Let's Go To Birmingham (1962)
51/2 minutes - Colour
Five and a half minutes from Paddington to Birmingham Snow Hill, in the driver's cab of the Blue Pullman to the accompianiment of Johann Strauss's "Perpetuum Mobile", the camera makes the journey at a speed of about 960 mph! Inside the train, passengers eat and drink, sleep or read, oblivious of the speed at which they travel.
Director: Jack West
16mm & 35mm
This film is available for free download from the BFI website, 'Creative Archive'.
Additional Information - Steven Foxon (Screenonline): In 1952 the BBC produced a short novelty filler under the title London to Brighton in Four Minutes. Filmed from the front of a train at 2 frames per second, when run at the standard 24 frames per second it gave the illusion of an extremely high-speed journey. This technique proved so incredibly popular with audiences that it was copied many times by other film units. Let's Go to Birmingham was British Transport Films' first attempt at the technique; filmed aboard one of British Railway's new 90mph Diesel Luxury Express Blue Pullmans, it provides a wonderful time capsule of the steam to diesel crossover period as seen from the driver's eye view. Directed by Jack West
Actual screen shots reproduced by kind permissionof the British Film Institute.
