Dan Snow has been presenting a short series of films about the history and development of railways in Britain…You can watch the films, here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qh3z3/Locomotion_Dan_Snows_History_of_Railways_Episode_3/
Better still, there is a link to a whole archive of BBC films about steam trains. You can see the list, here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/collections/p01277qd/steam-railways
Some of these films are a bit slow, like the trains, for modern tastes. But they are quite charming.
Dan Snow did get a bit better…but overall his history was too anecdotal. He mentioned interesting connections between, say, the speculative railway mania of the mid 19C and the more recent dot com bubble; but left it there.
Basically, the whole thing was based on Christian Wolmar’s excellent books
Fire and Steam and Engines of War
Also, I thought his wearing a tee-shirt throughout was rubbish really. I don’t think he should do the pink shirt and chinos thing that Michael Palin or Michael Portillo do; but there must be something inbetween up-tight and slack.
Still, the films did give me a few ideas for more posts…