railways in fiction and fantasy

[The Johnster]

These images are photo based and post edited to look like drawings, and Senkei has fallen down a little on his research, but we'll forgive him.  I reckon the top one is Duke of Gloucester and the mk1 coaches with B4 bogies in different liveries are a dead giveaway to railtour photos!  He's swapped commonwealth and B4 on the leading coach as well.

[rockershovel]

They do say that you get better pictures on the radio, and I could never see Pete Postlethwaite as Vimes. I always saw him as starting out as Lee Marvin (in his Cat Ballou and Paint Your Wagon days) and morphing into Clint Eastwood as he sobered up. The “Fabricati Diem” joke only makes sense in that context (along with the added “to protect and serve” throwaway line) 

 

Vetinari, absolutely Alan Rickman. Alec Guinness doesn’t have that undertone of someone who would have people shot in a cellar of absolutely necessary, which Vetinari needs to be convincing. Hugh Laurie in his “House” persona comes close, though. 

 

moving on, Ronnie Barker would have made a wonderful Mustrum Ridcully, especially playing the nostalgic old fool against Maggie Smith as Granny Weatherwax.

 

Nanny Ogg is alive and well, currently appearing in Mrs Brown’ s Boys...

 

Ronnie Barker again as Fred Colon, in fact the whole Colon/Nobbs running joke sometimes appears to be a Two Ronnies script..

 

Last but not least, Kate Winslet as Sacharissa Cripslock... 

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by rockershovel

[PatB]

I always thought Stephanie Cole, around about Waiting for God era would have been a great Granny Weatherwax, and Brian Blessed, or maybe Timothy West, as Ridcully. Never came up with a suitable Vimes, but never thought about outside the UK, so I wouldn't disagree about the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood idea. 

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, PatB said:

I always thought Stephanie Cole, around about Waiting for God era would have been a great Granny Weatherwax, and Brian Blessed, or maybe Timothy West, as Ridcully. Never came up with a suitable Vimes, but never thought about outside the UK, so I wouldn't disagree about the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood idea. 

 

Stephanie Cole, like it, like it. Maybe June Brown? 

 

I could see Timothy West as Ridcully, but not Brian Blessed. Ridcully is quite a subtle character in some ways. 

 

Vimes is hard to cast, because he needs gravitas. The Eastwood thing isn’t my idea, he is drawn that way in some illustrations and the “Fabricati Diem” joke is an obvious Eastwood reference. I don’t know what Eastwood would be like as a comic drunk, though, hence Lee Marvin. Tommy Lee Jones is another obvious candidate. 

 

Nobby Nobbs COULD be Tony Robinson, but he often shows himself smarter than Fred Colon so I’m not convinced.

 

Telly Savalas as Chrysoprase..

 

Carrot is another hard one to cast and I don’t really have any suggestions. 

[PatB]

17 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

Stephanie Cole, like it, like it. Maybe June Brown? 

 

I could see Timothy West as Ridcully, but not Brian Blessed. Ridcully is quite a subtle character in some ways. 

 

Vimes is hard to cast, because he needs gravitas. The Eastwood thing isn’t my idea, he is drawn that way in some illustrations and the “Fabricati Diem” joke is an obvious Eastwood reference. I don’t know what Eastwood would be like as a comic drunk, though, hence Lee Marvin. Tommy Lee Jones is another obvious candidate. 

 

Nobby Nobbs COULD be Tony Robinson, but he often shows himself smarter than Fred Colon so I’m not convinced.

 

Telly Savalas as Chrysoprase..

 

Carrot is another hard one to cast and I don’t really have any suggestions. 

 

It's important to remember that the first iteration of Baldrick (aka Tony Robinson) was actually the smart one, so I doubt if Nobby would be a problem. 

 

I seem to have missed the fabricati diem gag, but, yes, obviously a Dirty Harry reference. Eastwood did play something of a deadbeat cop in The Gauntlet. On reflection, not a bad basis to build a screen Vimes from.

 

Carrot is difficult because there are some fairly specific requirements in terms of physique and the ability to play an apparently simple but actually deeply cunning character. Maybe James Norton with a few months doing weights. 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, PatB said:

 

It's important to remember that the first iteration of Baldrick (aka Tony Robinson) was actually the smart one, so I doubt if Nobby would be a problem. 

 

I seem to have missed the fabricati diem gag, but, yes, obviously a Dirty Harry reference. Eastwood did play something of a deadbeat cop in The Gauntlet. On reflection, not a bad basis to build a screen Vimes from.

 

Carrot is difficult because there are some fairly specific requirements in terms of physique and the ability to play an apparently simple but actually deeply cunning character. Maybe James Norton with a few months doing weights. 

 

The original, crafty Baldrick / stupid Blackadder dynamic was dropped because it didn’t seem to work. The best candidate I can think of for Nobby is Christopher Fairbank (Moxey from Auf Wiedersehen Pet). 

 

Leaving aside the red hair, my nominations for Carrot would be Brendan Fraser (George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right),  Pierce Brosnan (who can be quite a good deadpan comic actor) or maybe Daniel Day Lewis. Colin Firth’s self-referential performance in the St Trinians remake would be pretty close, too.

 

another possible Vetinari would be the older Kenneth Cranham or Michael Caine, as seen in the recent Hatton Garden? 

 

A younger Stephanie Coleman or Judi Dench would be scene-stealers as Sybil Vimes, but I see her as younger than Vimes, so Ruth Jones or Dawn French? 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by rockershovel

[petethemole]

Timothy West played Ridcully in the TV adaptation of Going Postal. Worked for me.

[Pacific231G]

9 hours ago, petethemole said:

Timothy West played Ridcully in the TV adaptation of Going Postal. Worked for me.

I couldn't fault any of the casting of Going Postal. I found it totally convincing and have enjoyed watching it several times. Charles Dance was an excellent Vetinary and I loved the Clacks. IMHO the Colour of Magic worked far less well.  

[PannierTanker14]

There’s a book I once read that I think was called ‘The Boundless’ or similar. The locomotive illustrated in it has a two tier boiler, multiple fireboxes and about six firemen and two drivers! (It’s been a while since I’ve read the book so that might be wrong)

If anyone could model that, they would be an absolute legend XD

Edited September 9, 2019 by PannierTanker14

[Andy Kirkham]

I have recently been reading the County Guides series of whodunnits by Ian Sansom.set in the late 1930s.  "Westmorland Alone" features a train crash on the Settle & Carlisle caused by a signalman diverting a speeding express into a siding at Appleby - something that in reality, I understand, could never have happened because of the Midland Railway's aversion to facing points.

[Pacific231G]

Even as a child I was amused by the railways in Enid Blyton's Famous Five and similar books. I enjoyed them greatly and they did encourage me to read. I was too young to know that a disused copper mine tunnel running under the sea to a mysterious island off the Cornish coast (Island of Adventure) might have a slight problem with flooding but the idea of a network of railways tunelling under a hill (Five Go off to Camp) with an underground junction seemed slightly absurd even then. However, a steam loco, abandoned for decades in a rock fall in one of the tunnels, that could still be steamed up and used by the baddies (black marketeers- this was 1948) seemed entirely credible. The derelict sand quarry railway in Five Go To Mystery Moor was, on the other hand entirely credible.

[Pacific231G]

On 09/09/2019 at 16:36, PannierTanker14 said:

There’s a book I once read that I think was called ‘The Boundless’ or similar. The locomotive illustrated in it has a two tier boiler, multiple fireboxes and about six firemen and two drivers! (It’s been a while since I’ve read the book so that might be wrong)

If anyone could model that, they would be an absolute legend XD

Clearly written by someone who'd never heard of mechanical stokers but it sounds a bit like the locos envisaged for Hitler's fantasy of a three or four metre gauge Breitspurbahn to connect the cities of his thousand year Reich. That did have the positive effect of diverting about two hundred officials and engineers from more useful work throughout the war.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Fat Controller]

On 16/06/2019 at 05:27, rockershovel said:

 

Stephanie Cole, like it, like it. Maybe June Brown? 

 

I could see Timothy West as Ridcully, but not Brian Blessed. Ridcully is quite a subtle character in some ways. 

 

Vimes is hard to cast, because he needs gravitas. The Eastwood thing isn’t my idea, he is drawn that way in some illustrations and the “Fabricati Diem” joke is an obvious Eastwood reference. I don’t know what Eastwood would be like as a comic drunk, though, hence Lee Marvin. Tommy Lee Jones is another obvious candidate. 

 

Nobby Nobbs COULD be Tony Robinson, but he often shows himself smarter than Fred Colon so I’m not convinced.

 

Telly Savalas as Chrysoprase..

 

Carrot is another hard one to cast and I don’t really have any suggestions. 

Roger Allam as Fred Colon; did anyone see the episode of 'Endeavour' with the bank robbery? Just after the first shooting, 'Fred Thursday' gives a packet of cigarettes to a shocked WPC, saying (approximately) 'Have these, they'll calm you down; it's an old trick I learnt from my first guv'nor, Sam Vimes at Cable Street nick'

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Even as a child I was amused by the railways in Enid Blyton's Famous Five and similar books. I enjoyed them greatly and they did encourage me to read. I was too young to know that a disused copper mine tunnel running under the sea to a mysterious island off the Cornish coast (Island of Adventure) might have a slight problem with flooding but the idea of a network of railways tunelling under a hill (Five Go off to Camp) with an underground junction seemed slightly absurd even then. However, a steam loco, abandoned for decades in a rock fall in one of the tunnels, that could still be steamed up and used by the baddies (black marketeers- this was 1948) seemed entirely credible. The derelict sand quarry railway in Five Go To Mystery Moor was, on the other hand entirely credible.

 

Wasn’t Henry the Green Engine walled up in a tunnel for an indefinite period, before returning to operation again? 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

Wasn’t Henry the Green Engine walled up in a tunnel for an indefinite period, before returning to operation again? 

I believe that all of the incidents described in the Reverend's original Railway Series were based on real events so what did that one refer to?

 

From Chief Mechanical Engineer British Railways to Sir Charles Topham-Hatt (Bart.) Controller N.W. Region  

Dear Charles. Could you please explain why one of Bill Stanier's 4-6-0s  no. 3 assigned to your region has been taken out of service, apparently permanently, and is currently being held in storage in a disused tunnel. I must remind you that, if this machine is no longer fit for service, it should be withdrawn and scrapped.

 

From Controller N.W. Region to Chief Mechanical Engineer

Dear Bob

The locomotive in question has been very naughty and has been put into storage as a punishment. I also want to keep it away from the other engines as I believe it to be having a bad influence on them. No. 3 is mechanically sound so has been mothballed in running condition. Should circumstances warrant, it will be returned to service but only if it promises to behave itself in future.

 

From CME BR to Chief Medical Officer British Railways

Could you please telephone me about this matter. I fear that Charles is becoming increasingly unstable and his baronetcy at the time of nationalisation may actually have had a negative effect on his mental health. I am not of course qualfiied in psychiatry but It is rumoured that he has been known to talk to locomotives rather than their crews and even "stood on a chair" so that they could all hear him.  A degree of anthropomorphism is not of course uncommon among those who work closely with steam locomotives, but this does seem to go beyond that and in any case is decidedly odd behaviour for a senior B.R. executive.

I am well aware of the commonly held view that "The North Western Region is not all there"  but that makes the demeanour of those charged with responsiblity for it all the more crucial.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Pacific231G

[rockershovel]

41 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I believe that all of the incidents described in the Reverend's original Railway Series were based on real events so what did that one refer to?

 

From Chief Mechanical Engineer British Railways to Sir Charles Topham-Hatt (Bart.) Controller N.W. Region  

Dear Charles. Could you please explain why one of Bill Stanier's 4-6-0s  no. 3 assigned to your region has been taken out of service, apparently permanently, and is currently being held in storage in a disused tunnel. I must remind you that, if this machine is no longer fit for service, it should be withdrawn and scrapped.

 

From Controller N.W. Region to Chief Mechanical Engineer

Dear Bob

The locomotive in question has been very naughty and has been put into storage as a punishment. I also want to keep it away from the other engines as I believe it to be having a bad influence on them. No. 3 is mechanically sound so has been mothballed in running condition. Should circumstances warrant, it will be returned to service but only if it promises to behave itself in future.

 

From CME BR to Chief Medical Officer British Railways

Could you please telephone me about this matter. I fear that Charles is becoming increasingly unstable and his baronetcy at the time of nationalisation may actually have had a negative effect on his mental health. I am not of course qualfiied in psychiatry but It is rumoured that he has been known to talk to locomotives rather than their crews and even "stood on a chair" so that they could all hear him.  A degree of anthropomorphism is not of course uncommon among those who work closely with steam locomotives, but this does seem to go beyond that and in any case is decidedly odd behaviour for a senior B.R. executive.

I am well aware of the commonly held view that "The North Western Region is not all there"  but that makes the demeanour of those charged with responsiblity for it all the more crucial.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.academia.edu/21959862/The_Unlikeliest_Source_The_Historical_Reality_behind_Thomas_the_Tank_Engine

 

read all about it....

 

[Pacific231G]

16 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

https://www.academia.edu/21959862/The_Unlikeliest_Source_The_Historical_Reality_behind_Thomas_the_Tank_Engine

 

read all about it....

 

Thanks for this. I've just downloaded and read the paper and it is very interesting. It would seem that, though Awdry was diligent in basing the stories intended for publication on real events,  Henry being walled up in the tunnel was one of the three original tales told to Christopher so perhaps was not.  

What is also interesting is that the stories expressed Awdry and other enthusiasts' attitudes to what was happening on Britan's railways and in his lecture Dr. Newman compares that with other authors 

"So in this regard they compare admirably with the social niceties of Jane Austen’s novels, or the grim industrialisation of Charles Dickens, which brings me to my overarching point....that under certain conditions, fiction – where written with detailed accuracy and set contemporary to when written – has the
potential to supply evidence for cultural reactions to historic events or periods."

Having lived through the period of the modernisation and of Beeching (though it might be truer to say ...of Marples)  I found this approach very relevant. 

[rockershovel]

16 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Thanks for this. I've just downloaded and read the paper and it is very interesting. It would seem that, though Awdry was diligent in basing the stories intended for publication on real events,  Henry being walled up in the tunnel was one of the three original tales told to Christopher so perhaps was not.  

What is also interesting is that the stories expressed Awdry and other enthusiasts' attitudes to what was happening on Britan's railways and in his lecture Dr. Newman compares that with other authors 

"So in this regard they compare admirably with the social niceties of Jane Austen’s novels, or the grim industrialisation of Charles Dickens, which brings me to my overarching point....that under certain conditions, fiction – where written with detailed accuracy and set contemporary to when written – has the
potential to supply evidence for cultural reactions to historic events or periods."

Having lived through the period of the modernisation and of Beeching (though it might be truer to say ...of Marples)  I found this approach very relevant. 

 

I can’t say that I had ever regarded Thomas the Tank Engine as social documentary. Perhaps we will now see the stories as an endless series of Sunday evening costume dramas on tv, starring Colin Firth, Timothy West, Brenda Blethyn and Alison Steadman? 

 

Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T number 1 was actually a Peterborough locomotive, I remember it being parked in the then-extensive Woodston Loop sidings when I first moved to Peterborough in 1978. I certainly remember its brief return to BSC in 1986, which was the cause of much interest locally! 

 

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/hudswell-clarke-works-no-1800-1-thomas-0-6-0t/

 

There does seem to have been a marked trend towards looking backwards, around that time. Clubs for pre-war racing and sports cars and motorcycles were founded, the canal network was reinvigorated after decades of neglect. 

 

Who is the Thin Clergyman intended to represent? Is it Awdry himself? 

 

[Pacific231G]

On 09/09/2019 at 16:36, PannierTanker14 said:

There’s a book I once read that I think was called ‘The Boundless’ or similar. The locomotive illustrated in it has a two tier boiler, multiple fireboxes and about six firemen and two drivers! (It’s been a while since I’ve read the book so that might be wrong)

If anyone could model that, they would be an absolute legend XD

It was indeed "The Boundless" and was by the Canadian author Kenneth Oppel published in 2014. Amazon  list it as "juvenile fiction" which others term "young adult"  Google has the first two and a half chapters as a preview and it is also  available as an e-book.

 

I've just read the preview   and it's quite good fun though obviously never letting the realities of railway engineering get in the way of the rather fantastical yarn  What sort of couplers would a  997 car train over seven miles long without distributed traction require? (that also makes the average car length just 40 ft over couplers though the description does suggest rather a lot of the train was freight cars) The double deck cars are almost feasible though AFAIK as with other N. American railways the CPR's loading gauge only allowed two decks by dropping the lower deck between the bogies. Accomodating two full length decks would be a challenge and curiously they seem to be end platform designs (though that would have been normal a few years after the CPR was built)  In the preview there is a reference to a three storey boiler but the six firemen on their three decks of scaffold, presumably with far less headroom than the passenger decks, sound more like the stokers on a ship than locomotive firemen who, needless to say, do a lot more than just shovel coal into the firebox.

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

I can’t say that I had ever regarded Thomas the Tank Engine as social documentary. Perhaps we will now see the stories as an endless series of Sunday evening costume dramas on tv, starring Colin Firth, Timothy West, Brenda Blethyn and Alison Steadman? 

 

Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T number 1 was actually a Peterborough locomotive, I remember it being parked in the then-extensive Woodston Loop sidings when I first moved to Peterborough in 1978. I certainly remember its brief return to BSC in 1986, which was the cause of much interest locally! 

 

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/hudswell-clarke-works-no-1800-1-thomas-0-6-0t/

 

There does seem to have been a marked trend towards looking backwards, around that time. Clubs for pre-war racing and sports cars and motorcycles were founded, the canal network was reinvigorated after decades of neglect. 

 

Who is the Thin Clergyman intended to represent? Is it Awdry himself? 

 

The Thin Clergyman was Awdry and the Fat Clergyman was his good friend Teddy Boston.

I don't think Dr. Newman was implying that the books were written as social documentary but rather that contemporary fiction can give very good insights into the social and other attitudes of their time. 

 

It can be argued that Railway preservation and the reinvigoration of the canal network both originated with Tom Rolt. Obviously both required the involvement of very many others but the key first step for the preservation of complete railways seems to have been the meeting called by Rolt on 11th October 1950 at the Imperial Hotel in Birmingham. The Tallylyn Railway Preservation Society  followed that and Rolt's 1953 book Railway Adventure made the story (somewhat air-brushed according to his posthumously published autobiography Landscape with Figures) well known. ironically, I've just discovered that this public meeting was on the same day in the same hotel as the meeting of the  Inland Waterways Association at which he resigned from it. The IWA was largely inspired by Rolt's 1944 book "Narrow Boat" and he helped found it in 1946.

I can't help wondering whether it was his split from the IWA- I gather the dispute over restoration policy had been brewing for a while-  that freed Rolt to focus on the Tallylyn Railway and run it as its General Manager during its first crucial couple of years as  a preserved line. Had the Tallylyn failed- as it might well have done in its rather parlous condition- there might well have been no Ffestiniog, Bluebell, or any other preserved railways in Britain. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Pacific231G

[HonestTom]

On ‎10‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 13:38, Fat Controller said:

Roger Allam as Fred Colon; did anyone see the episode of 'Endeavour' with the bank robbery? Just after the first shooting, 'Fred Thursday' gives a packet of cigarettes to a shocked WPC, saying (approximately) 'Have these, they'll calm you down; it's an old trick I learnt from my first guv'nor, Sam Vimes at Cable Street nick'

Yeah, there are a few pop culture references. I remember in one episode, Thursday reminisces about watching "Maroon Cartoons," which raises the intriguing possibility that Inspector Morse and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? share a universe. I know, you're probably not supposed to think about it too much, but it made me chuckle.

 

[john new]

43 minutes ago, HonestTom said:

Yeah, there are a few pop culture references. I remember in one episode, Thursday reminisces about watching "Maroon Cartoons," which raises the intriguing possibility that Inspector Morse and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? share a universe. I know, you're probably not supposed to think about it too much, but it made me chuckle.

 

 

Cross referencing other works in this way is an academically recognised 'thing' (to use the modern parlance) with the appropriate term of inter-textuality.

[Reorte]

On 09/09/2019 at 22:10, Andy Kirkham said:

I have recently been reading the County Guides series of whodunnits by Ian Sansom.set in the late 1930s.  "Westmorland Alone" features a train crash on the Settle & Carlisle caused by a signalman diverting a speeding express into a siding at Appleby - something that in reality, I understand, could never have happened because of the Midland Railway's aversion to facing points.

Appleby's the only location between Settle and Carlisle with facing points, for the link to the Eden Valley line (still there).  Although I don't think you could enter any of the sidings that way. Unless it was on the Eden Valley line in the first place? Unlikely there would be anything that could be described as an express that way though.

[sir douglas]

Anime, Daughter of 20 faces, episode 6

[HonestTom]

13 hours ago, sir douglas said:

Anime, Daughter of 20 faces, episode 6

 

"Sir, there's a problem with the new... er... engine?"

"Oh no, it's not the brakes, is it?"

"N-no... should I be worried about the brakes?"

"No, nothing wrong with the brakes, put it from your mind. What's the problem?"

"Well, I can't see ahead."

"Yes you can, that's what the headlamps are for. Never bother me again."