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This film is from the John Adams and Patrick Whitehouse Collection which is in the care of the National Railway Museum in York. Further details of the collection can be found at the end of this description. This is a silent film; there is no audio.

The film shows the preserved Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) locomotive No.49, "Gordon Highlander" on the company's Spey River Line in 1960. She was built in 1920 by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow and was one of the last designs of GNSR passenger locomotives. Nicknamed 'The Soldier', she was withdrawn for preservation in 1958

This film was broadcast on 11 April 1961.

Adams & Whitehouse:
In 1980 the National Railway Museum purchased from John Adams and Patrick Whitehouse a collection of some 100 short films which document British Railways in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were originally broadcast on BBC Children's Television under the title "Railway Roundabout".

The first "Railway Roundabout" was broadcast on the BBC's Children's Hour on 22 April 1958. Each programme was broadcast live from a studio in Birmingham with John and Pat providing the accompanying voiceovers to the films. The series ran for just over four years with the final programme being transmitted on the 12 September 1962. Filming usually took place in July and August of each year and there were no broadcasts during these months.
"Railway Roundabout" was broadcast during one of the most interesting periods of British Railways. The first series began just three years after the British Rail Modernisation Plan of 1955 and ended a year before the infamous Beeching Report.

For further information and other enquiries regarding this item please email Chris Hogg at chris.hogg@nrm.org.uk or visit the National Railway Museum website.