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I dont think we ever got around to documenting Railway film issues on S8 film
Perhaps if you have some we can get a overview what was available?
DCR film did many of course.
Globally it could be in the thousands! There were film services that did nothing but rail films and I doubt I even know all of their names!
There was one up near Boston named Sunday River Productions that made the first Super-8 print I ever owned. When I "retired" from film collecting to go to college, I had 8. Since I started up again I have 58 more! (It's never too late to have a happy childhood!)
As for DCR, they did some nice ones! I really enjoy their "An Island and its Railways" series. I also liike their films about the Welsh narrow gauge lines. Until I saw their "Ffestiniog Holiday", I'd never seen more than still photos of this line.
Last edited by Steve Klare; January 07, 2021, 11:41 AM.
I have around 130 railroad films...last time I checked. I am currently working on documenting my collection so when I get to the railroad films and have a proper list I could post them here.
I have a complete list of all the Railroad entries released from Blackgaw in Super and Standard 8mm Silent and Sound...will try to decipher a way to load it on-line here...Shorty
I have this very neat 400ft super 8 silent home movie, but very professionally shot, of some vintage locomotives being fired up, powered up, and it's so sharp and perfectly shot that it's really cool.
I can see this running add everything you can please for others future reference
I recently obtained Operation Bluebell documenting The first standard gauge uk preserved railway 1960. I have a link with this having filmed in the 70s for what would he a forthcoming 8mm release at least 45 years ago.
Railway films have always been popular and a staple of film collectors.
Maybe it's that things like railroad films have a broad enough interest group that they actually expose people to film collecting in the first place, and eventually the new interest may grow from the old.
Years and years ago people who bought 8 and 16mm weren't necessarily doing it as film hobbyists. For example a lot of sports fans bought films so they could watch World Cup or prize fights or last year's World Series over and over again. They were in in for the sports action and not so much the reels and the projectors and the screens. Then of course there were other people who bought those...certain other...films. Trust me, they were too otherwise preoccupied to worry about framing and focus!
For some people, film was a means to an end, and not really an end unto itself. This has changed in the years since: when you are dealing with 40+ year old machines and films, it's a labor of love. There are a lot easier ways to see a moving image these days.
Another group that falls into this category are railroad hobbyists. When I was a teenager I was pretty into model railroading. It's actually served me pretty well: the first really complex thing I ever wired up was a model railroad layout when I was in my very early teens. It turned out to be a learning experience. After that I went to technical high school and then engineering school and then off into industry: I've done pretty well by it!
-another thing it did for me is to get me into film. Back in the 1970s when you thumbed through a railroad magazine, there would be two or three companies selling films, mostly Super-8 but sometimes 16 too. The day came I found out they sold prints of my favorite line, which had been deceased 40 years by then. I didn't have a projector or a screen, but I didn't care: I scraped together the $26.25 and all of a sudden I was in the picture business!
Something interesting with railroad films is they work better as short silents than many other kinds of films. It really helps when the viewer understands and appreciates what they are looking at, but a lot of my favorite railroad films are less than 200 feet and silent.
Now: many of the folks that broke the film-barrier because of railroad films jumped ship big-time when VHS came along a few years later. -but I suspect some of them caught the bug in the meantime and became film-folk! (I know at least one myself!)
(I'm 5 for 8 in this ad.!)
Last edited by Steve Klare; January 07, 2021, 08:25 PM.
Was it Barry Wiles films in the UK that specialised in railway films? I'm sure a lot of people bought cine cameras to record their visits to preserved and miniature railways and that got them into the hobby. Much better to use a cine camera on trains and the moving views from them than a still camera.
Also I have just remembered CHC used to sell model railway equipment as well as films.
Last edited by Brian Fretwell; January 08, 2021, 06:11 AM.
My interest in the UK Bluebell railway started in the 70's when I did some camerawork for a documentary film and I got fascinated by the the first standard gauge preserved railway which was saved in 1960 by a group of volunteers. The film eventually made it to S8 of course.
The USA tank 30064 was in steam among others during filming and I sort of built up a relationship with that engine going back over the years until it was withdrawn needing a new boiler. It's still at BB going back two years to have a private viewing on a siding as it in quarantine being full of asbestos, but not to see it again.
The greatest revelation was finding a new film of OPERATION BLUEBELL on S8. It showcases reopening the railway in 1960 and another amateur production. Who release this on S8 I have no idea but may have bee Perrys or perhaps PM?
You can view it here. https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/...ll-1960-online
USA TANK 30064 in wartime paint its final appearance
I do have a film from Collectors Club called "Bluebell". It is super 8 BW/ silent and is an amateur shoot, and shot at 18fps. Looking at the clothes/ hairstyles dates it around1975 (ish). I do like those USA tanks. My home patch of Southampton had 15 of those after the war to use on the dock system ,which had 77 miles of track then. I think it was the available power combined with the short wheel base made it a good choice for all the tight curves on the system.
I believe those USA 0-6-0 tanks were so good that copies were mad ein eastern Europe after the war, one of them was on the Spa Valley Railway some years ago.
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