Chiltern Take Two: Paddington-West Ruislip & Marylebone-Banbury DVD - Video 125

Excellent and very interesting

Chiltern Take Two, Standard Definition (SD) 4:3 ratio Stereo 95 minutes (1989).This wonderfully haunting and historical video is in two sections concerning the old Great Western Joint Mainline to Birmingham Snow Hill, brutally and inexcusably run down with indecent haste following the Electrification of the Birmingham-Euston route in 1967. The video only goes as far as Banbury but is in two parts.The first section is from London Paddington to West Ruislip as we follow the first portion of the "New Line" branching off the GW mainline at Old Oak on board class 50 "Royal Oak" (luckily today preserved.) with a rake of Network SouthEast mark 1 coaches on the once-daily service, now long since stopped. The Old Oak "New Mainline" is no longer used and is reduced to a single weed-strewn rusty track, a sad fate to this once very important route where "Kings", "Castles" and the Birmingham Blue Pullman service once graced. The cab ride from Paddington to Ruislip is very interesting and is from time to time broken with lineside shots and informative commentary, we see various signalmen in action as the train makes its way along, this doesn't distract from the cab view as we see forlorn sidings, rusting infrastructure, wonder semaphore signalling lavishly dotted about, a fetish the GW always excelled in! in 1989 amazing all this structure still existed before being swept away forever, so as we go along this former mainline we get an idea of the importance this route was, the wide spacious grading, sections of four-track running, signal boxes, all there built back in the early 1900's for sustained high-speed running. The last mainline services from old Birmingham Snow Hill-Paddington ceased in March 1967 and transferred to the New St-Euston route, but for years the route somehow coughed and spluttered along with ever decreasing importance, whole sections torn up, stations abandoned, signal boxes demolished, the "New Line" was dying, we see this in this video as shortly even this once a day service from Paddington to Banbury was to forever cease....Part two we study the route from the former Great Central Marylebone Station, another brutal casualty of the Beeching Axe of the 1960's. here we have the cab ride journey in an aging class 110 DMU, the stalwarts of this route since the late 1960's as mainline locomotives were removed from this downgraded route. We depart Marylebone and follow the metropolitan line, at some points being six tracks wide, going through St Johns Wood tunnels, passing Hampstead, crossing over the WCML, negotiating Neasden Junction, all here for our inspection before being either severely rationalized and overgrown with linesde fauna, we turn off at Neasden and follow the joint line to Northolt Junction to join the GW Birmingham Mainline, here we pass a variety of stations before slowing down to join the mainline at Northolt and West Ruislip where we left the Paddington-Banbury service earlier, a nice continuation from both Paddington and Marylebone.We settle into the journey to Banbury with the DMU cab ride, the relaxed female driver at the controls, we have good informative anecdotes from the narrator about various aspects of the route, some good drive by views as the stations go by: Ruislip, Denham, Gerrards Cross, Seer Green & Jordans, Beaconsfield (with a short visit to Bekonscot model village and railway), High Wycombe, Princes Risborough, Saunterton, the former Ashendon Junction where the GC metals turn away from the joint line and we travel along pure GW metals northward.As we proceed onward we see the evidence of rationalization and stripping of this once proud high-standard modern mainline, at Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield we travel along the slower platform lines as the fast lines we see have either been removed or being removed, the route gets more run down and neglected as go further along, we approach High Wycombe however seeing a full range of signals and trackwork, though we don't travel along the center lines--which is explained used for empty stock and freight movements only, gone are the days when expresses hauled by a "King" or a "Western", perhaps too the Blue Pullman would sweep by, we pause at High Wycombe then trundle uphill out of the picturesque Chiltern town, the countryside here is a delight, the isolation of the Buckinghamshire countryside is obvious and adds an air of sadness to this former mainline. High Wycombe today is much cut back, the old signals long gone, the subway at the station backfilled and a footbridge straddles the tracks, the center lines long since pulled up and plenty of lineside vegetation encroaches, a typical sight nowadays of our railways.We leave behind High Wycombe, trundle through the site of West Wycombe station, a quick look over to our left you'll see a hillside with a structure atop of it, the infamous "Hellfire" caves and estate created by Francis Dashwood in the mid 18th century. we see the run down neglect of the route as we start to see the route down to a single track, sometimes on the former "Up" line position, sometimes on the "Down" side of the formation, we enter Princes Risborough never a stop for the GWR Birmingham expresses, but Slip Coaches we dropped off here, the narrator informs us of the last ever slip coach dropped off here. the bustling busy many tracked station is stripped right down, the running lines removed to a single track and the former Down side platform demolished, we stop at the former Up side platform, the branches for Aylesbury and Oxford divide here in rusting tracks and weeds. we pull away and head toward Ashendon Junction where the former GC route would branch off to our right under the GW flying junction, all long gone except for the single track we travel along, the Up line and girder bridge crossing over the GC long removed, very little remains as we make our way toward Bicester North, again another stripped down remnant station, the decay and neglect more evident here and the countryside becomes more bleak as we cross over county borders. making our way we soon approach Aynho Junction where the "New Line" flys over and joins the original mainline (Via Oxford and Reading), originally the junction was built for high speed, but we travel on a speed restriction area as we join the Oxford line and head off to Banbury and we resume twin track running.We approach Banbury, rusting trackwork tells us the importance of this station, from the LMS, The GC and of course the GWR, coal, freight and iron ore trains once filled these sidings and yards all now quietly rusting away, nowadays all long removed and built over, this video captures for us the frozen stilled remains of a former busy mainline of a world long gone before all being cleared away, indeed this footage is historically important as virtually everything has gone--the DMU train, the casual but vigilant drivers, the class 50 locomotive hauled trains all now history.The video ends as our old DMU finally pulls into Banbury station, a fitting end to a journey along a former important route--the Great Western's and British Rail's most profitable route in the Western Region, a fine video showing both Marylebone and Paddington routes before rationalization, today Chiltern Trains only use the the former GC route into Marylebone, from Northolt Junction to Old Oak, the track is single line and virtually abandoned, until recently an unadvertised "Parliamentary" train would once a day leave platform 14 at Paddington, to traverse the former mainline to High Wycombe, but this quiet "Ghost Train" heads off from West Ealing via Greenford avoiding the Old Oak section to Northolt completely. A useful addition to this wonderful video is "Chiltern Mainline--Marylebone to Birmingham Moor St" to show us the comparison today of this route, and of course great HD cab ride vision too!

Money well spent