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I've started this thread as somewhere to post my railway videos in case they are of interest to anyone.

 

Part 1 of my 2015 video covers the West Coast Main Line between Lancaster and Carlisle. It includes steam, diesels and electrics on passenger and freight duties. You can find it on,

 

 

I've already posted the other three sections elsewhere, but for completeness here they are.

 

Part 2 covers the Cumbrian Coast Line from Lancaster to Barrow, featuring mainly the class 37 loco hauled services.

 

 

Part 3 covers the Settle - Carlisle with a mix of diesel and steam traction.

 

 

Part 4 goes overseas to North Germany and South Denmark. I had a week there photographing the rapidly vanishing 218 diesels on Intercity expresses and the Sylt Car Shuttles, large MaK diesels on the NOB trains to Westerland and diverted freight trains hauled by German 232s and Danish MZ locos. Plus a clip of an unusual narrow gauge line.

 

 

 

I decided to use Vimeo as its supposed to have fewer anoying adverts than Youtube. But I had to reduce the resoloution of the video to download within my free allowance.

 

Hope you enjoy.

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Thanks for your kind words Ben. In the back of my cupboard I've got some old cine films taken between 1981 and 1988. While the quality and camera work isn't so good, the content includes things like blue diesels in Scotland and East German narrow gauge. I'm thinking of getting them digitised this year.

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Hi,

 

It takes a certain discepline to lock-off a shot and let the train run through the frame and I appluad you for it. I know tripods are a tricky subject in some situations, I use a Manfrotto Magic Arm with a suction mount (usually with it's cover on) as a makeshift steady-cam. If needed I swap out the base for a Superclamp which you can attach to most posts, rails or pipes to give a firm anchor.

 

It's so common for many shooters to only concentrate on the loco and forget the train. It's a spotters thing I realise, numbers were crucial! On super 8 you often had to follow in order to get a clear enough shot as the exposures are relativly long per frame. "Hosepiping" on super 8 really results in a blur, but I still love seeing old footage, wobbly or not! As many people have commented though with photos, it's often the incidental things captured that are now of interest. Rolling stock, infrastructure the little details that make it so interesting are oft not the focus of a shot or film, but equally important I feel.

 

It's well worth getting a decent HD transfer these days, it really makes a big difference. Many people had really poor quality telecine jobs done in the past, on awful equipment and then dumped their original footage. I suppose in this "digital" age some can't see how a tiny piece of film can justify HD, but I would advocate it needs a 4k scan in order to capture the grain accurately without going "spangly" I digress though, I'm a bit obsessive about film! As an aside, Kodak have just announced a new super 8 camera by the way and they will be offering HD transfers as part of a package with film apparently.

There are still plenty of places claiming to do transfers using projectors, ground glass screens or nasty Gocko units which give terrible results. A quality frame by frame capture is still never quite as magical as seeing it projected, but is pretty close.

I was looking at getting some footage transferred and this site seems very reasonable : http://anumedia.co.uk/no connection, but think I might try them.

Waffle mod:off....

 

TTFN,,

Ben

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Hi,

 

I've just had two of my cine films digitised professionally, BR blue diesels and mainline steam in 1984 and East German steam in 1988.  both will need some editing before I can share them.

 

Meanwhile, here are links to some of my more recent efforts.

 

The recent Northern Plandampf

 

 

KWVR steam gala, East Lancs diesel gala and a few others

 

https://vimeo.com/206757876

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I've now got back my 1984 cine films from being digitised.  Here is the first 20 minutes which includes, 

- The Winter West Highlander which got back to Crewe 2 days late.
- Stone trains round Chinley
- Cumbrian Mountain Express
 
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Glad you enjoyed it, makes it worth posting.

 

Here is the link to Rail 1984 Part 2.

 

 

Its 25 minutes long and includes,

- Bury Transport Museum

- Tallylyn Railway

- Peak Forest/Great Rocks Junction (blue diesels on stone trains)

- Coal Tank at Miles Platting on Wilsons Brewery specials

- Cumbrian Mountain Express

- Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway

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Hi,

 

Rail 1984 part 3 is now available for watching.

 

 

It includes,

- KWVR

- last days of 506s on Manchester - Glossop/Hadfield services

- the second West Highland Railtour, this one included trying to get 'Maude' from Fort William to Mallaig and back.

 

Personally I don't thonk its as good or interesting as parts 1 and 2.

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Glad you enjoyed it, makes it worth posting.

 

Here is the link to Rail 1984 Part 2.

 

 

Its 25 minutes long and includes,

- Bury Transport Museum

- Tallylyn Railway

- Peak Forest/Great Rocks Junction (blue diesels on stone trains)

- Coal Tank at Miles Platting on Wilsons Brewery specials

- Cumbrian Mountain Express

- Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway

 

I really enjoyed all your film but the section of Peak Forest/Great Rocks was just great for me. Thanks.

 

As others have already mentioned, your filming techniques make them so much better to watch than many others with the use of a steady camera and longer dwell time on the subjects. 

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Hi Colin,

 

Thanks so much for posting these! I particularly like the Peak stone stuff. So nice to have sound on these too as so much cine is mute. Great camerawork as ever, much steadier than the average home movie for sure.

What camera/stock were you using, can you remember? I'm gussing it was something with a 200ft capacity as the sound is better than the usual 50ft carts! The transfer looks nice, were you happy with it, who did you use in the end?

 

TTFN

Ben

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Thanks Ben.  The old stuff was taken on a Elmo sound cine camera, quite a big heavy thing, using Kodak film, each one lasting if I remember correctly less than 5 minutes.  I edited them together onto bigger reels, watched them a few times then they sat in a cupboard for 30 years.  I've had them digitised by Alive Studios, not cheap nor quick - turnaround time is about 3 months. I'm particularly pleased that the sound has come out OK too.  The digitised films come back in HD (Alive can do them in 4k too).  I've had to reduce quality and resolution considerably to keep them within the 'free' limit on Vimeo.  I've got the HD version on my computer and a USB stick.

 

The recent video is shot on a Panasonic camcorder normally on a much needed tripod, sometimes with an external mic too.  It records on SD cards, but I don't think the movement is as smooth as my mate's camcorder which uses tape.  With it filming in HD the files are huge and editing takes a lot of computer power (and time).  Editing is done on an iMac using Apple's iMovie programme. I spend as much time editing the sound as the pictures.  I often had to leave my previous computer running overnight when processing the video, the iMac is much faster.

 

Hope this helps.

 

ColinK

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Hi Colin,

Wow, that Elmo did you well I think! The sound is suprisingly good for an on camera type on Super 8, most were pretty rubbish and were drowned out by camera noise. You obviously didn't worry about the shot time like I tend to on 50ft carts, with you nice long shots. Sadly I came to cine just too late to be able to buy sound film. I would really be interested to see a comparison between the reduced definition and the HD capture. Might you be able to do a short clip of it perhaps? I hope you get some commercial interest in those for some historic stuff too, it would make a nice Blueray. So much enthusiast stuff is hung up on locos and cab numbers that your footage make such a refreshing change, I know I keep saying it! It's so frustrating to watch those when you really want to see (and hear if there's sound) the whole formation run through the shot!

 

TTFN,

Ben

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After a long break I’ve got my next three cine films back from digitising. While I do have a HD copy at home, I’ve not yet gone down the HD route for sharing on Vimeo.

 

Here is the first one, 22 minutes long covering the Standege, Hope Valley and Woodhead routes.

 

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Colin, you are spoiling us with this amazing footage! When can I buy the it on Blueray in HD??? You really have some priceless stuff here, Woodhead and Tinsley are just great, even got shots of the Class 13 at work. The fact that you have sound too is simply incredible. So little cine footage has sound let alone decent atmospheric stuff that you seem to have make this all the more enjoyable.

I know I'm gushing again, but this really is top stuff and I'll be first in line to buy it if you should release it...

 

TTFN,

Ben

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Glad to hear you are enjoying them. I’m hoping to finish the next too before the end of the year. These cover ‘Cumbrian Mountain Pullman’ and ‘Settle Carlisle Diversions’ all filmed in the early 1980s.

 

After that should be ‘Diesels in Scotland’ in 1983, its quite a long film so I’ll have to save up before I can afford to get that digitised.

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Wow!

 

I had been unaware of this thread and the wonderful cine footage until this morning. 

 

I haven't watched all the videos yet, but the ones I have seen are marvellous and are far better quality than I was expecting. There are some gems in them. Classes 123 and 124 DMUs are not the most filmed subjects and the West Highland snow scenes are wonderful. 

 

The Pennines scenes are great, and the original soundtrack shows that unlike the AC electric whine which seems to have been dubbed onto most commercial class 76 video footage, the locos themselves were very quiet even when travelling uphill. 

 

Thanks very much Colin for sharing this with us; and I have just discovered I can watch "screen within screen" with a re-sizeable window which I can expand to a much larger size than the embedded one.  :danced:

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Thanks for all the kind comments. It is good to be able to share all those happy days.

 

As to why the unit stopped at Torside, the driver had to talk to the signalman, there was either a signal fault or a level crossing fault.

 

Cheers.

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After a long break I’ve got my next three cine films back from digitising. While I do have a HD copy at home, I’ve not yet gone down the HD route for sharing on Vimeo.

 

Here is the first one, 22 minutes long covering the Standege, Hope Valley and Woodhead routes.

 

 

Colin

 

Just want to say Thank you very much for going to the trouble of editing and making these available for us to watch.

 

I have really enjoyed all of your films but particularly Peak Forest, Hope valley and Woodhead.

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Thanks for all the kind comments. It is good to be able to share all those happy days.

 

As to why the unit stopped at Torside, the driver had to talk to the signalman, there was either a signal fault or a level crossing fault.

 

Cheers.

Probably the first, as everything seemed to be O.K. with the crossing. A year later, that was one of the most desolate places you could find, notwithstanding all the traffic trying to bypass the Tintwistle/Hollingworth/Mottram holdups, and all the stuff off Woodhead going to Glossop, etc.

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Colin, thank you for sharing a brilliant time capsule, great modelling inspiration I was never aware of the 123/124 combinations until now, and interesting to see the harwich Manchester trains in their twilight years before I believe the service ran via the north London line and wcml to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and then died thanks to budget airlines and the expansion of stanstead airport.

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