British Transport Film Archive

British Transport Films was formed in May 1949 with Edgar Anstey as its first Producer in Charge. Anstey was a protégé of John Grierson the principle documentary film maker in the 1930s and the founder of the British Documentary Movement.The nationalisation of Britain's four major privately owned railway companies, along with other transport undertakings including road motor transport and canals, took place in 1948. Two of the major railway companies maintained film units which were amalgamated into the new BTF and carried on the work of the previously privately run units. Their purpose was the making of travelogue films that promoted destinations in town, country and seaside resorts throughout the British Isles and promoted rail or associated transport as the best means for people to travel to the destinations represented on screen. Another successful vein was the production of films that represented the nationalised transport workforce and the part they had to play in rebuilding the country. Of more direct concern to staff were the films made to explain complicated operational aspects of the transport undertakings and were used in training schools.

Much of this library has been published in DVD format, ten volumes so far each containing two DVDs. I own volumes 1, 2 and 9 so far and they are a joy to watch. In the general output of BTF the view is taken of Britain slowly coming out of the ravages of war into the 1950s. This is an important legacy that Anstey and BTF has left for future generations. Furthermore BTF went onto to reflect the ‘swinging sixties’ and then change again to reflect the mood of the seventies. Although BTF was a sponsored unit, Anstey and his team of resident and freelance filmmakers have managed not only to capture the transport of the time but moreover the period it operated in. As BTF was indirectly publicly funded through subsidies to the B.T.C. and B.R.B. from 1954, the unit has provided another service to the public in recording three diverse and interesting decades of British way of life and transport.

There is available an 18-disc box set bringing together nine volumes of the BFI’s celebrated British Transport Films.

This impressive 18-disc box set collects nine volumes of the BFI’s celebrated British Transport Films DVD series and fully illustrates the wide range of subjects the BTF Unit covered for over three decades. Released in a beautifully illustrated box containing slimline cases and a fully illustrated booklet, with extensive notes and credits to each film, this remarkable collection provides a unique insight into the changing social history of Britain from the 1950s to the 1980s.

A real treasure trove for anyone interested in the history of post-war Britain.