Train cels: how British animators have captured the enduring appeal of railway travel

As a cartoon-obsessed kid, actual trains didn’t interest me much. Why go trainspotting when you can watch Danger Mouse? Good grief! But there were many animated trains that left a mark, most notably Casey Jr. Though just a small part of Walt Disney’s Dumbo (1941), I was captivated by this little, try-hard engine who thought he could. Looking back, it was a combination of production factors that helped the character make such an impact: good design which mixed authentic detail with anthropomorphism, including the suggestion of a jaunty cap; great animation to give a sense of muscle and strain to solid locomotive parts; and extraordinary sound with the use of a Sonovox voice modifier to provide him with a unique voice. 

Animation specialises in taking parts of the everyday and enhancing it with new dimensions. And whether it is as an example of hulking power, a transportation to a new environment or dramatic setting for chase and action, it’s no surprise that trains have long been a part of the animation story. Ivor the Engine, Thomas the Tank Engine and the Chuggington crew have captured the imagination of successive generations of television audiences, young and old. These five films from the BFI National Archive collection illustrate some of the other ways railways and British animation have travelled together. 

This cartoon cinema commercial for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes was based on a script and storyboard by Alexander Mackendrick, best known as a key director at Ealing Studios on films such as The Ladykillers (1955). Mackendrick worked at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency from the mid-1930s, creating characters and stories for many similar productions. By using the railway as a narrative framework the idea of strict timing or perilous consequences is quickly introduced. Mr Squirrel risks the lives of hundreds by busily waiting for his wife to provide him with a full breakfast before he can clock on in the signal box. The rhythm of the rail as the train approaches is echoed by clocks and a kettle, building a sense of a pressure which is capped by an impressive sense of the speed and weight of the engines powering past. Both the five-minute long and this shortened version of the film were produced and shot under the rostrum around 1940 but not released until 1946, likely due to supply issues during World War II.

Architectural draughtsman Lawrence Wright was a self-taught animator and hobbyist who never quite managed to turn his passion into a career. His first productions were entirely homespun affairs filmed on the amateur 9.5mm film format. His 1940 film Adolf’s Busy Day, released under the name Lance White, was a more professional production and one of very few examples of wartime propaganda comedy cartoons to be made in Britain at the time.

It’s easy to find faults in his follow up, The Mail Goes Through. It lacks the experience and budget of its professionally slick American counterparts, but when considered as a high-end amateur production (which it effectively is) there is much to admire. Setting the story on a moving train required exceptional technical skill, allowing Wright to demonstrate his mathematical mind and strong sense of perspective. His comedy and address to the audience is perhaps old-fashioned but charming. The biggest obstacle of the film is its minimal soundtrack, which drags out an already slow pace, though note the innovative attempt to synthesise the sound of the train rolling over the tracks with audio clicks. 

British Transport Films enabled a range of production and experiment in documentary film, but sadly little in animation. This little jewel is a notable exception, an experiment in a branded technique of ‘Macro Figure Animation’ developed by the Irish writer, artist and puppet enthusiast Desmond MacNamara. Using a mix of horizontal and vertical set-ups, the characters are animated through stop-motion but often feel devoid of weight and gravity like their stringed counterparts. As the dangerous company of Splat leads Pogo and Yo-yo to the train lines and the delicious idea of throwing things on the tracks, a remarkable transformation takes place in their faces. From the pompous bullying of the narration to the offbeat techniques it’s all very weird and uncanny, as many of the best public information films seem to be. How effective it was as a safety film is hard to define, but once seen it’s never forgotten.           

If this looks a little familiar it’s with good reason. Following the production of the landmark feature Yellow Submarine (1968), which animated The Beatles, some of the key creatives behind the film headed off together to continue their adventures. Art director Heinz Edelmann did more than anyone to define the look of Yellow Submarine, crystallising a wave of contemporary design trends into the film’s distinctive approach to line and colour, which is carried over here. Charlie Jenkins was the creative wizard behind the ‘Eleanor Rigby’ sequence, building bespoke set-ups for innovative layering effects. And Alison de Vere was beginning her transition from talented background artist and designer to the creator of some of the most astonishing and mature works of British animation. Sadly the trio’s collaboration as the Trickfilm studio was short-lived, with this opening title for the 1968 Cambridge Animation Festival being one of their few productions. The Transformer who awaits the destruction of steam engines would have had added poignancy in the wake of the Beeching Report of 1963, and the last gasp of steam-hauled rail services. 

This television commercial was part of a marketing campaign to revitalise the Ovaltine brand, with a traditional milkmaid character brought to life from the packet as an adventurous heroine for a new era. As a product often associated with older consumers and a nice sit-down at the end of a long day, it’s a familiar advertising ploy aimed at reaching a new crowd. Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel and their Cucumber Studios company had built a reputation on a range of animated productions, including music videos and commercials such as this. But their careers were soon to change with the release of their co-directed TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future, first broadcast in 1985 to introduce Channel 4’s pseudo-CGI veejay. 

Here the animation uses a crisp ‘ligne claire’ style popularised by Hergé’s Tintin. The use of a stricken steam-engine in an idyllic but non-specific rocky landscape is part of the modernised nostalgia approach. It’s also a good excuse for Ovaltina to whip off her long skirt to fire the boiler, though her modesty is protected by her fashionable bloomers.