TV Commercials

Listed below is a fairly comprehensive selection of the TV commercials produced by British Railways between 1977 and 1992, plus one from 1968. Click on the image to see the commercial. Thanks go to Richard Sharp, Advertising Manager for London & South East/Network SouthEast and National Retail Manager InterCity for making copies of these commercials available. The advertising agency who produced each commercial and the year that it was first transmitted is shown.

The file size of each commercial is given, if you do not have a broadband connection each might take a few minutes to load. You will need shockwave to display the commercials.

Advertising Agency Allen, Brady & Marsh (ABM) won the British Railways account in 1977 after a pitch with their main rivals Saatchi & Saatchi. As part of their pitch ABM invited Sir Peter Parker, Chairman of the British Railways Board, to a presentation at the agency‘s London HQ. After an uncomfortable 15 minute wait in reception Sir Peter was finally met by Peter Marsh who cheekily announced “Well Chairman, that‘s just what a lot of your passengers suffer every day!” Despite this the agency went on to win the account and produced some memorable advertising for British Rail with the strap line ’This is the age of the train‘.