Originally intended as an advertising short, this film follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London to Edinburgh along the East Coast Main Line. A nostalgic record of the halcyon years of steam on British Railways and the ex-LNER Class A4.

A freight train travelling between Kirkby and Barnard Castle has become snowbound in the Westmoreland hills. The Motive Power, Operating and Engineering Departments go to work with snowploughs to reach the trapped train.