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Phantom Ride: Menai Straits (1904)
 

BFI

Main image of Phantom Ride: Menai Straits (1904)
 
35mm, 144 feet, black & white, silent

A journey through Wales filmed from the front of a moving train.

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Featuring glimpses of Wales at the beginning of the 20th Century, this intriguing 'phantom ride' transports the viewer along a bridge, through a tunnel, and into a station, with views of the Welsh countryside along the way. The title of the film naturally locates the action at the Menai Straits, the stretch of water that runs between the island of Anglesey and mainland Wales. In the film, however, the train enters a distinctive tunnel with a unique castle design. Although there is a Robert Stephenson-designed bridge over the Menai Straits, a strikingly similar tunnel sits at the end of another Stephenson-designed construction, the Conwy railway bridge. If this were the bridge featured in the film, it would relocate the action from the Menai Straits to the River Conwy.

Regardless of this uncertainty, the film is an excellent example of the unique perspective and constant progression through a landscape so characteristic of the phantom ride.

Christian Hayes

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Video Clips
Complete film (2:24)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Phantom Rides