Nostalgic 16MM Cine Film from the 1920s to 2003 – Chris Pratt

RCTS – West Midlands Branch Meeting Report

Monday 18th November 2024 – Coventry

On Monday 18th November 2024 we welcomed Chris Pratt from Rugby who presented “Nostalgic Cine Film from the 1920s to 2003”. He started with many local scenes from the 1920s/30s through to the 1940s. At Leamington Spa we saw the demolition of the old Brunelian station (1852) and the building of the GWR ‘Art Deco’ station built in 1938 which survives to the present day. Also at Leamington we saw the former LNWR (Avenue) station, which closed in 1965 as part of the ‘Beeching’ cuts.

We then moved on to Milverton, Brinklow and then Rugby where we saw the much-loved ‘Birdcage’ bridge, which carried the former Great Central over the West Coast Main Line. Many locos were seen in the archive monochrome footage including Precursor 4-4-0s, Prince of Wales 4-6-0s and parallel-boilered Royal Scots as well as a host of other types including Princess Class Pacifics, Bowen Cooke G2s and former LNWR tanks, all of which were of particular interest to ‘Older Members’.

After the break we travelled to Peterborough where we saw a number of former LNER Pacifics on express duties and then progressed to scenes on the Great Central around Nottingham and Leicester. On some clips a number of motor cars were of interest as well as a couple of ‘old’ Midland Red buses for the bus enthusiasts among us. Finally Chris projected some of his own colour work depicting railtours at the turn of the 21st century showing many locos which are now ‘Out of Ticket’ in 2024.

We thanked Chris for a very interesting and nostalgic presentation.