Synopsis:

A film-poem about the Royal Mail express train from London to Edinburgh, with music by Benjamin Britten and the now famous commentary by W. H. Auden; a poem that mirrors the rhythm of the train, building to a speeding, breathless crescendo.

Bearing Cavalcanti's influence, the young director Harry Watt - together with Basil Wright, though authorship has since been disputed by both parties - produced a film with the ostensible intention of showing how the overnight mail service worked. Shots of workers sorting mail are intercut with sweeping night-time landscapes with shapes in shadow and the excellent sequences demonstrating the mechanical system for collecting trackside mail bags at high speed.