This is the original release from 2011, available exclusively from Videoscene.

The definitive archive film led history of the interwar grouping of Britain's extensive railway network into 'The Big Four of the New Railway Era' - The Great Western Railway, the Southern Railway, the London Midland & Scottish Railway and the London & North Eastern Railway.

The Railway Act of 1921 was conceived to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies through unnecessary competition and to retain some of the benefits which the country had derived from a government-controlled railway during the First World War.

The story of this 'golden age' is told through the original archive cinema newsreel reports of the time and evidence the diversity of locomotive types across the companies: LMS Royal Scot Class, LNER B17 Class, LMS Patriot Class, LMS Black 5 Class and the 'Streamlined' Locomotives of the GWR, LNER and LMS among many, many more!

Topics Include:

• A survey of the main locomotive types including naming ceremonies and testing experimental locos.
• Locomotive streamlining - the Kings Class, A4 Class and Princess Coronation Class.
• Express Steam Locomotive Speed Records: The Cheltenham Flyer, Princess Elizabeth Class and Princess Coronation Class.
• Named Express Trains on the 'Race To The North' - the Flying Scotsman and the Silver Jubilee.
• Suburban Electrification on the SR and LNER.
• Freight trains with heavy and unusual loads.
• Passenger trains: mainline, branches and backwaters.
• The closure of the Brill and Devil's Dyke branches.
• Early Diesel Railcar trials on the GWR, LMS and LNER.
• The impact of Industrial Action in the 1924 Railway Strike and the 1926 General Strike.
• The permanent way, its maintenance and bridges.
• Advances in signalling technologies.
• Royal Trains carrying the Duke of Gloucester and King George V.

Produced by - Strike Force Entertainment
Running time - 102 Minutes
Format - 1.33:1  B&W
DVD only