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1972: At Home With JAMES THE TRAINS | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive
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4:33Now Playing"An enthusiast? Certainly. A fanatic? Perhaps. An eccentric? Maybe. But this man's complete devotion to one thing - trains - gives him a peace of mind and an independence that most people will never begin to know."
Jack Pizzey visits Dai James or "James the Trains" as he is better known in his home village of Coelbren. Dai spent 48 years of his working life as a railwayman, but is now retired. Mr James now devotes all his time to running his model railway - no mean feat as the tracks take up the vast majority of his living space, and he has 53 engines and close to 400 coaches and truck. Any little space in his house that isn't taken up by his model railway likely contains countless railway reference books, and where there are no books, there are sound recordings of classic steam engines.
To Dai James, it's "Heaven on Earth!"
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One 26 January, 1972.
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