This vintage railway footage, takes the story of the steam locomotive in Great Britain into the cold years of the Depression. For the railways it was a period of austerity as they tried to meet the competition of the roads. The GWR, LMS and LNER embarked on massive steam locomotive construction programmes to replace they many different types inherited in 1923, although the Southern pursued its own agenda of electrification in order to eliminate steam. In this programme we visit familiar and not-so-familiar locomotives to see steam at work, from the great main lines to rural branches.
