The portrayal of steam in the media

Thanks to a link on here the other day I have spent a couple of enjoyable days re watching "steamdays" and "The train now departing" on iplayer. Having watched several of these I came to the conclusion that to be on TV a steam loco either needs to be belching dense clouds of thick black smoke, or pulling away with a modicum of wheel spin.

I am not sure if this was just a case of people showing off/playing up to the camera or if this just the way many people drive their steam locos. I appreciate that many of the people who watch programs like these will be enthusiasts but I am not sure they give a great impression?

In their defence many of the archive clips show (generally) Southern Pacifics pulling away with a large handful of regulator and a generous dose of wheel spin. Maybe this is where the myth about them being overly light on their feet comes from?

Has there been similar programs made in recent years? Since Fred Dibnah there have been a couple of Guy Martin programs based on railway projects but not much else that I can think of. If there have been recent programs have they shown our steam driving skills in a better light?

 

Hairy bikers did a programme on the casting of wheels for the night owl project recently. That was quite good

 

Funnily enough the Guy Martin program was filmed during the SVR's 2011 diesel gala! Me and my mate spotted him and asked would the film crew like to film a gleaming D306. They didnt understand why we jeered during subsequent retakes!

 

Wheelspin is cool, every 18 year old with a vauxhall corsa knows that!

 

On the Top Gear race to the North episode with Tornado, there is a segment where Tornado looses her feet whilst at high speed, Jeremy makes quite a big deal of such a heavy machine getting wheel spin!

On balance though he does a good job of walking around the loco marvelling at the engineering that went into building it…..

 

There's the rather good "Mark Williams On The Rails" thing from about five years back which regularly appears on one or other of the Discovery Channels.

 

The Mark Williams programmes were excellent as he is a very good presenter. Discovery did another programme in a similar format going round the preserved lines with a bloke called Vince Henderson and it was cringeworthy. He was utterly appalling as a presenter with questions that a Sun journalist wouldn't bother to ask.

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The Mark Williams series was the last decent full series about railways. There was also the two part programme about the early years of railway preservation on BBC4 which seems to get repeated quite often on BBC4 and the Yesterday channel.
Meridian (ITV) used to do a rather good series Southern Steam but that was a while ago.
I understand that later this year or early next year there is to be a new programme about 60103 Flying Scotsman and her very long overhaul/restoration. Be interesting to see what they put in this.

 

Knowing the TV producers desire for jeopardy, it will be filled with "if this doesn't fit it could spell the end of the line for FS... Oh it doesn't and actually we need to renew this bit as well"

And

"If this new part is not made perfectly it will spell the end of the line for FS... Oh that doesn't fit either, and that part it connects to needs replacing"

Could be quite a long program!!!

 

Yes, it was terrible. At one point on a visit to Haverthwaite he said that 2073 and 2085 'may well be' the last survivors of their class. Does he know something we don't?

 

Are Mark Williams or Vince Henderson programmes available on line?

 

Strategic Reserve - very confidential!

 

"On the Rails" is. I'd steer clear of the Henderson series if I were you, as sticking your foot through your computer monitor doesn't half hurt.

 

Thanks for the tip !

 

BBC 4 tuesday 24th 9 pm The Nations Railway,i don't know if this is a repeat

 

The two part program was okay, but it really only focused on a couple of railways. Fine but not what I was expecting. I'll look out for the Mark Williams one, I like him anyway. The hairy bikers one was pretty good too, apart from the opening credits as already mentioned.

 

The BBC 2 parter is 'The Golden age of Steam Railways' I have the two of them on the tivo box I will admit that unless your a fan of the Ffestiniog, Tallylyn, KWVR and SVR you might not like them. Im just watching 'Flying Scotsman a rail romance' thats pretty good too.

 

I have to say, I think that 'The Golden age of Steam Railways' is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.


Chris

 

You can't even watch it with the sound down, because whichever film school twit they got to direct the thing decided that footage of trains is only interesting if you reverse the image (!) and either speed up or slow down the film.

 

The new Scotsman film is I understand by the same producer of the Golden Age of Steam Railways. I'm filming in a couple of weeks for it...