Pendon: videos

For those of you who've never had the privilege of visiting Pendon Museum, sit back and enjoy a real treat.

The first two-part video is presented and produced by the inimitable Bob Symes, veteran modelmaker, inventor and broadcaster. These videos are good professional quality (check the credits at the end of the second part), but Part 1 opens with a very early non-Pendon classic – a pioneering short film called "Wheels Cha Cha" (named after and adapted from the original music of Joe Loss) which Bob made in the late '50s for BBC TV, much of which was shot on a special studio track, other parts being shot on Bob's Payerbrook and Fairlie layout, which featured in the November and December 1958 issues of the Model Railway Constructor. (And yes, that is a vintage K's whitemetal 0-4-2T 14xx heading the train, fitted with a Seuthe smoke unit.)

The meat of Part 1 however is on Pendon itself, and includes a middle sequence on John Ahearn's Madder Valley Railway.

These videos were only recently uploaded to youtube by Bob, but were made in 1999, and thus the upstairs Vale Scene (in Part 2) is not as fully developed as it is nowadays. More up to date views of the Vale scene can be seen in the videos listed below.

Next, a series of four short official Pendon Museum videos posted on youtube by "pendoninfo", where more recent progress of the development of the Vale Scene can be seen.

A video uploaded by 'theonlyadsrulz'. Whilst not an official Pendon video, it would seem that the camerman was probably given permission to film, given the Dartmoor scene windows being opened. (Photography is not normally allowed inside the museum without special permission.)

A video taken by bluebelleModelrailway in 2012 showing the Madder Valley Railway, and the Dartmoor and Vale scenes

'The History of Pendon Museum', a professional quality video produced in 2012 by MRL-TV in assocation with RMweb, and featuring an excellent narration by Chris Webber and some great stills by Andy York.