OTD in early British television: 5 July 1937
John Wyver writes: Tucked in at the end of the afternoon’s programming on Monday 5 July 1937 is a curious three-minute ‘local OB’ titled The Coronation Train. Goodness knows that the result was like but, with commentary by Leslie Mitchell, this was apparently a shot from a studio Emitron run out onto the balcony of Alexandra Palace of LNER’s ‘Coronation Train’ passing by in the distance.
LNER’s streamlined train had left King’s Cross at 4pm on its inaugural six-hour journey to Edinburgh. The header image is the cover of the marketing booklet issued by the train company.
Per Wikipedia:
The design was based on the very successful streamlined train, The Silver Jubilee, built in 1935, but instead of being painted silver it was given a two-tone blue livery, garter blue on the lower panels and the lighter Marlborough blue above. The colours were chosen from a group sponsored by the British Colour Council for the coronation of George VI. Internally it was decorated in the Art Deco style.
For those of you fascinated by trains, and I admit to being among your company, Steve Banks has a fine web page with excellent illustrations, and also online is a very interesting article, ‘Britain’s streamlined expresses’, reprinted from Wonders of World Engineering, about both ‘The Coronation’ and LMS’s parallel service to Glasgow, ‘The Coronation Scot’.
[OTD post no. 200; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain in January 2026.]
As Paul Hayes responded on Bluesky, ‘But isn’t that sense of just having a go at anything and everything they could to see what worked part of what gives this era its appeal to us?’
Which is absolutely the case, especially when, as here with the very latest transport technology in the very latest style, television is seeking to be absolutely of-the-moment, to be *modern*.