One of the programmes from our new archive tour, Britain on Film: Railways is a major new collection of rare archive films charting the history of the UK’s railways and bringing home the romance and heady freedoms offered by train travel as it expanded across the country in the early 20th century.

Sourced from the national and regional archives and newly digitised, Britain on Film: Railways is an immensely nostalgic and evocative collection of films which document not just the glories of the railway, but also the changing social, political and economic climates of the 20th century.

Your chance to travel back to a time when travelling by rail was comfortable, punctual and maybe even glamorous!

Britain on Film on Tour is a series of archive film programmes for your cinema, film club, museum, archive, or community space. After one of the largest pieces of film preservation and restoration ever undertaken, Britain on Film on Tour reveals new and unseen stories from as early as 1897. Working with the British Film Institute, we are now able to make these extraordinary treasures from the UK’s film archives available to the British public for the first time, with a broad range of material opening up local and regional histories from across the UK.

Britain on Film on Tour brings these rarely-seen films directly to audiences through eight specially-curated film programmes.  The tour offers a unique opportunity to enjoy a diverse range of archive films in a collective and communal viewing experience, with the specific programme themes designed to bring this material alive, encouraging enjoyment and engagement, discussion and debate.

This film contains a sequence of flashing lights which might affect customers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.