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1940s London Transport


GoingUnderground

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My copy of the LT Museum Friends News arrived today. There is a reference to a British Council film produced in the 1940s showing how Londoners got to work during WW2.

 

Apart from the fact that it all looks remarkably unscathed, as you'd expect for a wartime film that is trying to maintain morale, there are some interesting shots of 1940s rolling stock and buse, and one of a trolleybus.

 

Rolling Stock includes:

F Stock, O/P Stock, Q Stock, Standard Stock, 1935 Streamline Stock (really) and 1938 Stock.

 

See how many locations you recognise.

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Noticed at about 4m38s that there was a step down of at least 9 inches into the carriages-was that the norm in those days?

 

Regards

 

Bob

Yes, and it still is today on those lines where both Surface and Tube stocks still run, such as between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge which is used by the Piccadilly Tube Stock and the Met Surface Stock. The platform is at a compromise height at these stations so that you step down into the Tube Stock and up into the Surface Stock.

 

That shot looks like it was taken at Uxbridge, but it cmight have been Hammersmith. The following scene shows Standard Stock pulling out of Uxbridge and you can see the step up to the O/P stock standing at the other platform.

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  • RMweb Gold

It was Uxbridge station which is shared by Metropolitan (surface stock) and Piccadilly (tube stock) lines. All 3 (or is that 4 given the bay in the middle) platforms are used by all trains so whatever height the platform is, it will be wrong for some of them.

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We know they never actually reached into the City of London, but it's strange there was only one mention (but no views) of the trams. But as LT was hell-bent on getting rid of them (and they only stopped doing so becasue of the war), trams were obviously a dirty word, despite them shiting a lot of people 'City Bound', mostly from the South London suburbs.

(And they spelt "Blitzkrieg" wrong at the beginning.........)

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The film is the bonus track on a newly released double DVD "London on the Move" published by the British Film Institute as Volume 10 of the Britsh Transport Films collection. I'd guess that the copyright implications of posting a link to it are less than clear.

 

Chris

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The film is the bonus track on a newly released double DVD "London on the Move" published by the British Film Institute as Volume 10 of the Britsh Transport Films collection. I'd guess that the copyright implications of posting a link to it are less than clear.

 

Chris

Chris,

 

I'm sorry, but i don't understand why you think that posting a link could be breaching copyright.

 

The link is to the British Council's own film archive web site, not to a bootlegged copy of the DVD on YouTube. It was publicised in the LT Museum Friends News October 2012 edition from information received from the TfL Industrial and Social History Group about "...an amazing film on the British Council's film archive web site.".

 

The British Council web site allows a free download of the video, it even tells you how to do that, which I would not expect if there were copyright implications. If you put "British Council Film City Bound" into Google, it will take you direct to the film on the British Council web site. The source is not the DVD to which you referred.

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Fascinating stuff - and definitely good for signals (in places!). But as already observed there is remarkably little - if any - bomb damage visible which makes me wonder about the date - for instance there is a shot near the end featuring St Pauls Cathedral with no damage visible at all yet the area around the cathedral was devastated in a large air raid on 16 December 1940 (as was much of the City of London including riverside warehouses which suffered severe damage during that winter). There are also no women visible even in roles such as Conductresses on 'buses or in cleaning jobs at 'bus and UndergrounD depots - all of which inclines me to the view that the film was made mainly in the summer/early autumn of 1940.

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I did wonder myself how much of the footage was pre-war or filmed in the phoney war period because of the total lack of visible damage. The rolling stock shown at Acton Town in particular doesn't have blast nets which were intended to stop flying glass if a bomb exploded near to a train. The shots of the London skyline do not include any barrage balloons, but the buses do have black-out covers over their lights.

 

Just enjoy it as a 1930s/40s period piece.

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I think it is a fantastic collection of footage whatever the actual date. I have to agree that some of it appears pre-war, as I'm sure I have seen the shot of the 1935 streamlined stock elsewhere, and am I right in thinking that it was out of traffic by the outbreak of the war? The shots of the city and west end are pretty fantastic too. Love the STLs with white wings. Now that's model-able!

 

The brand new blocks of flats near the start are beautiful too. Dare I say they'd look nice on Frankland...?

 

Over to you Southernboy!

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