Themes and background music on Railway Productions

Over the years, I have accumulated and indeed watched, many Railway Productions on VHS, DVD, YouTube and download, and become rather addicted to listening to the Theme Tunes or background incidental music.

Over said years, I’ve often wondered where the Music came from, was it specifically written for the program? Is it a famous piece of music? Is it general Library Music?
Anything in particular stand out?
One of the ones that got me hooked early on…Video125’s 1066DC Drivers Eye View, for many years I wondered who wrote the theme and whether it would be available. Last year I finally found it…

“Robot Romance” by Laszlo Bencker, written in 1988, the same year the Driver’s Eye View was released. I recall Peter Middleton of Video125 remarked he wanted something that sounded a bit like BBC’s “Casualty” theme tune.

Another great number…the Theme for Video125’s Royal Scot Drivers Eye View

“Formation” by Gary Scagill, who writes specific library music.

More recently…I’ve been doing some digging, and discovered AKM music have written several scores used by Video125, Transport Video Publishing, Train Crazy, and Spa Films etc etc.

It’s got me down the rabbit hole looking for specific themes.

What do you think? Do you like listening to some of the Musical Scores? Or find them a bit too cheesy and off putting?

Galvanize said:

Over the years, I have accumulated and indeed watched, many Railway Productions on VHS, DVD, YouTube and download, and become rather addicted to listening to the Theme Tunes or background incidental music.

Over said years, I’ve often wondered where the Music came from, was it specifically written for the program? Is it a famous piece of music? Is it general Library Music?
Anything in particular stand out?
One of the ones that got me hooked early on…Video125’s 1066DC Drivers Eye View, for many years I wondered who wrote the theme and whether it would be available. Last year I finally found it…

“Robot Romance” by Laszlo Bencker, written in 1988, the same year the Driver’s Eye View was released. I recall Peter Middleton of Video125 remarked he wanted something that sounded a bit like BBC’s “Casualty” theme tune.

Another great number…the Theme for Video125’s Royal Scot Drivers Eye View

“Formation” by Gary Scagill, who writes specific library music.

More recently…I’ve been doing some digging, and discovered AKM music have written several scores used by Video125, Transport Video Publishing, Train Crazy, and Spa Films etc etc.

It’s got me down the rabbit hole looking for specific themes.

What do you think? Do you like listening to some of the Musical Scores? Or find them a bit too cheesy and off putting?

Click to expand...

Yes, certainly. On the subject of Video 125, I find their earlier productions better than the recent ones.

Partly because they capture an atmosphere that is often long gone (for example on 1066DC the way the train arrives at Waterloo East and someone completely routinely has their door open, jumped out and re-closed the door well before the train has stopped), but for some reason they’re also a lot more “viewable”. I find the picture quality actually better in some cases too.

The themes are of their era, and again are better than some of the nondescript ones we see today, though that’s more the way of the world than Video 125. 1980s stuff probably would jar on stuff produced today.

One can say the same about TV game show themes.

If you find any other themes particular Video 125 then please do post them.

ISTR that Intercity 2 was used on a couple of Movietone News articles about railways. It’s available on KPM records. Here it is on YouTube.

The BTF film Snow used the song Teen Beat by Sandy Nelson. It was then electronically treated by Daphne Oram. Here it is on YouTube.

HST West used the Holiday '86 theme written by Simon May.

Research and Development (Mark Emney) - Metropolitan and District / Metropolitan Main Line
Exotic Holiday (Kevin Jarvis) - Cornish Branches
First Call (Chris Payne) - Wessex
I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside (Zoom Karaoke) - Sunshine Coast (used before the credits)

Video 125 issued a cd of some of the music used in their productions sometime in the early 2000s. I recall that most of the cuts are from production libraries with a few commissioned pieces.

Spa Films used a number of tracks from Bosworth.