British Transport Films

British Transport Films was an organisation set up in 1949 to make documentary films on the general subject of British transport. Its work included internal training films, travelogues (extolling the virtues of places that could be visited via the British transport system - mostly by rail), and "industrial films" (as they were called) promoting the progress of Britain's railway network.

It was headed by Edgar Anstey until 1974, and from then until its demise by John W. Shepherd. Initially it made films mostly for the British Transport Commission, but after that organisation was broken up in 1963 the majority of its films were for the British Railways Board. However it also made films for London Transport, the British Waterways Board, the travel company Thomas Cook & Son and the coach company Thomas Tilling.

Many of the unit's films celebrated the running of Britain's nationalised railway network; early titles such as Train Time, Elizabethan Express and Snowdrift at Bleath Gill aimed to document and celebrate the achievements and hard work of railway staff and their machinery. Others documented a particular aspect of running a railway, for example running a station as seen in This is York and later Terminus.

Somewhat paradoxically, many of the unit's films celebrated a quiet, unchanging image of rural Britain - with travelogues such as The Heart of England (1954), The Lake District (also 1954), Three Is Company (1959), Down to Sussex (1964) and Midland Country (as late as 1974) - while simultaneously invoking the "white heat of technology" in its other work, such as its Report on Modernisation series instigated in 1959 (renamed Rail Report in 1965).

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