Nick Lera's World Steam Classics

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50 years of steam on Cecil Rhodes' historic route through Africal

"The Civilisation of Africa" (1930) B/W 20-mins:- Vintage 1930s travelogue from the days of the British Empire with period commentary and music. The Union Express from cape Town is piloted up the Hex River Pass by a Mallett. In Rhodesia a 12th.Class is on the traverser in Bulowayo Works while an 11th.Class steams over the famous Victoria Falls. Plus early Garrattts in Angola and a supershine loco parade at Atbara in the Sudan. With full supporting cast of double-deck trams, vintage road motors, rickshaws and Nile river steamers.

"Birth of a Giant" (1946) B/W 9-mins :- Construction of Class GEA Beyer-Garratt articulated locomotives for the South African Railways at Beyer-Peacock's Gorton Works in Manchester, plus an East African 2-8-2 being hauled from the North British Works to Glasgow Docks by a steam traction engine.

"African Steam in Action" (1980) Colour 27-mins:- Steam in Cape Town, Class 24 on the classic Ladysmith branch, the mighty Class 25s double heading freight across the Karoo Plains, the Garrratt's last stronghold in Rhodesia and steam on Hwange coal.

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Cover photo: Ralph Montagu
Filmed by/when: Nick Lera, 1979/1980
Narrated by: Paul Vaughan
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R
Origination: 16mm Film

Running Time: 56-mins (0hr 56min) , Colour (27 mins) and B & W (29mins)
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A special documentary by Nick Lera to celebrate Eastleigh Works Centenary in 2009.

THE AGE OF STEAM

Just as the LSWR was handing over to the newly formed Southem Railway, we see the pride of Eastleigh Works, Robert Urie's H15 class 4-6-0 No 335 steaming out of Southampton Docks with an express freight while a Nine Elms built B4 0-4-0T shunts nearby. Greeting the post-war world in 1947, brand new Bulleid Pacifics line up at Waterloo and coal up at Nine Elms depot. While experimental double deck emu sets are tried out on London commuter services, and 'Thumper' demu sets take over the Hastings service, steam reigns supreme on the SW. Division until 1967. Includes film short: 'Twilight of Southern Steam'.

EASTLEIGH WORKS UNDER BREL 1983

In 1983 we video'd inside Eastleigh Works when the workforce was over 2000 strong. We rode with the overhead crane driver as he lifted the Sulzer 1550hp power unit out of a Class 33 diesel loco to make way for fitters overhauling the Crompton Parkinson switch gear. Serried ranks of painters applied coats of BR blue to Mk 1 stock with 4-inch brushes while the Trim Shop men were busy stuffing horsehair into the seats. A newly outshopped Class

33 diesel roars out of No 1 Shop to re-enter service, while inside a re-fitted 4TC unit is craned down the shop to be wheeled. A Class 08 shunter then hauls it out into the yard to keep company with waiting Colchester emu units and Hastings 'Thumpers'.

PRESERVED STEAM

The B.R. steam ban after 1968 confined working steam to heritage lines. Eastleigh products on view include Battle of Britain '257 Squadron' on the Swanage Railway and S15 No 847 on the Bluebell. The first easing of the ban only applied in the North of England. 'City of Wells', 'Sir Lamiel' and 'Lord Nelson' all beat a path from the Sunny South to try their hand on the Pennine gradients, with 850's steady 4-cylinder beat echoing across the fells as she

stormed over Ribblehead. After the ban was relaxed in the South rebuilt Merchant Navy 'Clan Line' became a regular on the VSOE Pull mans, and we also see 'Taw Valley' on a sunny day parading past Arundel Castle while taking the picturesque route to Salisbury.

CLAPHAM JUNCTION & THE FAMOUS 'A' BOX

A video diary of an afternoon spent at Britain's busiest railway junction in May 1990. 75% of the trains are still Mk 1s, and loco hauled trains have Class 73 on Gatwick Express and Class 50 on Salisbury/Exeters. Privileged access to the overhead 'A' signalbox shows us the 55 yr old Westinghouse 93 miniature lever frame in use just days before its decommissioning.

EASTLEIGH WORKS REVIVAL

After the works closed in 2006 its scheduled demolition for redevelopment was cancelled and Knights Rail leased the access tracks for rolling stock storage. When some of the buildings became available Knights sublet them to various operators for repair work. M.D. Bruce Knights tells us the story and takes us on a personal tour of the works where we see repairs to a Swanage Rly Class 33, some 4-wheel railcars, and an MPV clean-up train, ending in the roll-out of a newly outshopped 1000hp US-built Harsco DR792 rail-grinding train.

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Cover photo: Front: Colin Boocock Rear: Ralph Montagu
Filmed by/when: Nick Lera & others
First published on DVD: 2009
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 58-mins (0hr 58min)

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Out of Retirement

Africa's most scenic railway is brought back to life after 30 years of devastating war. Vintage Italian narrow gauge locomotives, single- and double-headed, storm the 1 in 28 gradients of the Rift Escarpment to a height of 7,000ft in this beautiful but forgotten corner of N.E. Africa.

Join us on the footplate of a vintage 0-4-4-0T Mallet as we steam around hairpin bends, plunging in and out of endless tunnels and ravines, often clinging to the mountain side with a sheer 1000ft drop below. The trip from Massawa on the Red Sea takes us up the rift vallet escarpment to 7500ft in just over 70 miles, ending in the cool elegant capital of Asmara in this former Italian colony.

Also featured is the classic 1930s Littorina railcar. Meet the retired railwaymen in their 70s and 80s who have come back to work to make this miracle possible. Pattern maker Negash is 94! Plus exclusive access to the heroic reconstruction efforts in the mountains where the Army had to clear minefields and reclaim rails that had been torn up to make bunkers. This programme captures to perfection the unforgettable experience of a journey over the rebuilt line, joining the loco crew as they steam across spectacular viaducts through the breathtaking scenery of the Horn of Africa.

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Filmed by/when: Filmed in 2002 and 2003 by ex-BBC award winning cameraman Nick Lera
Narrated by: Tyne-Tees TV's Andy Kluz
First published on DVD: 2004
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 62mins (1hr 2min)

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Summary:

A journey by steam through Myanmar and Thailand in search of the WW2 Burma-Siam Railway, riding vintage British Pacifics on genuine local trains in Burma and preserved steam on the famous Wampo wood trestles of the Death Railway in Thailand, Exotic local colour and previously unexplored WW2 relics en route plus a surprise ending.

In Detail:

THAILAND :- The Burma-Siam railway was built for the Japanese by Asian forced labour and Allied prisoners of war. Of the latter a staggering 12,500 died in the brutal and inhuman conditions imposed in the Speedo regime in 1943. We ride a tourist train over the creaking wooden trestle bridges built by prisoners and visit the infamous Hellfire Pass hacked out of bare rock by Britons and Australians. With an original World War Two locomotive the Thais provide a spectacular sound and light memorial show at the famous Bridge On the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi.

BURMA (Myanmar) :- To explore the Western end of the Death Railway we travel from Rangoon on local trains hauled by old British steam locomotives from the days of the Raj. Passing through exotic scenery we visit the famous WN2 Sittang Bridge battle site, cross the Salween river to Moulmein, visit Thanbyuzayat with its Death Railway memorial and Allied cemetery, and return to Thailand to visit the border at the remote Three Pagodas Pass.

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Published by: Nick Lera
Filmed by/when: Nick Lera
Narrated by: Andy Kluz
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 58-mins (0hr 58min)

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A portrait of six classic Beyer-Garratt locomotives in South Africa, the world's biggest user of the type. The highly scenic mountains of Natal and the Cape form the setting for stunning action secquens with these articulated giants, while the 2ft gauge versions take us down to the shores of the Indian Ocean in Alfred Country. With special archive feature of GEA class being delivered to Utenhage in 1946.

• GF Class 4-6-2+2-6-4 No.2380 on the 1-in-33 gradients of the Greytown line and running to Riverside past the aloe slopes of the Ingangwana Gorge.
• GMA/M Class 4-8-2+2-8-4 No.4709 storming the reverse curves of the Cape Natal line between Deepdale and Donnybrook.
• GO Class 4-8-2+2-8-4 No.2575 winds through the Outeniqua Range northern approaches in stunning ealy morning light.
• GEA Class 4-8-2+2-8-4 No.4023 literally shakes the mountain as it storms out of Tunnel 5 on the Montagu Pass, South African Railway's most spectacular location.
• On the famous 2ft gauge lines of Natal, we see South Africa's oldest working Garratt, Class NGG11 2-6-0+0-6-2 No.55 on the Paton's Country Railway. Finally, we see the "Toy Train By The Ocean", the beautiful Alfred County Railway with its Class NGG16 Garratts on the Hibiscus Coast.

The commentary gives full technical and topgraphical information. There is also some old Black and White film of the arrival and testing of the Class GEA Garratts in 1946.

Availability: AVAILABLE
Published by: Nick Lera
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 81mins (1hr 21min)

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All action packed with 14 different vintage locomotives hard at work on main lines, branch lines, prerved railways and steam museums, all set in the superb scenery of New Zealands's North Island.

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Narrated by: Michael Sullivan
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 94mins

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A tour of all the steam attractions of South Island with main line steam in the spectacular scenery of the Kaikoura Coast, Arthur's Pass, the Main South Line, Plains, Weka Pass, Pleasant Place, McLeans, Ferrymead and the Taieri Gorge. Plus the country's oldest working engines, the Kingston Flyer and the steamship 'Earnslaw'.

1. Main Line Steam Picton to Dunedin with 'J' Streamliner 1211 & Ab 663. 10/2000.

2. Weka Pass Railway with Class 'A' 4-6-2 #428 steaming past the Frog Rock.

3. McLean's Island Railway with Heisler geared locomotive.

4. Class Ab Pacific #663 on the famous Arthur's Pass in the Southern Alps.

- Shanty Town, West Coast: Sharp Stewart 0-6-0T 1896, U.S.A. 'Climax' loco.

5. Vintage trams on the Christchurch city loop.

6. Ferrymead Museum's Baldwin tank engine #357 in Easter Festival, 2001.

7. Vintage Dubs 1873 'A' class tank on the Plains Railway, Tinwald.

8. The Pleasant Point Railway: '0' class 2-4-0T and Model 'T' railcar.

9. Oamaru Harbour Railway with 0-4-0T B10. Old locos buried in sea wall.

10. Ocean Beach Railway, Dunedin. Kerr Stuart 0-6-0T #4185/29

11. The Taieri Gorge Railway: Ab #663 on special to Middlemarch, Easter 2001.

12. Abandoned trace of Otago Central Rly. Archive slides of Ab at CromwelL

13. The Goldfields in Kawarau Gorge; abandoned 1870 Garret! stationary engine.

14. T.S.S. 'Earnslaw' steams across Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown.

15. The 'Kingston Flyer' scheduled operations with Ab #778 and #795, April 2001.

16. Lumsden station and the Oreti River loco dump.

17. Colin Smith's Rogers 'K' class 2-4-2 on special from Kingston to Fairlight Glen.

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Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 112-mins (1hr 52min)

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Last call for steam in a South American time warp. Brew mate tea with the locals on the world's most southerly steam trains, ride the pilot loco on the Andean mountain section and catch a rare triple-header whereas in sleepy Paraguay British woodburning locos still haul the mails across the pampa to the waiting steam ferry.

A SPECTACULAR SOUTH AMERICAN DOUBLE BILL! Two films by Nick Lera now combined into one historic DVD of South America's last traditional steam railroads.

PATAGONIA EXPRESS

The Railway to Nowhere

The 75cm gauge Esquel Railway in Southern Argentina is the sole remnant of the grandiose and never completed railway network of Patagonia. What should have been a trunk route to the Magellan Strait petered out after two hundred miles in a remote sheep station in the Andes foothills. Even that took over twenty years to build, but what a railway.

The Weekly Train

This programme is a portrait of the weekly train on this highly scenic route down the edge of the pampa weaving in and out of the foothills of the Andes with frequent majestic views of South America's famous mountain range. The train with its complement of farmers, livestock, and a handful of tourists derails in a remote spot and is eventually rescued by two locomotives. Now with three engines, the train struggles on through a dramatic mountain sunset to the end of its journey.

The narrow gauge steam locomotives are virtual museum pieces, dating from 1922 and still maintained in good order in locomotive workshops installed in the middle of nowhere for the main line that never was.

Locomotive details:

2-8-2 Henschel, Germany, 1922

2-8-2 Baldwin, USA, 1922

0-6-0T Henschel, Germany, 1922

THE WOODBURNERS OF PARAGUAY

By the 1990s Paraguay possessed the oldest main line steam locomotives in the world, elegant standard gauge wood burners most of them built in Glasgow in 1910. They hauled the weekly mail train from the capital Asuncion to the Argentine border bridge. involving a trip down the main street of Encarnacion causing traffic chaos. Most of the original equipment was still in use including US­style wooden baggage cars carrying the mails. Local freights shuffle at walking pace on overgrown tracks through the grasslands in this incredible time-warp. PLUS archive film of the old border train ferry.

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Cover photo: Courtesy of Richard & Gina Pelham
Filmed by/when: Nick Lera
Narrated by: Paul Vaughan
Edited by: Nick Lera
First published on DVD: 2007
Screen aspect ratio: 4:3 SD
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R
Origination: Betacam SP

Running Time: 81mins (1hr 21min) , Colour
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A Moment Frozen in Time

As the Iron Curtain was lifted a fascinating time-warp of Europe in the forties was revealed especially on the railways. Local steam trains and horse-drawn road traffic were the norm everywhere, and we rushed in with our cameras to capture these unique scenes before modern economics swept them all away. All genuine scheduled steam, no specials, no Plandampfs!

Two of the lines featured were closed a month after we filmed them. We ride on the Sroda narrow gauge lines, still providing passenger service with steam. One coach trains chuff along picturesque branch lines, commuters go to work by narrow gauge steam train and groups of locomotives simmer in the country's steam depots. We are invited for a ride in the cab of one of Ploands last steam expess locos.

Relics of World War II abounded, including German wartime ‘Kriegsloks' as left by the retreating German army in 1945, and the closing feature of the programme shows one of these steaming past Hitler's "Wolf's Lair", his abandoned Eastern Bunker in the Polish forests.An archive section filmed privately in 1979 at risk of imminent arrest by the secret police shows many locomotive types long since vanished, including USA Liberations.

Features locomotives in service from the following classes:

1989 sequences: Ol49, Ty2, OK1, TKt48, Px48, Ty42

1975 sequences: Pt31, Pt47, Oki

Most of this film was recorded in 1989 but we also show rare locos filmed by specialist cameraman Stephen Morris in 1975 in defiiance of a strict Communist ban on photography.

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Filmed by/when: Mostly during 1989
Narrated by: Peter Snow
Written by: Nick Lera
Edited by: Nick Lera
First published on DVD: 2005
Screen aspect ratio: 4:3 SD
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R
Origination: 1989: Video BetaCamSP 1975: Film

Running Time: 58-mins (0hr 58min) , Colour
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Lawrence's Trail

Nick Lera embarks on a steam-hauled adventure following the trail of Lawrence of Arabia's famous exploits on the legendary Hedjaz Railway. The trip takes us on the unusual track gauge of 1050cm through Jordan and Syria to the Lebanese border, with authentic locomotives, some dating back to the Ottoman Empire.

Highlights of the Route

Our train from Petra, 'Rose Red City Of The East', crosses the great two-tiered stone viaduct at Amman, stops at Bosra's unique Crusader Fort incorporating a Roman amphitheatre, and takes us to the semi-derelict repair shops in Damascus, where over a dozen rusting and damaged locomotives still await repairs after

Lawrence's raids in 1918. The trip ends with a run up the scenic Shejara Gorge to the Lebanese border, hauled by Damascus' oldest engine, a Swiss 2-6-0T built in 1894.

Exclusive Archive

The line onwards to Beirut through the cedars of Lebanon was closed permanently by civil war in 1972, but Nick Lera was there with his film camera in 1968 and produced a unique record of the Swiss rack-and-pinion (cog) engines hard at work. More rare film shows a special steam train in the upper part of the Yarmuk Gorge in 1982, on the old route to Haifa past the Golan Heights, cut by Zionist guerillas in 1946.

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Filmed by/when: Nick Lera
Narrated by: Paul Vaughan
Edited by: Nick Lera
First published on DVD: 2007
Screen aspect ratio: 4:3 SD
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R
Origination: BetaSP/PAL

Running Time: 55mins , Colour
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The Bolan Pass:- Vintage Alco diesels from the 1950s growl their way up 1 in 25 gradients on Asia's steepest and most dramatic main line. Over the great Elgin Viaduct, through the baronial portals of 'Cascade' and 'Mary Jane' tunnels, our camera is specially mounted on the front of the locomotive to give us a unique view of these engineering marvels of the old British Raj.

Edwardian Classics:- Stars of the broad gauge steam roster are the elegant Edwardian inside cylinder 4-4-0s of the SPS Class, seen on local passenger service at Malakwal, along with their 0-6-0 stablemates of the SGS type. In the desert regions near the Indian border we see Pakistan's newest steam engines, Canadian War Department locos of 1946, in their last months of service at Samasata, and meter gauge British 4-6-0s dating from 1914 at Mirpur Khas on an isolated stretch of the old Jodhpur Railway.

The Khyber Pass:- Closed for many years, the railway through the famous Khyber Pass has now been re-opened using its original 1925-built 2-8-0s from Kitson of Leeds. These doughty veterans storm up the switchbacks through the rugged scenery of this tribal territory to the summit at Landi Kotal, with its breathtaking views of the great Afghan Plain beyond.

Professionally videoed in 1993/1994/1997, this is a unique record of historic locomotives in their last years of service. The Khyper Pass Railway was closed in 2006 due to landslide and flood damage. The railways of the North West Frontier are now alas no longer accessible to overseas visitors for reasons of internal security.

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Filmed by/when: Nick Lera, 1993/1997
Narrated by: Paul Vaughan
Edited by: Nick Lera
Screen aspect ratio: 4:3 SD
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R

Running Time: 48-mins (0hr 48min) , Colour
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The Gaekwar of Baroda's State Railway, 1988

The 13th century fortress town of Dabhoi forms the hub of a former native state railway, a network of over 300 miles of 2'6" gauge lines in western India,filmed when still 100% steam. The depot was the largest on the Indian narrow gauge, with 34 engines allocated of four different types, including the classic William Bagnall 'W' Class 0-6-2s built in 1912 and doing sterling work on the picturesque Waghai branch.

Broad Gauge Classics, 1970

In West Bengal modernisation completely swept away the former steam stronghold of Calcutta. Before the damage was done, our cameras captured the scene back in 1970, with WP Pacifies hauling the Delhi Mail out of Howrah Terminus while Glasgow-built 0-6-0s dating from 1915 shunted alongside,with CWD and WG types also appearing.

Top of the bill were the HPS Class 4-6-0s, originally used for the Frontier Mail in the twenties.

Bengal Narrow Gauge,1970

The 2'6" gauge line from Santipur to Nabadwip used to be worked by some charming little 2-4-Os built by the Yorkshire Engine Co. in Sheffield, and captured by our cameras rattling across the green flatlands of the Ganges delta.

Patiala State Monorail, 1980

After laying derelict for fifty years, this unique hybrid, half traction engine and half railway locomotive, was taken to Delhi Railway Museum for restoration and now runs with one of its original coaches on a specially laid track.

Metre Guage at Goa, 1988

British-built 2-8-2s steam past a backdrop of tropical palms through the former Portuguese colony of Goa on India's west coast. Featuring a cab ride on the ghat, or hill section, and unique archive film of the shipment of the last batch of engines from Newton-le-Wiilows in 1949.

Rack and Pinion to Ooty, 1988

The Nilgiri Express with an average speed of six and a quarter miles per hour has the distinction of being India's slowest train. The line up to the former colonial hill-station of Ootacamund is also one of India's most scenic with breathtaking vistas of the Blue Mountains opening up to the traveller as his coach is propelled through the tea plantations by the 'Nilgiri Queen', a steam rack locomotive designed in 1914.

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Cover photo: Anthony Lambert; Spine photo: Lawrence Marshall
Filmed by/when: Nick Lera
Screen aspect ratio: 4:3 SD
Classification: Exempt
Number of discs: 1 DVD-R
Media Format: DVD-R
Origination: 1" master from 16mm film

Running Time: 52-mins (0hr 52min) , Colour
.

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