Snowdrift at Bleath Gill

Snowdrift at Bleath Gill
Snowdrift at Bleath Gill
Directed by	Kenneth Fairbairn
Produced by	Edgar Anstey
Music by	Hubert Clifford Sidney Torch Charles Williams
Cinematography	Robert Paynter David Watkin
Distributed by	British Transport Films
Release date	1955
Running time	10 minutes
Country	United Kingdom

Snowdrift at Bleath Gill is a 1955 British Transport Film documentary directed by Kenneth Fairbairn. The 10-minute-long film presents a first-hand account of a team of British Railways workmen freeing a goods train stuck in a snowdrift on the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway at Bleath Gill in the Pennines on the border between County Durham, Yorkshire and Westmoreland. A fine example of an industrial documentary, the British Film Institute call it "One of the most outstanding films of its kind".

BR Standard Class 2 2-6-0 No. 78018, hauling the 4.20am goods train, set out from Kirkby Stephen on the morning of Thursday, 24 February 1955, hauling eight 20-ton wagons of limestone and minerals. At 5am, she became stuck at Bleath Gill, just north of Barras railway station and near Stainmore Summit which at 1370 feet high was the highest point on any railway line in England until its closure in 1962. The train, along with its crew remained stranded there until 3pm the following Monday, when the first rescue teams arrived.

On the rescue train were a crew of BTF staff—director Kennith Fairbairn, cameraman Robert Paynter and assistant David Watkin—who had been hurriedly assigned by producer Edgar Anstey to travel to Barnard Castle to join the snowplough and a gang of fifty men travelling up the line to free the train.

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