Retford is a small market town in North East Nottinghamshire and was also a very important railway junction until the 1960s. Situated some 20 miles south of Doncaster on the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh, Retford had one of the busiest crossings on the level in the country. The E.C.M.L was bisected by the heavily used freight route built by the Great Central Railway from Grimsby and Immingham to Sheffield. Enormous amounts of coal for power stations and export crossed the main line and traffic from Sheffield, the West Riding and the north also used the complicated junctions on its way to East Anglia and the railway port of Harwich. Pacific Class A1s, A2s, A3s and A4s are seen together with B1s, O1s, O2s, O4s, WDs and 9Fs. Moving north to Doncaster and its Works, locomotives for preservation are seen and at Gainsborough, a B1 Class loco shunts the yard. 

We travel in the cab of a steam hauled stopping train from Retford to Sheffield Victoria, where we see electric locomotivess and the short-lived Sheffield Pullman. We also travel in a loco cab over the engine line flyover to Darnall shed. Both Retford G.C. and G.N. loco sheds and the building of the ‘dive-under’ are shown, together with other local railway sights, many long since disappeared. Filmed and recorded between 1962 and 1966.