🚂 Ivatt the Engine – A Tribute in Steam and Storytelling
🎞️ Presented by Tracing the Rails Productions
📍 Premieres on YouTube – End of July 2025
As part of the national Rail 200 celebrations, Tracing the Rails Productions, the award-nominated team behind the acclaimed TV and YouTube documentary series Tracing the Rails, are proud to present something a little different: their very first animation.
🎨 Ivatt the Engine is a whimsical and heartfelt one-off animated short, lovingly inspired by Ivor the Engine and steeped in the real history of the former Steyning Line. Created by a small but passionate documentary team, learning animation for the first time, this film pays tribute to the style and spirit of 1960s children’s storytelling while incorporating accurate details of the historic railway line that once ran between Shoreham and Horsham.
Though best known for our factual documentaries exploring Britain’s lost railways, we’ve poured the same care and research into this playful production, setting Ivatt’s story among real stations, sidings, and landmarks from the now-vanished line. It’s a celebration not only of the charm of steam railways, but of the power of community-led creativity.
This joyful new piece will premiere on YouTube at the end of July 2025, free to view and shared in the spirit of Rail 200—honouring 200 years of railway wonder, invention, and nostalgia.
🔗 To discover more about the series and support our non-profit work, visit: www.tracingtherails.com