?
Nightslasher 4 years ago
two words, margret thatcher
tugsrule4 4 years ago 2
is a cow
victorspencer12 4 years ago 2
Actually I would argue that the two words should be John Major.
cjmillsnun 4 years ago 2
All right - a cow and her calf . . .
Inkyminkyzizwoz 4 years ago
The power and the glory BR !
peak45 4 years ago
I think josephdrew87 said it all with 'I wonder if British Rail knew they were making their own obituary.'
On the track side of a bridge just south of the Gloucester Triangle someone sprayed 'BR RIP' on the rail side of the bridge wall.
Pete4000uk 4 years ago
This was a hugely expensive advert to make and was first shown at 0900 on the 25/12/1988. The advert actually lasted for 2:30s, with this being the abridged version that misses out some "romantic" bits of the network!
Narrated by Sir Tom Courtenay, directed by Hugh Hudson with music by Vangelis, the commercial is perhaps a fitting reminder of 'British Railways' at the peak of the nationalized era.
n1dom 4 years ago 2
This was the outgoing British Rail's last hope to keep the network whole. By the way the sound recordist was none other than Mr Transacord himself Peter Handford.
A60stock 4 years ago
Absolutely! The film was a well loved icon of British cinema and no doubt BR wanted to play on that. Come to think of it, nowadays BR may almost fit in the 'well loved icon' category given some of the things that have happened since privatisation!
jimn1013 4 years ago
I don't think this could be categorised as a remake. Night Mail was a 25 documentary film specifically about the train - search "night mail" on britmovie co uk for a good summary of the background to the film. Whilst this video certainly pays homage to these origins, it is a one and a half minute advert trying to encompass the wide range of services provided by BR, not an update.
jimn1013 4 years ago
I wonder if British Rail knew they were making their own obituary. So sad to loose such a great British institution...
josephdrew87 4 years ago
Irony that the film was shot from the air, with air proing a cheaper for of inter city transport
Intravenusdimilo 4 years ago
It's not. I think you're refering to the documentary "Night Mail" which featured a poem written by W. H. Auden which the first verse of this is based upon.
FileTrekker 4 years ago
I wish Amtrak was like that.
NCStL576 4 years ago
Fantastic
HombreSantiago 4 years ago
Sound quality is a bit poor, I can't make out some words, which is really bugging me.
Anyone got a proper transcript?
FileTrekker 4 years ago
Must be the received pronunciation accent that causes confusion! The comment length limit means I'll have to post in three batches:
This is the Night Mail crossing the border
Bringing the cheque and the postal order
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor
The shop at the corner and the girl next door
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb
The gradient's against her, but she is on time
jimn1013 4 years ago
Passing the shunter intent on its toil
Moving the coke and the coal and the oil
Girders for bridges, plastics for fridges
Bricks for the site are required by tonight
Grimy and grey is the engine's reflection
Down to the docks for the metal collection
jimn1013 4 years ago
The passenger train is full of commuters
Bound for the office to work in computers
The teacher, the doctor, the actor in farce
The typist, the banker, the judge in first class
Reading The Times with a crossword to do
Returning at night on the 6.42
jimn1013 4 years ago
You have my many thanks, Sir. :p
FileTrekker 4 years ago
Do you know - I've just watched this and was about to say the very same thing - I can't hear the words properly (apart from "Night Mail", which I know off by heart!)
I was just thinking that I'd have to keep replaying the video until I could understand the commentary. Thanks very much for saving me the trouble!
Inkyminkyzizwoz 4 years ago
I love the way the line "The passenger train is full of commuters" comes over a shot of a train in a very wold part of the Highlands. But surely by then BR was rapidly losing its freight traffic.
skyhawk1720 4 years ago 2
very nice....
lartyp 4 years ago
I love the music.
tynerider 4 years ago
lol i'm totally stalking you as i've just followed you here :P
geon106 4 years ago
Great video great advert
chubbybrown4real 4 years ago
That's quite an advert. I like it.
FileTrekker 4 years ago
Great one! Many Thanks for this one.
JohnR99 5 years ago