This film by filmmaker and railway enthusiast Chris Lawson shows footage of steam traffic mainly in the North West region. Filmed around 1966, the film records the last days of steam powered traffic as steam locomotives give way to diesel or diesel-electric power. The film opens with a steep sided rail cutting through rock, and an approaching steam locomotive. Then the film cuts to a busy railway junction taken from a high angle, with the same engine (?) pulls goods wagons. Next a station...

This film by filmmaker and railway enthusiast Chris Lawson shows footage of steam traffic mainly in the North West region. Filmed around 1966, the film records the last days of steam powered traffic as steam locomotives give way to diesel or diesel-electric power. The film opens with a steep sided rail cutting through rock, and an approaching steam locomotive. Then the film cuts to a busy railway junction taken from a high angle, with the same engine (?) pulls goods wagons. Next a station and a view from a footbridge as two steam trains pass each other on parallel lines. The engine coming towards the camera is engine no. 48744 a class 8F-A, Stanier, 2-8-0. The engine travels on around a gentle curve away from the camera. A winter scene follows where a trackside view shows a steam engine emerging from a tunnel into a cutting hewn out of the rock. Steam enthusiasts take up precarious positions on the opposite track, to get a better view. This engine is 48773 or 48775 in any case a class 8F-A Stanier 2-8-0, probably operating out of Carlisle or another location in the North West region. A high angle view follows of a diesel multiple unit (DMU) coming through a cutting. Unusually this is a single unit, not part of a train. [Some accidental footage follows, as the camera takes a rather unusual angled view of a stone wall]. The film cuts to a marshalling yard, where a number of steam locomotives stand stationary. One stands underneath a tower or large hopper presumably to receive a load of some sort, possibly coal. A single railway line across an overgrown field, and an approaching saddle tank engine with a train of coal trucks(?) The engine number is 49 and is a National Coal Board engine probably operating out of Backworth Colliery (the engine currently preserved at the Tanfield Railway). Next a long view of a steam train speeding across an embankment in open country, in the background two cooling towers [Ferrybridge power station?]. A long shot follows of a double-header [two engine] steam train heading across a viaduct [possibly the West Bank viaduct in Widnes, Cheshire]. The film cuts to the double header out in open countryside, the camera pans left to right following its progress. A high angle view looking down into a cutting shows the double-header (same engines?) heading towards the camera. Some brief indistinct footage showing a number of parked cars ends the film