The Finishing Line

The first 5 or so minutes of the 1977 British Transport Films production "The Finishing Line", one of the most notorious and disturbing public information films ever.

A class of children have a sports day on and around a railway line. Predictably, they all end up getting snuffed in predictable and gory ways...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• BTF
• Finishing
• Line
• Public
• Information
• Film
• Railway
• Safety

[justinwicksteed]

Saw this on Nationwide when I was a nipper. Always thought I had dreamt it until I found this. All rather unnerving. Where can I find the full version?

[andimhisfriendjesus]

natural selection at its finest.

[craigdogalloneword]

I liked the blood best!

[tommaxsimonandy]

london 2012 here we come!

[tommaxsimonandy]

ummm... lol?

[rojblake82]

People who paly on railway lines, will end up run over and killed by trains and they will not survive.

[Kainlarsen]

I'm pretty sure that the real deal would've seen a child-shaped pile of mincemeat on the tracks.

[grammartwo]

If you pause at 4:21, you can see that her right foot is all bloody because the shoe is missing from being cut down by the train

[goatmanjohn]

The girl at 2:59 looks like she's really injured herself, there's blood on her sock.

[littleniyah]

fenced and all kids were warned to keep off. We ignored it. Well, I didn't I was a good kid, but I recall the ones who raced the trains, or dropped paving stones on the carriages from bridges, or chucked stones at the windows, or walked thru the tunnels... A film was required to try and scare them into stopping. Please! No person in the UK has ever organised kid's games nr railways!

[littleniyah]

@martang66 It is a warning film. Kids in my childhood played on railways cos they were bored. It was so common a film was made in which a boy imagines his railway games are real sports day events. There are 4 games and in each, the kids end up horribly mangled. The message: U think it's fun, but it is deadly dangerous. The Finishing Line was shown in primary schools. U had to see it, no choice and many kids were crying. You shd see where they throw stones at windows, horrible!

[littleniyah]

@marcos12 Of course parents here did the same! I really can't help thinking you are daft! This film did not try to teach kids to play safely near railways! That would be insane! It tried to shock them into staying away from the trains altogether, because 'telling them not to' doesn't work.

The point is not to teach children to be cautious when playing round trains. It's to say: play on the railway, you'll get hit by an Inter-City. No need now. They got Wii.