ANY train buff in West Devon and East Cornwall will enjoy the journey on board a DVD entitled 'Steaming through the West Country' — which shows some fascinating clips of railway times past.

From Kingfisher Productions, in association with the South West Film and Television Archive, the DVD contains some little gems such as the 'last employee at Latchley' —Sarah Jenkins, who was interviewed for Westward Television by reporter Del Cooper in 1966.

Latchley station was part of the old East Cornwall Mineral lines, established in 1872, a seven mile track that 'came from nowhere and led to nowhere in particular' that took tin ores, arsenic and granite to the outside world.

Mrs Jenkins had been at the station virtually all her life and spoke with pride of the minerals like granite which would be quarried from East Cornwall and be used all over the world, from paving slabs in Plymouth to the foundations of the docks in Singapore.

There is rare archive film of the old line between Tavistock, Brent Tor, Lydford, Bridestowe and Okehampton and shows the 30715 locomotive, the last train to Tavistock, whose service came to an abrupt end in 1961.

Also in the same decade there is footage of the terrible winter of 1963 and the train battling through the deep snow on Dartmoor.

My personal favourite is a film from before the First World War which shows a scene, shot from the driver's platform crossing the River Tamar via the Royal Albert Bridge entering Saltash station.

More than 100 years later the scene has not changed all that much, except for the extra span of the road bridge alongside, less green fields on either bank and, sadly from a visual point of view, the disappearance of many a sailing ship which used to ply their trade on the Tamar.

The DVD sells at £14.95 and is available from some local shops or direct via http://www.railwayvideo.com">www.railwayvideo.com

John Hutchins