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Legends of steam: The Flying Scotsman is a collection of 3 documentaries,
ranging in age of the most famous steam train in history, The Flying Scotsman.
This really is a disc for those who love trains. Full of interviews (both
brief and lengthy) from people who love their steam trains, and I do mean
love! If trains don’t do it for you however, you are unlikely to find anything
in this to keep your interest for more than a couple of minutes.
You
will hear from drivers of The Flying Scotsman, as well as owners, and
passengers, and they are all more than willing to share their stories and/or
anecdotes they have, not all relating to trains though.
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Flying Scotsman, is the first of the three documentaries, it is also the
oldest. Clearly the only footage available and it suffers greatly from being
mistreated through its life. I personally haven’t seen footage so terrible on
a DVD, or ever for that matter, and the first couple of minutes are by far the
worst. You will almost definitely be greatly distracted by this, but it does
get better, and although it’s never fantastic, you’ll ignore it after a while.
The documentary is nearly 40 years old, and commemorates the 40th
anniversary of the first England to Scotland trip.
Steam
Days is the second (and not surprisingly is in between the two in age), and
takes a look at how and why the Flying Scotsman has been exciting travellers
and enthusiasts for so long. It features archive footage, and location shots,
as well as more interviews with those who help keep the train alive, and those
who once worked on the train.
Away
Day is the third and last section of the disc, basically reliving the days of
old, when the Flying Scotsman was one of the greatest trains around. As well
as more interviews with the people who now look after the Flying Scotsman, and
a truly remarkable train set which took 3 years to make, and is over 300 yards
long.
Overall, despite the enthusiasm contained in each persons memories, this still
remains a collection strictly for train nuts. It’s good to see that the
footage has been saved from future degradation, and that the memories of the
people involved have been recorded. Unfortunately the disc doesn't excite
much, and as much as those involved, the enthusiasm does help, but It's not
enough to save it. This is definitely one for train nuts only.
This is unfortunately a difficult one to
even be polite about. The picture here is literally bad enough to use as a
learning tool for problems. Admittedly, the picture is up to 40 years old, and
you do get warned it's not perfect, but wow, I have still never seem such
damage to footage in my life. Thankfully the picture does get far better in
the more recent ones, it still suffers from poor quality, but it's watch able
at least.
Again, the audio is of low quality, the
voices are too muddled, and for a documentary the voices really do need to be
much clearer than they are. Once again the newer the better, and to be fair,
in the last doco, it is finally acceptable.
The extras included on the disc are 3
news items, and a website link to more special interest documentaries like
this. The first news item is relatively interesting, but the other two are
fairly useless, and only serve as records for otherwise lost footage, they
don’t even have sound for the most part. As for the website link, well that’s
totally useless.
- 3 news items from 1963
- A web link to more special interest documentaries.
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