British Transport Films - Demise

Demise

BTF continued to make films through the 1970s and early 1980s, notably chronicling the progress of the InterCity 125 (Overture: One-Two-Five) and, poignantly, that of the ill-fated Advanced Passenger Train, but the tide was turning against such "nationalised" industrial film units. In September 1981 BTF's film library closed, with the material being offered back to its retrospective owners. BTF ceased to exist as a full unit in 1982, although the BTF name was still used for various British Rail internal works, many of them by then made on video, until around 1986. For a time the BTF films made for British Rail and London Transport were marketed by the Central Office of Information, but from March 1988 the now-defunct organisation FAME (Film Archive Management and Entertainment) handled the BR films on behalf of the British Railways Board, while the London Transport films went to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. In 1996 the British Railways Board was broken up and the BR films - the bulk of the BTF archive - were acquired by the British Film Institute.