This film was made by railway enthusiast and filmmaker Frank Dean. Frank trained as an engineer during the Second World War, using his welding skills doing work for the War.   But coming from a railway family – his foster father worked on the railway and uncles were plate layers – Frank got a job on the railway as soon as he could, in 1949. Church Fenton at that time was a major interchange of branch lines, and British Railways – as it became with nationalisation in 1948 – employed many in...

This film was made by railway enthusiast and filmmaker Frank Dean. Frank trained as an engineer during the Second World War, using his welding skills doing work for the War.   But coming from a railway family – his foster father worked on the railway and uncles were plate layers – Frank got a job on the railway as soon as he could, in 1949. Church Fenton at that time was a major interchange of branch lines, and British Railways – as it became with nationalisation in 1948 – employed many in the village. He started out as an Assistant Lineman before eventually being head hunted by the Signal Engineering Department in the North East. 

 

Frank’s interest in film got off the ground at an early age when a wealthy uncle in Leeds bought him a 35mm projector – at the time Frank was unaware of the combustible dangers of nitrate film – and he got involved in doing slide projections at school, moving on to photography and 9.5 mm cine film before buying his first 8mm camera from John Saville and Sons, York, in 1953 (for £36).  Frank’s first film was of the Cawood annual show in that year (this was lent out and subsequently disappeared). He went on to film events in his home village of Church Fenton where Frank has lived since his adoption at the age of three months. From that year until this (2009) Frank has made a yearly film record of local events in Church Fenton – see Church Fenton Village Events (1958), and the Context for this.

 

Frank’s job on the railway involved him travelling around Yorkshire with the team that would check signalling and telegraph poles and equipment. However, it was not until Frank heard of the proposed closures of branch lines contained in the Beeching Report that he took to filming the railway.  The immediate reaction of railway workers to this news was fear for jobs and the future of the railway. But Frank also immediately saw the Beeching Report as an opportunity to start a project of filming all the lines due for closure in Yorkshire. So, every Saturday, together with his wife Heather, who he married in 1960, he went out filming. 

 

He got the pair of them a line side pass for the whole of the British network (thereby absolving BR for responsibility for any accidents) – this facility was rescinded when the 100 mph Deltas came along, requiring Frank to film more surreptitiously! This, together with a very sympathetic boss, and many accommodating fellow railway staff – especially in the footplate – enabled Frank to travel all over Yorkshire and beyond to realise his plan: possibly the only person to undertake the ambitious project of filming all the lines in an area prior to closure – Pickering filmmaker Keith Snowden also made an excellent film of the closure of the Whitby and Pickering Railway (1965), and filmed subsequent developments leading up to the opening of the North York Moors Railway. These films are also held with the YFA. It is also worth mentioning a film made by Alan Sidi, 8 O'clock Special in 1963, also on YFA Online, which has more on the Beeching cuts in the Context.

So it was that Frank was able to film right through from the announcement of the closure of the Whitby to Scarborough line to the lifting of the track – a period from 1963 to 1968. Frank’s contacts on the railways would give him a call whenever something interesting was about to happen. It was due to one such call, from signalman Jim Henan, that led to Frank filming the last train along the line.  The filming taken from the footplate had to be agreed to by the Chief Motorpower Engineer (the driver that volunteered to have Frank with him, Mr Winfield, has been on record making runs).  The train carrying the demolition contractors, in 1967, as well as the removal of railway track, in 1968, were coupled onto the original film which concluded in 1965.

 

In making the film Frank was able to bring to the project not only years of experience in making films, but also knowledge gained from working alongside the film makers of the British Transport Film department who filmed in Church Fenton in 1953 and again in 1954. At that time Church Fenton was a leader in having the latest electronic technology in signalling and track – for example, being able detect whether points were open or closed electronically rather than mechanically. Frank became friends with the cameramen working on the films that British Transport made, especially of Robert Painter, who subsequently worked on many famous films, such as Guns of Navarone, and also pop videos, including Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

 

As this film testifies, Frank was keen not only to record the demise of railway lines, but also to produce a high quality film. Frank was something of a film buff, going regularly to the cinema each week in York, and also twice a week at a makeshift cinema that had been started up just down the road in Stillingfleet.  He had always had an artistic bent – later completing a course on art history at York University – and he would try to bring all this knowledge to bear in his films. He makes references to Eisenstein’s point about three different perspectives, or montages, being like having three different stories, or acts.

 

Having edited the films Frank began to put on regular film shows, accompanied by lectures, often to very large audiences, which he has continued up to the time of writing (January 2010): having made thousands of hours of film on the railways and becoming an expert in its history. In 1982 Frank retired from British Rail, despite pleas from senior management for him not to: Frank had been at the centre of many engineering developments on the railway since the 1950s, and at that time new developments were in the pipeline. This allowed Frank more time to film and lecture, and also to get involved in the local school, teaching railway history and giving historical tours of the village to its younger inhabitants – see Context for Church Fenton Village Events. As well as making his own railways films – for as far afield as Russia – Frank had become a repository for railway films, getting donations from around the country. Many of Frank’s films have been made into DVDs by Cinerail, and these continual to sell well.

 

As well as showing a line that no longer exists, the film also shows railway practices that have also passed into history. Running trains on single track at that time required using a token passed on to the guard on the train occupying the line, and this was then passed onto the guard of the train going back the other way. The signal boxes had to synchronous their points, having specifically designed caps to go over the signal levers to prevent any collision.

 

Perhaps the most striking man-made object in the film is the Larpool Viaduct (aka Esk Valley viaduct), with its 13 arches built out of 5 million bricks, standing 120 feet high and 915 feet long.  For safety reasons this was due for demolition before being bought by Sustrans, a sustainable transport charity, who have made it part of their cycle route which the railway line now is – called the Cinder Track, used by both walkers and cyclists. The route is also part of the National Cycle Network and The North Sea Cycle Route.

 

What the film does not, and perhaps could not, capture was the loss the closure meant for those who worked on it. Frank has commented on how lives were built on the railway, with railways workers using the line, often illicitly, for their other sources of income, such transporting pigs!  Naturally people like signalman Jim Henan got very emotional about the closure, although those who became friends continued to meet; with Frank providing an invaluable forum around which those who worked on the line could occasionally recall happier times.

 

References

 

Much of the information for this has come from two extended interviews with Frank Dean, recordings of which are held with the YFA.

Robin Lidster, The Scarborough & Whitby Railway a Photographic & Historical Survey, Hendon Publishing Co, 1977