Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22054 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| PLAYING WITH TRAINS | 1964 | 1964-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 4 mins 31 secs Credits: Individuals: John Percival Staddon Genre: Amateur Subject: Travel Transport Railways Family Life |
| Summary This amateur film made by John Percival Staddon records the assembly of a model railway in the family garden and features a narrative where Staddon's young daughter falls asleep and dreams of full size trains. Sequences of steam and diesel trains on a line to Middlesbrough are then shown. |
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Description
This amateur film made by John Percival Staddon records the assembly of a model railway in the family garden and features a narrative where Staddon's young daughter falls asleep and dreams of full size trains. Sequences of steam and diesel trains on a line to Middlesbrough are then shown.
Title: Playing With Trains
In a garden a young girl sits in a chair reading a copy of ‘Railway Modeller’. She flicks through the pages.
The film cuts to the girl and her family watching their father...
This amateur film made by John Percival Staddon records the assembly of a model railway in the family garden and features a narrative where Staddon's young daughter falls asleep and dreams of full size trains. Sequences of steam and diesel trains on a line to Middlesbrough are then shown.
Title: Playing With Trains
In a garden a young girl sits in a chair reading a copy of ‘Railway Modeller’. She flicks through the pages.
The film cuts to the girl and her family watching their father assemble boards which make up a model railway layout. Their mother looks on. The whole model railway assembly is placed in a metal frame. The children add features such as buildings to the layout. Their father checks that the electric models are running. Two of the girls watch closely to see how things are progressing. One of the girls takes charge of the controls. The girl who had been reading the magazine at the beginning of the film, rubs her eyes as if feeling tired.
Title: Dreaming of Real Trains
The girl falls asleep in her chair. The film cuts to the platform of a railway station, possibly one on the North East coastal line from Middlesbrough to Newcastle.
A passenger steam train approaches the station, and passes straight through. This is followed by a D.M.U. a diesel multiple unit which operated on local services, approaching the platform. The destination board on the front of the engine reads ‘Middlesbrough’. The train stops and lets passengers off. The guard walks along the platform and back onto the train. The train pulls out of the station. The film cuts to a British Railways emblem, painted onto a railway carriage. A large diesel/electric locomotive (D259) pulls a passenger train. It stops to let passengers off then moves on.
The young girl is asleep, then wakes up to join the others at the model railway layout. The three children take over the controls of model railway as the film fades out.
Context
This amateur film was photographed by John Percival Staddon of Sunderland, shot in rich 16 mm Kodachrome. The standardisation of 16mm film in 1923 opened up the world of filmmaking for the first time to non-professionals. Eastman Kodak first developed this film format and pioneered accessible and affordable film technology during the early 20th century. Kodak had vastly improved the safety of its products too, with new-fire resistant rolls of film meaning that amateur filmmakers could enjoy a...
This amateur film was photographed by John Percival Staddon of Sunderland, shot in rich 16 mm Kodachrome. The standardisation of 16mm film in 1923 opened up the world of filmmaking for the first time to non-professionals. Eastman Kodak first developed this film format and pioneered accessible and affordable film technology during the early 20th century. Kodak had vastly improved the safety of its products too, with new-fire resistant rolls of film meaning that amateur filmmakers could enjoy a cigarette whilst projecting their home movies without fear of causing an inferno.
By the mid-1930s, a German observer estimated that the British amateur cine scene had around 250,000 hobby filmmakers and about 3000 to 4000 of those people was a member of an amateur cine club; the home movie craze had taken hold of Britain. This film was made just one year before Super 8 film was marketed in 1965. From this point on, amateur film equipment became increasingly smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier to use, leading to increased popularity and affordability of home movie making and screening, outside of the middle and upper classes. The first mass market train and railway sets were produced by German company Marklin in 1891, but the hobby of making train models and railways from scratch began with a group of English hobbyists in 1904. The first electric model railways were introduced to England just before World War One and the first electric-powered toy train was produced by Rovex Plastics Ltd in time for Christmas 1950. Typical model train sets came with layout carriages and a dummy engine with a 12v transformer. After Meccano and Lego, the model railway set was the most desired toy for decades for children, however the hobby transcended childhood and gained an adult following all over the world. The BBC note that many rail engineers started out by building model railway sets. (1) The daughter in the film reads a copy of Railway Modeller magazine, a monthly British magazine about Model Railways which has been in publication since 1949 and remains the most-read of its kind today. In the dream sequence of the film, we see various locomotives passing through an undisclosed train station in the North East, including steam and diesel-powered. This film was made on the cusp of the transition from steam to diesel locomotion, so provides a lasting document of a time when both were visible on the daily rail commute. Following World War Two, the price of domestic coal remained low meaning steam trains continued to operate in Britain until the 1960s. When the price of oil started to fall in the 1960s, Britain saw the rise of ‘dieselisation,’ which marked the beginning of the end for steam. Diesel engines were faster, cleaner and easier to maintain. On 12th August 1968, British Railways imposed a national ban on all mainline steam traffic, with the exception of some heritage and industry services. One day before the ban was imposed on 11th August 1968, the last steam passenger train ran from Liverpool to Carlisle via Manchester and back and was named the Fifteen Guinea Special due to the exceptionally high cost of the trip compared to previous steam journeys. The ban was lifted in 1971, allowing heritage sites to operate steam locomotion for the tourist trade. (2) Across the North East there are standard gauge heritage railways at the Aln Valley Railway Trust, Tanfield Railway and Weardale Railway, and narrow gauge railways at the Heatherslaw Light Railway and Woodhorn Narrow Gauge Railway. Other heritage spots across the North East that document the history of local steam locomotion include Beamish Museum near Stanley, the Head of Steam at Darlington, the Locomotion Museum at Shildon and the Stephenson Railway Museum at Wallsend. (3) References: (1) Model Railways - the train set - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/-3QrEc7KQjmvc80HuuDqZQ (2) 11 August 1968: the last steam passenger service in Britain - https://moneyweek.com/403807/11-august-1968-the-last-steam-passenger-train-in-britain/ (3) Heritage railways, steam railways and railway museums in North East - https://railtracks.uk/north-east#.XQo5o4hKi00 |
