Return of the General

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

The remarkable true story of Darius McCollum, a man with Asperger's syndrome whose overwhelming love of transit has landed him in jail 32 times for the criminal impersonation of NYC subway drivers, conductors, token booth clerks, and track repairmen.

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

Documentary film about the Slovak Youth Line - a railway line built by the Czechoslovak youth from Hronská Dúbrava to Báňská Štiavnica and Letovice.

Trains travel through the night without stopping. The clatter of the carriages quickly disappears, along with the wail of the locomotive. The people at the station are all asleep. But why are they so exhausted ? And what are they waiting for? Set inside an isolated train depot, The Train Station is one of Sergei Loznitsa's most haunting films. It is also one of his most pointed social critiques. In this film, we are brought to a remote train station deep in the Russian woods. It's nighttime. In the distance, we hear the clatter of locomotives. The station, a small wooden building, sits silently, surrounded only by snow and train tracks.

The Ta'ang or Palaung people, an ethnic minority living in the mountainous area between Myanmar's Kokang region and China's Yunnan province, have historically suffered many forced migrations due to war. When their survival is threatened again in 2015, thousands of them flee across the border. Filmmaker Wang Bing accompanies them and becomes a privileged witness to a human story that is both a modern reportage and a mythical epic.

A history of the nation's first transcontinental railway accompanies a steam-train ride through the Canadian Rockies.

This incredible journey features the famous steam trains that power through the spectacular San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. From Durango to Silverton, see the forested wilderness, and its beautiful lakes, waterfalls, and rivers. Be amazed at the route that travels over narrows passes, high bridges, and steep cliffs!

May 27th, 1971 was a rainy day. In the small town Radevormwald, the world seems to be still in order. But on this day, 46 people die in a train crash, amongst them 41 schoolchildren. Since then, Radevormwald has been connected with one of the worst railway catastrophes of Germany. The touching documentary reconstructs the tragedy and shows how much the event still influences the life in the town until today.

A Sniper’s War is a story of a sniper, whose anti-US views led him to join the pro-Russian rebels in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict—a primary source of tension between the United States and Russia. When social media becomes a communication platform to schedule sniper duels, Deki’s rival threatens to kill him. The New York-based filmmaker, Olya Schechter, obtains unprecedented access to military bases and front line battles to paint an intimate portrait of the complex and fascinating nature of a man walking the tightrope that often comes to the morality of war: is Deki a solder or a killer?

A video covering the last section of the route of the CAMBRIAN COAST EXPRESS from ABERYSTWYTH to PWLLHELI and what could be seen in the area from the 1950s to the 1980s. We cover four narrow gauge railways, the Vale of Rheidol, the Talyllyn, the Welsh Highland (1964) and the Ffestiniog, and two miniature railways, the Fairbourne and Butlins, Pwllheli. We even cover the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway! The coast route would see steam and diesel motive power but this film is mainly steam with Standard Classes 4MT, Class 2MT, Class 3 2-6-2Ts and Class 4 2-6-4Ts, GWR 43xx 2-6-0s and Manor Class 4-6-0s, Ivatt 2MTs and even Class 4. The picture is completed by the reopening of Barmouth Bridge in 1986 and Electric Electric Class 37s.

A video featuring the line between MANCHESTER and CREWE. Particular emphasis is on the two places, one a city and the other a railway town. Filmed in the 1960s, steam traction predominates. MANCHESTER VICTORIA and the nearby MANCHESTER EXCHANGE stations were busy with passenger, freight and parcels traffic. It was at the foot of MILES PLATTING incline where banking often took place. At the summit was NEWTON HEATH shed and a visit is made there. The line from MANCHESTER PICCADILLY was electrified from 1960 but steam power existed here alongside the new AC electric locomotives. At the northern end, STOCKPORT kept steam until 1968 and as well as the station, EDGELEY shed is visited. We then travel southwards through CHEADLE HULME, WILMSLOW, GOSTREY and on to CREWE where a wide range of motive power is seen from 1962 to 1968; Princess Coronations, Jubilees, Royal Scots, Crabs and Jinties along with BR Standards, Stanier Black 5s and Stanier 8Fs.

The Bakerloo Line is one of London Underground's main arteries, connecting four of the capital's main line railway stations with the heart of London's West End. The southern terminus at Elephant and Castle consists of just two platforms, requiring fast turnarounds to provide the 3 minute service interval. Just under half the 14½ mile line is in tube tunnel, The 1972 stock trains (amongst the oldest running on the network) surface at Queen's Park. Roughly one in three continues to Harrow and Wealdstone alongside the West Coast Main Line. As well as seeing the entire route in real time from the driver's cab, we also peek inside the Bakerloo Line's signalling and control centre at Baker Street. The Waterloo and City line is LUL's smallest self-contained operation, running for just over 1½ miles between Waterloo and Bank.

The Southern Region s last steam-worked main lines from Waterloo to Salisbury and Weymouth are recalled on this all-colour programme which features cine film made between 1958 and 1967 by John Laird, Brian Robbins and Geoff Todd. After an extended opening sequence at Waterloo and footage of Nine Elms shed, we follow the former London & South Western main line down to Basingstoke. We head west from Worthing Junction to Salisbury before resuming our journey south through Eastleigh to Southampton. There follows some delightful scenes filmed in the New Forest including steam workings on the branch to Lymington. This brings us to Bournemouth where we see the town s two stations and the splendid yellow trolley buses which used to link them. Before reaching the end of our travels at Weymouth there are some superb scenes of trains labouring up the bank out of the town and coverage of a Channel Islands Boat Train on the famous Weymouth Tramway filmed in 1958.

Island railways have a particular fascination, none more so than those on the Isle of Wight. In this programme, produced from films made by railway enthusiasts who visited the island from the 1950s to the present day, we present aspects of the changing face of the island s railways over the last forty years. We begin with John Laird s 1964 films of the steam railway in all its glory with the coverage of the lines to Ventnor and Cowes. This is contrasted with the scene in the 1950s as portrayed in rare colour films made in 1953 on the soon to be closed lines from Brading to Bembridge, Sandown to Merstone and Newport and from Newport to Freshwater. The final steam sequences filmed by Geoff Todd and Derek Norman show the last years of steam operation on the island and the preparations for electrification. The Isle of Wight s new tube trains are shown at first on trial on the mainland, looking quite incongruous at locations such as Clapham Junction.

This programme offers much rare footage made on the railways of the south east of England between the 1930s and the 1960s. The films begin at London Bridge in 1931 with a Schools class 4-4-0 in original condition. Rare colour footage taken in 1938 at London Bridge and Sutton follows. A LBSCR 4-6-4 tank is then shown working a train between London Bridge and Norwood Junction. After sequences showing steam in action in 1931 at East Croydon, the scene shifts to Folkestone with both main line expresses and boat trains on the Harbour branch, in black and white from the 1930s and colour from the 1950s. Coverage of the Golden Arrow and other SR steam hauled Pullmans is followed by extracts from a 1939 cab ride on the electric Brighton Belle.

This programme begins with a trip up the now preserved Severn Valley line from Kidderminster to Bewdley. Both ex-GWR diesel railcars and steam locomotives are seen before we head across the River Severn to explore the branch to Tenbury Wells and Woofferton. Moving into Wales itself the programme then features the lines centred on Brecon which closed in 1962. Starting from Neath Riverside station, the former Neath & Brecon line is followed up to Brecon. The next section features the former Brecon & Merthyr system including the notorious 7 mile bank beyond Talybont on Usk, one of the most challenging inclines on a British railway. We then follow the line north from Talyllyn Junction near Brecon to Three Cocks Junction and on to Hay on Wye along the former Midland route to Hereford before going up the Cambrian line through mid Wales to Builth Road Low Level where this line passed under the Central Wales Line.

This programme sets out to offer a real feel of what it was like to observe the busy railway network of the Midlands in the last decade of steam operations. Not surprisingly, in an era renowned for its heavy industry, freight workings and the locomotives designed for heavy goods duties, play a prominent role in the proceedings. There is much coverage of the LNWR designed G2 class 0-8-0 tender engines, the last LNWR class to survive in any numbers. These engines are contrasted with their LMS built successors, the 8F 2-8-0s. Other types which feature in the films are Black 5s, Horwich Moguls, Fowler tanks, Jinties, Ivatt 2-6-0s and several of the British Railways Standard designs ranging from Britannia Pacifics to the Class 4 Moguls. These machines, often work stained and unkempt, are seen on a succession of coal and steel trains and long mixed freights, traffic flows which have either been shut down or nowadays go by road. Passenger traffic is not forgotten.