This vintage transport film, produced in 1947 by the Central Office of Information, details the challenges involved in the transport of London's millions and how London Transport deals with it.
Yes, notice how only one tram gets shown and only two trolleybuses; LPTB no doubt thought that including too many of them would spoil their "modern" image, despite several ancient buses being in shots.
Definitely a HUGE hindsight moment isn’t it? Trams worked, they just needed updating. Not rubbishing. But the car was, and is, king, according to every government since the 50s.
In 50 years time, we will be back to diesel. Its all about economy and none reliance on Russia. P.s, we will have a ice age in around 120k years time. We are still coming out of the last ice age. It's the earth's cycle.
This is what RU-vid is for. I often think I wish we were able to do this hundreds of years ago. Can you imagine, it would be like time travel. At least our descendants will be able to do it. Such a great video. Happy days
London Transport planned and designed so much- even down to that cast concrete bus stop with timetable we see at 3:40. Sadly, it all began to unravel in the late 60s and early 70s but for 40 odd years, London Transport was a model for others to admire and copy. Great film- and a glimpse of about the time my parents began to live in London, where they met.
Nostalgic to see a double deck on service 305 which at the time ran from Beaconsfield Old Town to Gerrards Cross via my village Seer Green and the Chalfonts. What an historical gem this documentary is.
Wonderful film, thanks for uploading it! As a 10 year old bus spotter I used to get a Red Rover ticket for 2/6d (I think that’s what they cost in 1960!) and go all over London seeking out rare buses like Pre-War RT’s listed in my Ian Allan ABC London Transport booklet… happy, carefree days indeed!
"Red Rover ticket for 2/6d" Sounds about right to me. I lived in Barking and would see how far away I could get. My favourite jaunt was to Ripley via 215 RF class bus from Kingston Bus Station.
As a young teenagers in the late 50s we also bought Red Rover tickets to explore London, it was reasonably safe to do in those days. One naughty trick was to go the front of an empty top deck, the conductor would come for the fares only to complain that we could have shown the RRs on boarding thus saving him having to come up. Worked every time. Those were the days.
My late father born in 1922 in Islington worked for an engineering firm that was relocated to Poole/Dorset in 1939 as they did defence work for the MOD. He told me he thought London was an awful place to live and he never wanted to go back there.
A timeless classic information film, how London has changed since those post war days, thanks for sharing such a wonderful time in London, a time of hopes and dreams of a better safer future.
11.47 is Northfields Station, 11.51 is Rayners Lane and 11.54 is Harrow-On-The-Hill. I remember the days when people smoked on trains, it was disgusting being trapped in a tunnel on a smoking carriage.
Civilisation . . . even I, as a 1960s boy, remember the last vestiges of that. My local station, Rayners Lane @ 11:47 and later Harrow-on-the-Hill. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Rayners Lane used to have cracking flower beds on the platform . . . . another sign of civilisation . . gone ?
Raynes Lane was my local in the 1980s and 90s in was useful as it had 2 lines so when I moved jobs from Whitehall to Earl's Court I still used the same station .
It was my station, grew up round there from 1980-2015, did a paper round from Balfour News on the corner of High Worple Avenue as a teenager. I think it's a Subway now!
That's the England I want to live in. Not the disaster we have today. They may not have the technology we have today but it looks a much better place to live!
How true. You don't have to go far from your doorstep to find aggression, rudeness and unpleasantness, even when you're trying to mind your own business.
I’m a child of the 1960s God how I miss those days my country Great Britain England will never ever be the same again. We have all been sold down. The great British culture is Dave. The great British way of life is dead. I’m glad I was born when I was.
In addition, the "Utility" buses, bought by London Transport starting in 1942, and peaking in 1946, while LT was waiting for production of the RT class bus to resume, are seen here.
Fantastic nostalgia. Great and the commentary is so clearly spoken. I wish people spoke that way now. Of course so few private cars to obstruct the public transport. We thought 'flexi- time ' was a new invention!
According to Wikipedia those prototypes were built in 1946 but scrapped after the initial trials: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_A60_and_A62_Stock
@@dvdvnrthe cars were built on the underframes on T stock compartment motor cars. They were first built in 1947, with another car, which was to become what would become the A60 and A62 stock, going on line ca. 1948 The experimental cars would be scrapped in 1955.
Thank yo for the upload of this fascinating film,lovely to see London as it used to be,with all the lovely old buildings& vehicles,and everyone so smartly dressed.Also,how pretty is the girl@2.06
13:47 White City station, I reckon. Westbound platform 1 yet to receive its track, signal cabin on the right of this, the white Unigate Dairy building in the distance (just recently demolished), framework of the ticket hall building left of centre and possibly White City Stadium and one of its lamp pylons to the extreme left. Great film!
What a wonderful video. Despite the difficulties of the era, I wish I could go back to this time. Obviously all the workers shown building London were shipped in to make the film as we know quite categorically that non-white people built London as any woke up person will tell you. Yeah, right! Alas, long gone now. I was born 11 years after this was made but still remember a London and Home Counties very similar.
"Mishaps on a large scale become impossible" (8:47) was a hostage to fortune, though it was nearly another 30 years before a really large scale mishap did occur (Moorgate)
@@2760ade The thing was, I think, the train was correctly signalled into that platform so the signal would have been off. Now they're timed to make sure that the trains are correctly going slowly
@@AndreiTupolev Yes, I see what you are saying. However they obviously had the technology to automatically stop a train, in certain dangerous circumstances, well before the '70s. They must never have considered Moorgate a possibility I suppose!
I love these old films from the 40s and 50s, it gave an aire of correct procedures. It almost makes me want to live their again. I wonder if people queue in L9ndon for the bus like we did in the 1960s. I moved to Aus and it was a free for all to get on the bus. I remember probably around jumping the queue and the conductor reported me to the school, i got called in the old mans office and he said that i was bringing the re p utation of the school down,he was very proud and he of course was right. It wasnt something i did but i was just being stupid around school mates which teenagers are known to do. I nver got the stick, just a telling off.😊
@@christown2827 Quainton Road was no longer needed by LT as the Metropolitan was considered too large to be part of the metro network. What happened after then was responsibility of BR.
4:45 Hosing down the side of the bus with the cab door open! Looks like a grudge against a particular driver. The narrator referred to "We Londoners" but sounded more like a BBC, plum in the mouth announcer. Nevertheless, an enjoyable documentary of better times (Pre- Khan)
The bus is an STL, they had no cab door. The Metropolitan Police had a huge say in the design of London buses, and they felt a door would make it more difficult for drivers to signal and speak to beat and point duty bobbies. They were also dead against 8' wide buses being used in the central area, feeling there was not enough room for them, and they resisted OMO buses as they felt it would take too long to load passengers at busy locations.
@@660einzylinderThanks for that info. I certainly did not know that the Metropolitan Police were involved. It seems strange that with all the developments of buses in improving the conditions for drivers, that they should be exposed to the elements because of this interference. Did this occur in any other parts of the country?
I shouldn't look at these. Too much has been lost, and too-much ' gained ', since, to leave me feeling happy. A similie for me should be a smiling, happy, optimistic, encouraging, clean, well-dressed....corpse.
It says at the end "made at the request of the Foreign Office". So - this film was a propaganda piece that was not designed to be shown in the UK. That's why everyone looks so smart.
And of course as a famous Russian aircraft designer you are more than qualified to comment??? Every time I think I have seen the most stupid fake name on RU-vid someone like you comes along and surprises me!@@AndreiTupolev
"four thousand 300 million" is a number that means nothing to me. Even search engines won't answer the question of what number that represents. Is it 4000300000000 ? Because the number I typed just now is four thousand followed by three hundred million.
Because they have separate hot and cold water faucets. Because _guns_ and _knives_ are scary and have to be banned. Because they have to pay a licence fee to _watch_ television. Because they drive on the wrong side of the road. @@hazcat640
@@jimstrainsandstuff9539 'Back when'? And who decided that one trillion was actually 1 billion? Also if you (not you personally) want to be awkward then why not say things like 'ten one hundred thousand' for a million? You have to admit it is ridiculous to state a math problem in place of simply stating a number.
