British Transport Films was an organisation set up in 1949 to make documentary films on the general subject of British transport. Its work included internal training films, travelogues (extolling the virtues of places that could be visited via the British transport system - mostly by rail), and "industrial films" (as they were called) promoting the progress of Britain's railway network. It was headed by Edgar Anstey until 1974, and from then until its demise by John W. Shepherd. Initially it made films mostly for the British Transport Commission, but after that organisation was broken up in 1963 the majority of its films were for the British Railways Board. However it also made films for London Transport, the British Waterways Board, the travel company Thomas Cook and the coach company Thomas Tilling. 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... The British Transport Commission was created by Clement Attlees post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in the UK. Its first chairman was Lord Hurcomb. ... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The British Railways Board (BRB) was the governing body of British Railways (later British Rail) from 1962 until privatisation in the 1990s. ... Founded in 1933 by an act of Parliament under Transport Minister Herbert Stanley Morrison, The London Passenger Transport Board generally known London Transport was A public authority appointed under act of Parliament, charged with responsibility for providing an adequate and properly co-ordinated system of passenger transport (Buses including Green... British Waterways is a government body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Scottish Executive in the United Kingdom. ... õÚĽÚŘĤÁĺThomas Cook (November 22, 1808 - July 18, 1892), founder of the travel agency that bears his name, was born in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire, England. ...

Somewhat paradoxically, the unit celebrated a quiet, unchanging image of rural Britain - with travelogues such as The Heart of England (1954), The Lake District (also 1954), Three Is Company (1959), Down to Sussex (1964) and Midland Country (as late as 1974) while simultaneously invoking the "white heat of technology" in its other work, such as its Report on Modernisation series instigated in 1959 (renamed Rail Report in 1965). The unit won many awards over the years, including an Academy Award in 1966 for the film Wild Wings, which had little to do with transport and concentrated on WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, founded by Peter Scott. BTF also gave John Schlesinger an early breakthrough with the 1961 film Terminus (documentary), chronicling a day in the life of Waterloo Station in a style highly uncharacteristic of the unit. 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Crinkle Crags as seen from the adjoining fell of Cold Pike. ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sussex as a traditional county. ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Midland is a town in Ontario, Canada Midland is also the name of some places in the United States of America: Midland, Midland, Georgia Midland, Midland, Michigan Midland, Midland, North Carolina Midland, Midland, Pennsylvania Midland, Midland, Texas Midland, Midland, Virginia Midland City, Midland City, Alabama Midland Park, Midland Park, Virginia... 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... 1966 was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ... WWT Slimbridge is a wetland reserve managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (a UK charity) at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. ... Gloucestershire (pronounced [ ˈglɒstəʃəʳ]; GLOSS-ter-sher) is a ceremonial and administrative county in southwest England. ... Categories: People stubs | 1909 births | 1989 deaths | British illustrators | British painters | Ornithologists ... John Richard Schlesinger (February 16, 1926–July 25, 2003) was a British film director. ... 1961 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Terminus (1961) was a fly-on-the-wall documentary directed by John Schlesinger about an ordinary day in an English train station. ... The facade of Waterloo Station. ...

BTF continued to make films through the 1970s and early 1980s, notably chronicling the progress of the InterCity 125 and, poignantly, that of the ill-fated Advanced Passenger Train, but the tide was turning against such "nationalised" industrial film units. In September 1981 BTF's film library closed, with the material being offered back to its retrospective owners. BTF ceased to exist as a full unit in 1982, although the BTF name was still used for various British Rail internal works, many of them by then made on video, until around 1986. For a time the BTF films made for British Rail and London Transport were marketed by the Central Office of Information, but from March 1988 the now-defunct organisation FAME (Film Archive Management and Entertainment) handled the BR films on behalf of the British Railways Board, while the London Transport films went to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. In 1996 the British Railways Board was broken up and the BR films - the bulk of the BTF archive - were acquired by the British Film Institute. This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... This page covers the British Rail Intercity 125 High Speed Train. ... The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was an unsuccesful tilting train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s. ... September is the ninth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1982 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Logo of British Rail British Railways (BR), later rebranded as British Rail, ran the British railway system from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies in 1948 until its privatisation in stages between 1994 and 1997. ... Video (from Latin, I see) is the technology of processing electronic signals for representing moving pictures. ... 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Londons Transport Museum, formerly known as the London Transport Museum, is a museum which seeks to conserve and explain the transport heritage of London, the capital city of the United Kingdom. ... Covent Garden is a shopping and entertainment complex in central London. ... 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and...

In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s many of the films were released on video, latterly mainly by the British Film Institute and by Beulah, which evolved out of FAME and owns the release rights to the BTF films made for London Transport. The British Waterways Board has also released its own library of BTF films on video. In recent years several have been released on DVD, with a number of films made for London Transport appearing on Beulah DVDs before the first BFI DVD compilation of BTF films appeared, after many delays, in June 2005. // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Saddam Hussein shortly after his capture Major controversy over U.S. presidential election, 2000 September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New Yorks World Trade Center and Virginias Pentagon killing almost 3000 people. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in June June 27: Shelby Foote June 27: John T. Walton June 26: Richard Whiteley June 25: John Fiedler June 25: Chet Helms June 24: Paul Winchell June 21: Jaime Cardinal Sin June 20: Jack Kilby...

The definitive website on the unit can be found at http://www.britishtransportfilms.co.uk .