Plymouth to Turnchapel & Cattewater Railways
On 30th September 1961, passenger travel from Plymouth Friary to Turnchapel ended with the Plymouth Railways Circle’s final run along the branch in guards vans hauled by SR Class engine M7 No. 30034; public services ended 10 years earlier.
Description
DVD – Colour/B&W – 50 minutes
On 30th September 1961, passenger travel from Plymouth Friary to Turnchapel ended with the Plymouth Railways Circle’s final run along the branch in guards vans hauled by SR Class engine M7 No. 30034; public services ended 10 years earlier. The journey was captured on 16mm film and preserved by TSW Archives of Plymouth and this video features that unique footage. It also shows in detail the journey from Friary, through Cattewater Junction, Plymstock Station, Oreston and Turnchapel. With the invaluable aid of author Anthony Kingdom and rare archive photographs, the story unfolds and is both compelling and historically an important document for all who remember the LSWR Branch.
Various people who remembered and worked the branch feature and the bombing of the military oil tanks beside Turnchapel station together with narration. The film also records a brief history and early morning activity on the former LSWR Cattewater Branch line with its 5 a.m. arrival of bitumen tanks to the Esso plant there. To tell this compelling story further, we also unearthed archive footage of Plymouth Trams in 1922, driven by electricity from the Prince Rock Power Station fed by coal imported by rail since the 19th century.
For true rail enthusiasts there is a section detailing more technical information including details of the power units used on the Turnchapel Branch over the years of its operation. A short section features the GWR Yealmpton Branch, which is the subject of a companion film. Finally, a montage of colour shots by Peter Gray will invoke memories of the Friary to Turnchapel Branch.
An Aarchive Film Production
Specifications
All the DVDs are produced, packed and sent directly from Aarchvie Films.
The original documentaries were made on S-VHS, in a 4:3 ratio, so on a standard TV/computer screen, will show black bars on both sides.
There is some very brief areas of ‘dropout’ when they were converted from S-VHS video to digital. We have done the best we can to reduce this, but it is still there.
All of the documentaries were produced by Roger Lilley of Aarchive Films, who passed away 20 years ago. Some of the ‘modern’ footage is from between 1995 – 2000, so some of the newer footage may look different now. Also, when Roger would would use the term ‘today’, this was written back in before 2001.
Digital Remasters
Some of the video have been digitally remastered, into a 16:9 widescreen format, with updated maps, sound, colour grading and more.
The new remastered versions are online only from our Patreon Page. The DVDs are still the original format above.
