British Steam-Best of: Wales (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-The Best Of British Steam (3), British Steam (6)
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	58:08
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	RV Television MRA Entertainment	Starring	Robert Symes Mary Jean Hasler
Case	Brackley-Opaque-No Lip
RPI	?	Music	None Given

    If England was the home of standard gauge steam railway preservation, then the whole preservation railway deal had its birth in Wales with the world-famous Tallylyn Railway.

    With its mountains providing a formidable barrier to standard gauge railways, which were mainly confined to the coast in the northern part of the country, it was the narrow gauge railways that had the job of hauling the slate out of the mountains to the standard gauge railways and harbours. With the decline in the demand for slate, the narrow gauge railways slowly closed and nearly all would have disappeared completely were it not for the dedicated persons who banded together to preserve the Tallylyn Railway in 1950. Their efforts not only ensured the existence of the Tallylyn Railway but also provided the impetus and knowledge for just about all preservation efforts since.

    And make no mistake - some of the most ambitious preservation efforts revolve around the Great Little Trains of Wales. The Welsh Highland Railway for instance was once the longest of the narrow gauge railways of Wales and is now the subject of very detailed planning to resurrect the entire 22 miles of its length.

    This second journey though the Best Of British Steam takes us first to the Ffestiniog Railway (unfortunately my intended visit there recently was thwarted by flooding of the Conwy Valley railway line) and then on to the likes of the Welsh Highland Railway, the Bala Lake Railway, the Llanberis Lake Railway, the almost unique Snowdon Mountain Railway (the last rack and pinion railway in Great Britain), the Fairbourne Railway, the Tallylyn Railway, the Vale of Rheidol Railway (the subject of many a visit when I was a kid) and the last working narrow gauge railway in the Corris Railway (of which there is some terrific archival film included here). The latter is itself the subject of plans to restore the railway back to its meeting with the mainline railway at Machynlleth.

    With some of the prettiest scenery to be seen from any railways in the world, Wales offers some of the best that steam has to offer. This may be the one DVD from the series that might well appeal to those outside of rail buffs, simply for some of the scenery alone. Just remember that the presentation is generally the same as the first DVD reviewed from the series.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    Just remember that this is closer to home video rather than professional film. The transfer is in nearly every respect very similar to that afforded Best Of British Steam - Northern England. It is a little variable in appearance, although perhaps less so than the earlier DVD, with some stuff being very decent in sharpness and detail. I was a little more satisfied with the transfer in this regard this time round. Shadow detail is not an issue and despite all the material appearing to be filmed in summer there is less issue with coping with sunlight: rarely does the video get overbright to the extent of washing out detail almost completely.

    Colours are generally better here too although still at times a little weak, with saturation being towards the underdone end of the scale. Since the last time I visited the Vale of Rheidol Railway the engines were a different colour, I don't know how accurately the colours are represented here but they look much closer to what I would expect. This is a more natural looking transfer most of the time and more satisfying than the earlier release.

    There are no apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. The major issue here is again with aliasing and at times this is again a real problem - almost distractingly so. Just about any straight line in the programme exhibits the problem so it is rather hard to ignore it. There is, however, a much more disturbing example of moiré artefacting around 39:25 that really is terribly annoying. There is some evidence of flaring at 37:25. There are no film artefacts to worry about in the transfer.

    This is a single layered, single sided DVD so there is no layer change to worry about.

    There are no subtitle options on the DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is just the one soundtrack on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 effort.

    The narration comes up well in the transfer, being easy to understand, but once again some of the sound recording of the trains themselves is a little underwhelming. There do not appear to be any audio sync issues with the transfer.

    The original music accompaniment is also nothing much to worry about.

    The soundtrack itself is a reflection of the nature of the programming and whilst slightly better than the earlier reviewed DVD still does little more than carry the narration and expose the lack of quality in the original sound recordings of the engines and trains themselves. There are this time few obvious blemishes in the original recordings, but a few more extraneous sounds. Mostly part of the nature of the beast with these sorts of live recordings but still mildly annoying.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Previews (10)

    Since they are all pretty much the same in presentation (each one of them uses the exact same music and effects track playing over the video), the ten trailers are more easily dealt with in one paragraph rather than ten! All are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and are not 16x9 enhanced and feature Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The technical quality is very much the same as the main feature with most of the same issues with colour and aliasing noted. The ten trailers are:

• Best Of British Steam - Northern England (0:59)
• Best Of British Steam - Southern England (0:59)
• Best Of British Steam - Wales (0:59)
• Best Of British Steam - Scotland (0:59)
• British Steam - The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (1:08)
• British Steam - The West Somerset Railway (1:07)
• British Steam - The Severn Valley Railway (1:08)
• British Steam - The Paignton and Dartmouth Railway (1:07)
• British Steam - The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (1:08)
• British Steam - The Bluebell Railway (1:06)

    This is the same DVD as is available in Region 2 and I seriously doubt that anything different would be made available anywhere else so if you want the programme, once again this is your choice.

    Whilst the overall quality is slightly better than the earlier DVD, it remains little better than average. However, the sheer enjoyment of the material contained on the DVD simply outweighs those purely objective considerations. Rail buffs will enjoy this for the content, not the technical quality, but the rest might well enjoy this for the scenery that does come up pretty well.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall