Sunday, February 01, 2009

Snow and steam

I remember the winter of 1963. School was closed for time when the outside toilets froze up. We thawed our 1/3 pint bottles of milk around the stove in our classroom.

On 1 February, 1963, Geoffrey Jones began filming "Snow" which was to win 14 major awards and an Oscar nomination in 1965. Jones was already working on a film for the British Railways Board when he had the idea of making a film contrasting the comfort of the passengers with the efforts of the workmen to keep the trains running during this abnormal winter.

The footage we see is mostly from the Western Region. There is also a tantalising glimpse of a Somerset and Dorset freight train as well as some archive pre-WW II shots of Jubilee class locomotive 'Barbados'.

1 comment:

dcain said...

You might enjoy this film in a similar vein: http://youtu.be/-ugIoMD495E