4. Rail Points West - 1985

Rail Points West is a brave attempt at a magazine style staff update programme, mimicking the Points West BBC regional news show in the West Country. This is listed as being the second show in the series, so if anyone has access to the first, or indeed any subsequent editions, then I’m sure we would all like a look at them. They say there’s nothing new on the railway, and the introduction to this video maybe proves that. The show starts with news of the refurbished station roof at Paddington, then the rebuilding of Reading station. Only this is 1985, not 2012. The feature on Reading betrays the heritage, with the Peter Sutcliffe alike architect drooling over a scale model of his proposed masterpiece, rather than the rimless spectacled modern day stereo-type, hyperboling over a CAD screen. A fleeting glimpse of the back of someone with a mullet is all that is deemed necessary to demonstrate the introduction of APTIS, before heading off to Wales for a ’hard hitting’ invest