Beautifully filmed, immaculately researched and also accompanied by a wonderful, fittingly melancholy soundtrack. There is no more to be said..

I lived in Poole from 1986 working in Broadstone. Later I moved to Blandford. Lovely to see this railway route revealed from the air. Really looking forward to seeing your journey further north.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Funny old thing! Been out today, flying over Stour Meadows, and Blandford up to The Milldown for the next episode! Sturminster Marshall to Charlton Marshall already in the can ready for edit. Thanks for your comment. 👍😃

At one time I was a Mission Planner for the RAF, and so am well used to ariel photography. But I find ariel views so informative and can see so much that you miss on the ground. I have used Google Earth a lot to track old railway lines, old industries. Drones are excellent for sneaking around and gaining views and perspectives not available otherwise. The temptation to buy an old line and re-open..., I just might. Please keep adding to your programmes. Canals and defunct airfields also interest me.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your comment! Yes, I plan to do some canal flying in the Spring/Summer, lockdowns allowing! 👍 Good luck with your plan to buy some track bed and re-open a line. Hope you've got deep pockets! 😁

Living locally, I find the history of the old railway intriguing. Today, there is little sign of what used to be there - until you look a bit closer. Don't know how true it is - but I was told that back in the 1970s, there was a local plan for the council to buy the old S&D trackbed from British Railways all the way through to Broadstone, to create a public footpath/bridleway. But at the last minute, they declined to buy the short stretch that runs across the golf course. The golf club only too gladly paid a fairly trivial amount of money to secure it instead. Hence why you can walk from the Ashington "viaduct" south towards Broadstone, but find a dead-end before you get there. If true, I have some thoughts in my mind as to what probably went on in the 1970s to make the council change their minds - probably to to stop us oiks from disturbing their games 😊

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your comment! Yeah, I suspect you're right, probably waived a few membership fees into the bargain! 😊 That sort of thing would never happen now of course. 🤔

@uksteves

3 жыл бұрын

@@RailFlicks there is a petition which over 1,000 people have signed to urge the council to get at least part of track bed opened up - chng.it/B5c8Mf8rkg - its been an ongoing argument since the 1970s though, so I won't hold my breath 😒

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

@@uksteves Thank You Steve, I've signed the petition.

@stevenwells5009

3 жыл бұрын

@@uksteves Petition just signed and passed on to family members. They can’t be allowed to get away with this.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Steve, I think the line they'll use against us is SSSI. I don't know the sequence of events, whether they were approached by Natural England first, or was it the other way around, perhaps in a deliberate attempt to try to thwart any such appeal? Answers on a postcard to BGC!

We briefly lived in Crossing cottage where the old gate still exists, rented between houses for 6 months but still have fond memories of walking up and down the old track with our cat following us 😊

Very well filmed and very informative but i believe you have the year wrong on the two Bailey Gate photographs that say it is 1965,and as the S & D never closed until March 1966 those 2 photo dates are wrong.At a guess i would say 1968/69 for the shot of D6506 on the recovery train,also the state of the p-way is pretty bad.Freight continued up to Blandford until early 1969.I also walked the line from Blandford to Corfe Mullen in 1969 all the track was still in situ.Your film brought back memories.

Brilliant,thanks s lot.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it!

As someone who lives in corfe Mullen, I’ve always wondered exactly what was there. Was certainly surprised to hear that Corfe Mullen isn’t even in its correct location anymore.

Beautifully shot and edited film, thank you. Is there any chance you could do the Castleman Corkscrew route north from Broadstone through Wimborne and Ringwood and round to Brockenhurst too? That would be great to see. I should declare a vested interest as I grew up in Stapehill with this line at the bottom of our garden, I loved waving to the drivers of the West Moors oil trains as they rumbled past.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, I'm aware I've not fully competed that route yet. I was at first just feeling my way as to whether there would be any interest in the idea. Seems there is, so when we're done with the S&D (probably wrap that one up at Templecombe due to travel costs) we'll have a look and see if enough remains to complete Castleman's Corkscrew. Part 1 covers from Broadstone to Wimborne if you haven't seen that one already? Thanks for your kind comment.

Enjoyed the videos, thanks, and pleased to see a picture of mine near the start of this one and the Broadstone to Wimborne one. It’s the 4F on a goods at Broadstone appearing after about 2 minutes which I took in August 1964. Any chance of a credit?

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Hi Tim, we used a variety of archive photo sources to produce this, and we had a hard job tracking down the original authors. Of course we'd be happy to put a credit to you for your contribution. It's a little late to put a 'Hard Burn' into the end credits on the video now that this has been published on YT, but we'll add you into the video description. If you're interested the photo came up in a Google Image search, and seems to have originally come from 'tingleytim' on Flickr. Really pleased you took that wonderful picture in 1964! Thanks for your comment, and getting in touch 👍

Brilliant idea but a bit disorienting constantly switching camera angles. Would have been easier to follow had it been presented as a single continuous journey.

@RailFlicks

4 ай бұрын

Noted, but just think of the reverse shots as being views in the rear view mirror. The drone is always travelling towards Bath, and the rear shots are always linked with the previous forward vision.

I applaud the work that has gone into this video and look forward to the next episode toward Shillingstone and beyond. However, I disliked the way the journey seems to jump around with parts of it running backwards. For a documentary, as a video effect this is both unnecessary and annoying. The background "music" is also unnecessary, irrelevant and distracting. A really interesting work that could have been so much better with the material that has been captured.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Hi Alan, Thanks for your feedback, we do appreciate this. The jumping around' has not been added as some misguided 'special effect' but rather as a necessity. The laws of this land dictate (for good reason) that the drone has to be kept in visual line of sight at all times. In reality this equates to approx. 500metres in each direction along the trailway. Because these lines are heavily overgrown with trees which disrupt the radio control signal to the drone, it is very difficult to find launch locations where one shot can neatly follow on to another. Sometimes you might be able to get a good radio signal out in one direction, but not the other, and the result is a gapped journey. We also use two different drones. One is small a light and we're allowed to fly that over built up areas and people, but it has shorter range and less tolerance to wind speed and short battery life & range. The other is a much larger drone weighing in at about 1Kg. You can't fly that over built up areas, due to the potential damage that would be caused if it fell from the sky due to a fault developing! These gaps can often be filled with the return flight of the drone from another location, but then the 'flight' will jump in direction towards and then away from the destination. The answer is to simply reverse the film but if any cars are caught travelling this results in them running backwards!! However this is better than jumping bits in the trailway. Also, the film is massively speeded up, otherwise the journey would have taken hours!! This itself causes another problem, because even when you fly the drone as accurately as possible, there must be no sudden movements. Otherwise when speeded up this little movement looks like a huge sudden jump at 5X speed! It happens regularly as we try to follow the twists and turns in the railway. These jumps can be covered over by switching to a view 'out the back' (reversed film of the return flight). So you can think of it as being in a car looking forward and then turning your head to look out the back window, but the journey is still travelling in the same direction towards the destination station. We try to include a significant visual feature in the shot before we look behind/forward so that the viewer can still pick out the continuity. As for the music, well the drone does not record sound, and even if it did all you'd get is the annoying scream of the propellers! So what you'd have is a largely silent movie with my occasional commentary. So we feel that we've done the best we can, whilst staying within the regulations, and all the technical factors that have to be considered. It isn't as easy as many people think. You're not he only one to point this out to us, but we really can't think of any other way of making this work without regular jumping forward up the line, sudden twitches in yaw direction etc, which could be even more distracting.

@alanmalsher743

3 жыл бұрын

@@RailFlicks Hi, thank you for your reply, and I am pleased that you understood that my comments were intended to be helpful. I do understand that what you have achieved is really great knowing some of the challenges of drone photography. And cutting and splicing video footage is very time-consuming. The result is good, but I found it quite difficult to see all the challenges should one day it be desirable to reopen the line. Clearly, this wasn't the objective of the video, but as an interested member of a heritage railway restoration project, it would be helpful to see what would be feasible and what not. The video certainly showed the countryside off to great effect and gave a good history of this part of the S&D line. With regard to the music, it seems a growing trend to have ever louder background "noise" on TV programs - it's occasionally OK for dramatic effect in dramas but I was driven to write to Sir David Attenborough about the inability to hear some of his dialog on his documentaries because of totally unrelated background "music". I got a personal reply and I notice that his latest series are somewhat better in this respect. Your use of train noises is great, and you could use the sounds of nature to good effect when showing the trail way. Again, please accept my comments in a spirit of helpfulness. I very much look forward to the next chapter and wish you well.

@RailFlicks

3 жыл бұрын

Alan, no problem. Interesting you should mention "The challenges of re-opening the line". Once I've completed the mini series, I plan to do a follow up piece that specifically discusses these challenges. In it, I intend to show all the places on route that have been built over, and discuss how this could prevent a full re-opening. Some people are very optimistic, and think that compulsory purchase is the answer, but the need would have to be very great indeed for Government to consider that option! We just can't see that happening in our lifetimes. But as a trailway, there are many more possibilities for re-connecting long stretches of the line. Yes, I tend to agree that voice-overs are often drowned out on TV and Film. That's largely due to the fact that they're exploiting the high dynamic range of modern digital TV sets these days, to make a cinematic style impact. That's great if you live in a detached house or have no neighbours, as you can really crank up the volume until you can at last hear the dialogue!! When I edit in Dolby Digital, I have similar issues to try to bolster the centre narration channel! I'd be interested to know which heritage railway restoration project you're connected with, is it Shillingstone by any chance? I need to contact them soon as I think I can assist with their cause.... Anyway, thanks again for commenting.