Railway footage in feature films and television...

[John M Upton]

I have been watching Spooks, the BBC1 drama about MI5 that ran for about ten years. 

 

They were overly fond of establishing shots of EMU's on the approach to London Bridge which was used for everywhere from Liverpool Street to Tehran....

 

The fact the production company's office was adjacent to the lines into London Bridge so all they had to do was point a camera out of the window might have had something to do with it. 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

In the spirit of a rockband who demanded promoters remove one colour from the M&Ms put in the dressing room as a way of testing said promoters' attention to detail, I look at the railway depictions in films and television dramas less for strict accuracy than as a measure of how much effort the producers put in to make the railway scenes fit period and place. And I regard the former as more important.

Which of course meant that all the M&Ms in their dressing rooms had been handled by whichever runner sorted out the undesired colour. Good way to catch all sorts of nasties even then! 

 

I generally judge railway (and other scenes) by the overall impression they convey. Within the experience of watching the film do I believe in the setting? My suspension of disbelief is usually better with a well dressed set even with the odd not too glaring anachronism- such as Mk 1 coaches in "Enigma"-  than a totally accurate but not totally convincing CGI.  For example, I know that the Istanbul "terminus" in the movie version of Murder on the Orient Express is not Sirkeci Garro (I've been there) and also that the locomotive is an ex Paris-Orleans ten wheeler and not a Turkish engine but the scene still works for me. The thing that does seem unrealistic is that the "Orient Express" has just a baggage car, one sleeper, a restaurant car and Pullman which seems absurdly short. Yet, in winter, the real OE really could be that short (though not with a Pullman and the restaurant was put on later) picking up more carriages as it progressed through Greece and the Balkans.   OTOH the televison production of Murder on the Blue Train had the right sort and number of CIWL vehicles and used real backgrounds for some of the scenes including Nice station but still seemed completely unconvincing even before the shot of it crossing a viaduct with the Mediterranean behind going from East to West.  I think it was largely the quality of the CGI that let it down as well as portraying the train as more like the VSOE than an actual CIWL train of the 1930s.

 

The one problem that film and TV makers seem to find it hard to overcome is the lines available to film on. Apart from the GCR preserved lines are almost invariably single track branch lines. So, however authentic for period the rolling stock, uniforms and station fittings may be, when you see Holmes and Watson hiding on the platform while Moriarty's special train flashes by you're very obviously not somewhere on the main line to Dover.

[Darius43]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

In the spirit of a rockband who demanded promoters remove one colour from the M&Ms put in the dressing room as a way of testing said promoters' attention to detail, I look at the railway depictions in films and television dramas less for strict accuracy than as a measure of how much effort the producers put in to make the railway scenes fit period and place. And I regard the former as more important.

By “the former” do you mean the colour of the M&Ms or the accuracy of the railway descriptions?

 

Darius

[Ben B]

Quote

The one problem that film and TV makers seem to find it hard to overcome is the lines available to film on. Apart from the GCR preserved lines are almost invariably single track branch lines. So, however authentic for period the rolling stock, uniforms and station fittings may be, when you see Holmes and Watson hiding on the platform while Moriarty's special train flashes by you're very obviously not somewhere on the main line to Dover.

 

That was something I was impressed by with the first series of "Peaky Blinders", with the railway scenes shot at the Worth Valley (the film company at the time using almost exclusively Yorkshire locations, aside from the BCLM in Dudley).  Keighley station, with the canopies and stonework, made a decent stab at being somewhere like Moor Street, and an impression of being a suburban station once an appropriate train was parked in the other platform road to screen-off the modern electrified part of the station.  They also went to some trouble to use older stock and the Coal Tank loco as it looked period; even rebranding some of the carriages as GWR.  The 'passing' shot of the Coal Tank was filmed on a single-track section, but being both a brief shot, and filmed from extremely low-angle, it wasn't clearly visible.  They haven't filmed there recently though, series 3 used the East Lancs I think with period-inappropriate stock.  Always surprises me they don't film station scenes at Kidderminster on the SVR, it's pretty close to Dudley if they're filming at the museum, and Kiddy looks as close to GWR Moor Street in Brum as it's possible to get without CGI I'd have thought.

 

The Worth Valley was used again around the same time for two productions- "The Robbers Tale" (about the 1960's train tobbery) and "The Selfish Giant", where both productions seem to have made the most of the very limited stretches of double track the KWVR has access to.  I won't go into the whole class 37 as a 40 business, but the prog makes a decent stab at filming as much as possible on the double-track bits.  Interestingly major house building at Haworth would render period stuff impossible here now, but would make a suitable backdrop for a modern mainline.

 

For "The Selfish Giant" they used the class 20 (in 1990's RF triple-grey) with some engineering stock as an attempt at having a 'modern' train, and probably a better stab than having the green 25 and a few 4-wheelers as a modern freight train in "Frost" in the late 1990's.  The film company even built some prop cable troughing with hosepipes as the cables for the scene which involved two lads trying to nick the stuff.

 

The KWVR have acquired a Pacer recently, and I gather from talking to a couple of the vols that it's not just for the historical preservation/cheap off-peak unit aspect, as much as it is for filming.  The most modern diesels are all 1960's vehicles, ableit two of them in 1990's liveries, and both DMU's and the two railbuses are green.  A recent film contract set in the modern day used the 101 which at least has a vaguely modern interior, shot at night with fancy camera angles for the exteriors but I gather the thinking is, with the valley looking less period with all the modern building work going on around it, a more modern unit might be useful for filming work.  Even with the Pacers going out of use on the mainline, the interior will still look pretty recent, and exterior shots will be more convincing of a contemporary unit than a slam-door 101 or 108.

[Darius43]

Speaking of the wrong stock I recall at the end of the recent Dunkirk film (i.e. not the John Mills one) the two surviving soldiers get in a train to take them away from the British coast and the coach they are in is clearly a BR Mk1 complete with blue upholstery.  

 

Makes me so angry I want to throw the phone down.

 

Darius

[Ben B]

2 hours ago, Darius43 said:

Speaking of the wrong stock I recall at the end of the recent Dunkirk film (i.e. not the John Mills one) the two surviving soldiers get in a train to take them away from the British coast and the coach they are in is clearly a BR Mk1 complete with blue upholstery.  

 

Makes me so angry I want to throw the phone down.

 

Darius

 

Agreed. It was an odd film, from that perspective. Some really good historical detail in props and things, and some very odd stuff. Dunkerque now doesn't look like Dunkerque then, if you get my meaning. I gather Nolan really wanted to film actually on location there, but some of the shots had buildings that looked too modern.  Looking at historical pictures, I think that epic tracking shot in "Attonement" did a better job of it.

(Incidentally another good fx shot in the latter film, though with a railway connection; the flooding of the tube station in "Attonement" was done with miniatures, by the ex-BBC model lot under the great Mike Tucker).

[Darius43]

There were also the beach shots with large post 1970 container cranes featuring prominently in the background.  But this is digressing way from railways on film.

 

Darius

[Ben B]

45 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

There were also the beach shots with large post 1970 container cranes featuring prominently in the background.  But this is digressing way from railways on film.

 

Darius

 

Yep, aplogies for the drift.  So to get back on topic;

 

Does anybody else remember a film called "Runaway Railway"?  Kids helping to run trains on their doomed branchline, and end up foiling robbers, one of whom is played by Ronnie Barker.  Black and white film, shot at Longmoor with a cosmetically-modified Austerity tank as hero loco 'Matilda', and action that was kind of a proto-"St Trinians" in terms of trains operating in a chase, in quick succession, whilst on the move in the same block section.  I saw it when I was little when Channel 4 did a season of railway-related programmes and films, and recently stumbled over the start of it on a tape (a tape! How very hipster of me...)

[73c]

Not brilliant but found here -

 

[Ben B]

That's the bunny   I've always fancied doing a model of 'Matilda' with all those cosmetic bits and pieces, I've an old Hornby Austerity which might get the treatment...

[doilum]

One day someone will discover a tape of Hills of Heaven?

[DY444]

On 27/05/2020 at 14:41, Ben B said:

The Worth Valley was used again around the same time for two productions- "The Robbers Tale" (about the 1960's train tobbery) and "The Selfish Giant", where both productions seem to have made the most of the very limited stretches of double track the KWVR has access to.  I won't go into the whole class 37 as a 40 business, but the prog makes a decent stab at filming as much as possible on the double-track bits.  Interestingly major house building at Haworth would render period stuff impossible here now, but would make a suitable backdrop for a modern mainline.

 

Don't disagree and clearly producers can only work with what is actually practicable and available but my inner pedant would like to point out that the train robbery occurred on a 4 track stretch.  

 

In my defence I would claim that normally my inner pedant is quite ambivalent when it comes to railways on TV but it hasn't quite calmed down from a long lingering close up of a Mk1 coach eth jumper in a Poirot re-run Mrs DY and I watched the other day.

[ejstubbs]

On 27/05/2020 at 11:59, Pacific231G said:

Which of course meant that all the M&Ms in their dressing rooms had been handled by whichever runner sorted out the undesired colour. Good way to catch all sorts of nasties even then! 

 

They didn't have to eat the M&Ms, just check whether the ones of the requested colour had been removed.

[009 micro modeller]

53 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

They didn't have to eat the M&Ms, just check whether the ones of the requested colour had been removed.

 I heard about that and wasn’t it a way to check that instructions/requests had actually been read, rather than just something ridiculous to wind people up?

[melmerby]

On 27/05/2020 at 14:41, Ben B said:

 

That was something I was impressed by with the first series of "Peaky Blinders", with the railway scenes shot at the Worth Valley (the film company at the time using almost exclusively Yorkshire locations, aside from the BCLM in Dudley). 

Pity the scenes of "Brum" were totally unrealistic.

The area around the Garrison is and was nothing like how it's depicted as a hell hole of heavy industry.

It's an area I know well and even worked in Garrison Lane for a short while.

The area depicted was in reality mainly residential with loads of back to backs and terraced houses with the only heavy industry being the rope walk on one side of Garrison Street.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17&lat=52.48066&lon=-1.87259&layers=168&right=BingSat

Great series, poor locations apart from the canal locations at the BCLM.

[whart57]

47 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 I heard about that and wasn’t it a way to check that instructions/requests had actually been read, rather than just something ridiculous to wind people up?

 

It's a technique often used. Some authors deliberately put an instruction to editors or proof-readers a hundred odd pages in to make sure they are actually reading that far. Map makers create fake villages or streets to catch illegal copyists. And the earliest example of "fake news" was a newspaper printing a made up story to catch out a rival they suspected of plagiarism.

[keefer]

5 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 I heard about that and wasn’t it a way to check that instructions/requests had actually been read, rather than just something ridiculous to wind people up?

It is often quoted as typical rock star diva behaviour, but as others have said it was done to catch out lazy promoters. If they hadn't read the M&Ms clause then it was likely they hadn't read the clause that stated the backstage area must be able handle xxx tons of stage and eqpt, or provide xx kW of electrical supply etc. etc.

 

[Aire Head]

While not strictly footage of railways I came across this during a trip down an internet wormhole.

 

The film is called Steamboy and appears to be some kind of steampunk anime.

 

Apparently the UK version has Patrick Stewart amongst the voice cast.

 

Clearly the animators research showed midland engines but not the liveries!

[sir douglas]

some more screenshots

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124676-railways-in-fiction-and-fantasy/&do=findComment&comment=3105208

[Keith J]

Don't know if anyone remembers this but around 3 or 4 years there was a series on Channel 4 called Electric Dreams which was based on stories by Philip K. Dick. One episode, called The Commuter, starred Timothy Spall who worked at Woking Station. He noticed people buying tickets to a non-existent station and decided to follow them. The train slowed down when it reached the location of the non-existent station and everyone jumped off the train into a field and walked to a nearby town.

 

The strange thing was he boarded what looked like a South West Trains Class 450 EMU however when he reached his destination the train was some odd looking loco hauled stock being propelled by a Class 50. He boarded the same train for the return journey which was this time hauled by the Class 50. The coaches looked like they had the EMU sliding doors painted on the side in an attempt to make them look like a Class 450 EMU.

 

Below is a not very good screenshot of the coach.

 

 

[Padishar Creel]

Hallo,

This is stretching the topic name. ZDF is a German TV station and Heute is their news programme.

On my Facebook feed today, recomnendations for physical distancing in various countries and at 22secs the graphic used is a Class47

 

es grüßt 

pc

 

 

[keefer]

at the end of an episode of 'Endeavour' last night, the perpetrator was running through fields and when about to be caught, stopped on what looked like a farm crossing (with boom gates though) and decided he wasn't going to be taken alive.

He shouted something like 'Night Mail!' and was then run over by what looked like a BFYE cl.33 pulling a 'train set' goods train (i.e. every wagon was different!).

 

EDIT (AGAIN): I looked it up and the episode is called 'Passenger'

the perp had a model layout and lots of railwayana too and from a critique online, railway buff/trainspotter = sad and lonely sort with no other life. The reference to 'Night Mail' was not, as I thought, rubbish TV/Railway production, but a reference to earlier in the episode where he recites the words of the famous film.

Railway scenes are at the Watercress line and there's disused station which is actually Quainton Rd.

https://morseandlewisandendeavour.com/2018/02/21/endeavour-passenger-s5e3-review-music-locations-literary-references-etc/

Edited June 16, 2020 by keefer

[Rugd1022]

Last night the Talking Pictures channel showed the 1967 swinging London comedy 'Smashing Time' with Michael York, Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham, the opening scene showed them arriving at St.Pancras aboard blue and grey Mk1 stock with a brief glimpse of a very dirty looking green Class 27 stabled to one side, the scene then cut to them walking along the platform at Marylebone then back to St.Pancras!

 

About half way through the film there's another brief glimpse of the Midland Mainline in the north London suburbs with a green Peak dashing by in the background hauling blue and grey Mk1s.

 

The railway footage aside, the views of a very tatty looking Camden and brightly coloured Carnaby Street were nice to see.

 

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Rugd1022

[jetmorgan]

On 23/12/2018 at 15:49, The Stationmaster said:

 

The ferry between Kingswear and Dartmouth 'railway' stations was taken over by the GWR from a contractor in 1901 and appears to have remained in railway hands thereafter - presumably until closure of the railway to Kingswear although I can't find anything to give a lead regarding the end date or if it was subsequently transferred to anybody else.  There is a long established passenger & vehicle ferry operating from 'just round the corner' from Kingswear to the southern end of Dartmouth and it is unusual in being a rare survivor of a ferry towed by an alongside tug - fascinating to travel on  and watch how it's done as the tug has to change direction before docking the ferry at either end of the short journey.  It, and the Britannia vehicle ferry further upstream are the current survivors - in the immediate Dartmouth area - of a long history of various ferries across the Dart from/to Dartmouth.

 

Kingswear quay, adjacent to the station, was a GWR owned and operated port facility and I believe the ferry to Dartmouth operated from there, one source suggests that it was altered at some time to convey a small number of vehicles as well as the foot passengers.  The GWR seem to have been rather coy about letting on how it served Dartmouth - for example the 1929 public timetable gives no short of readily apparent hint that Dartmouth was anything other than a normal station at which, among other trains, the Torbay Pullman terminated its trip from London. But by 1952 the WR timetable made it clear, by a small note, that Dartmouth was reached by ferry.

 

Okay it has been a long time to quiote this post but I managed to get another picture of the car and passenger ferry at Kingswear

[flapland]

On 17/06/2020 at 10:41, Rugd1022 said:

Last night the Talking Pictures channel showed the 1967 swinging London comedy 'Smashing Time' with Michael York, Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham.

Its also on Youtube https://youtu.be/9ei6vNKUJvs. Thanks for sharing the film as there is a shot at 3:50 which has my road (Fleet Road) and house in it. Also shows a view I have never scene from before some of the houses were knocked down for flats.