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Films showing railways in USSR

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itfcfan

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For anyone with time on their hands, who'd like to get a feel of what trains in USSR were like, some films from the 1980s are freely available online (no copyright infringement - they've been published by the original producers).

As a side benefit, as long as you don't mind reading subtitles, some USSR films from the period are pretty good and amusing (and surprisingly for someone who didn't live in the period, include some criticism of Soviet society).

Station for Two
The film starts on a train and then the rest of the film is set on a station with trains coming and going.

Sportloto-82
The first 15mins are set on a train. The final part of the film also includes shots of a train.

Mimino
Not train related, but my favourite film from the period. Features helicopters and aeroplanes instead of trains. Mainly set in Georgia.

If anyone has links for (cinematic) films from other parts of the world that show railways, please do share!
 
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BahrainLad

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I do remember as a child watching Blue Peter and their annual ‘summer expedition’ to the USSR one year, I think it must have been 1987 or so? They certainly went on a sleeper train at one point and also visited a Soviet summer camp for teenagers (which looked idyllic, presumably it was for offspring of party workers perhaps). Have hunted YouTube but can’t find anything. Would be interesting to see if it can be found.
 
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Calthrop

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My attempt to follow the given "means of access" for Station For Two, somehow fetched up a film which gave every appearance of having an army and / or Gulag setting -- seemingly no railway content ! I am a self-confessed computer-moron: understand little about the things; and my capacity for, with them, taking wrong paths and getting in messes -- is boundless.

A small vignette recalled -- thing seen at a cinema in Paris; which some half-century ago, specialised in films from the USSR. In 1966, at the suggestion of a couple of friends I went with them to this establishment, to see a feature film which they fancied -- some kind of drama of peasant life, shown if I recall correctly, as fairly idyllic. There was shown as an addition before the main picture, a shortish publicity film called The Carpathian Mountains: about the joys for holidays and sport, of the Soviet Union's bit of that range. It included early on, a brief sequence of a train packed with happy skiing enthusiasts, running through snowy scenery: hauled by what struck me as a pleasingly slightly-antiquated-looking 2-6-2 which, per subsequent findings, I think must have been a class Su. I understand that as from a little later on, the Soviet Union -- in theory, very big on everything modern and progressive -- became rather ashamed of its remaining steam in regular service (the country had embarked on railway modernisation, with electrification and diesel locos, as from an early date; but on such a huge rail system, and on a general national scene where things often happened less efficiently than the powers-that-were would have wished -- in some places, steam remained in everyday use till a late date: way after it finished on BR, for instance). From the scene in this film, one would surmise that as at the mid-1960s, the Soviets were still OK with including a steam train just doing regular stuff, in a filmic offering extolling the splendours of life for citizens of, and visitors to, the USSR.
 
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Gag Halfrunt

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Calthrop said:
My attempt to follow the given "means of access" for Station For Two, somehow fetched up a film which gave every appearance of having an army and / or Gulag setting -- seemingly no railway content ! I am a self-confessed computer-moron: understand little about the things; and my capacity for, with them, taking wrong paths and getting in messes -- is boundless.
Click to expand...

This is the film. The first scene is indeed in a prison, but if you keep watching all the way to 6 minutes 20 seconds you will be rewarded with a train.
 
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Calthrop

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Gag Halfrunt said:
This is the film. The first scene is indeed in a prison, but if you keep watching all the way to 6 minutes 20 seconds you will be rewarded with a train.
Click to expand...

Thanks ! Clearly, I panicked too soon: from what first showed up on screen, got -- wrongly, it seems -- initial intimations of "this is not going to be"; and mentally wrote it off. This process assisted no doubt, by lamentable prejudice to the effect that "nothing Russian ever works properly or as planned" :( ...
 
jamesontheroad

jamesontheroad

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BahrainLad said:
I do remember as a child watching Blue Peter and their annual ‘summer expedition’ to the USSR one year, I think it must have been 1987 or so? They certainly went on a sleeper train at one point and also visited a Soviet summer camp for teenagers (which looked idyllic, presumably it was for offspring of party workers perhaps). Have hunted YouTube but can’t find anything. Would be interesting to see if it can be found.
Click to expand...

It featured as part of the best-of-the-year compilation programme broadcast in December 1987. There are clips from 11:55 in this video - including Mark Curry getting excited about having a cup of tea on the Moscow-Leningrad night train.

 
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BahrainLad

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jamesontheroad said:
It featured as part of the best-of-the-year compilation programme broadcast in December 1987. There are clips from 11:55 in this video - including Mark Curry getting excited about having a cup of tea on the Moscow-Leningrad night train.

Click to expand...

Amazing! And it starts with the robot cow! I remember that like it was yesterday.

(As a child in the late 1980s we lived in Portugal, English language telly was hard to come by so my grandmother VHS’d BBC TV and posted them out to us. They got rewatched ad nauseam.)
 
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itfcfan

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A video covering a different mode of transport, but still international, is a 1977 BBC documentary "Destination Doha" showing the journey that lorry drivers were making between the UK and countries around the Persian Gulf.

I last watched this 5~10 years ago, but the YouTube link has gone dead (copyright issues). I'd be very happy to pay to stream this, but unfortunately it doesn't seem any websites offer this:

If anyone has a copy they'd be happy to share or sell to me, please message me!
 
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