Plot
The voice-over of a headmaster tells his students that he knows that some of them have been playing on the railway, and that "the railway is not the game field". A young boy is sitting on a railway bridge wall. As the boy ponders on his thoughts, he pictures a school Sports Day-style event being held on the railway line. The rest of the film shows his imagined idea of what would happen, with children being split into four competitive teams to take part in different activities often carried out by young people trespassing on the railway.
Four "games" are held, in which the children are challenged to break through the fence surrounding the railway line, play a game of "chicken" with the trains and throw things at passing trains. Each time, the consequences of these activities are shown, such as one scene where a driver and passenger are left badly injured by broken glass after a child throws a brick through the train window. The final task called the "Great Tunnel Walk" is for the children to run (or leisurely stroll/fast walk) through a tunnel, but after they enter, another train approaches from the other end of the Tunnel. Only four children cross the end of the tunnel, each of them having sustained serious injuries. One boy who crosses the finish line collapses as the overhead speaker announces the final results.
The film finishes as a group of adults appear and go into the tunnel to carry out the bodies of the dead and injured children, which are then laid out in a long line along the railway track. The camera pans out to show all the dead and bloodied children along the track before returning to the boy sitting on the railway bridge wall, who seems to be reconsidering the idea.
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Robbie is a 13-minute-long film made by British Transport Films in 1979 and revised in 1986. Although it is not strictly a Public Information Film, it is often considered to be so by fans of the genre. The film, which was shown in schools all over Great Britain, is based around a young boy suffering a disfiguring and/or fatal accident when he trespasses on a railway line, with three different versions being made to demonstrate the dangers of both electrified and non-electrified lines.
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The Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway was a railway company formed in 1836 to connect the city of Edinburgh with the harbours on the Firth of Forth. When the line connected to Granton, the company name was changed to the Edinburgh, Leith and Granton Railway. It opened part of its route in 1846, but reaching the centre of Edinburgh involved the difficult construction of a long tunnel; this was opened in 1847. It was on a steep incline and was worked by rope haulage.
The Mitcheldean Road and Forest of Dean Junction Railway was an independent railway company incorporated in 1871, to provide a northerly outlet for iron ore and coal products from the Cinderford and Whimsey area in the Forest of Dean, to the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway line; mineral traffic to industrial centres in South Wales and the Midlands was foreseen.
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