Railway footage in feature films and television...

[russ p]

56 minutes ago, Ben B said:

"The Signalman", the 1970's BBC adaptation of the Charles Dickens ghost story was on BBC4 last night.  Absolutely brilliant, and wonderfully atmospheric.  Filmed on the SVR, I gather the signal box in the cutting was built by the production.

 

I have a mate who was sh1t scared of that film when it came out ,,,,   ,,,, and went on to become a signalman!

[steve1]

Did anyone else watch Last Train To Christmas with Michel Sheen?

 

The credits feature a selection of Hornby models starting with a Class 395 Javelin and then backwards in chronological order to a B12 kettle that reflect the story that unfolds. It's all set in actual BR carriages too. Very clever and original film.

 

steve

[Rugd1022]

Last night I was watching Ridley Scott's 'All The Money In The World which is about the kidnapping of Paul Getty in 1973, in one though there is footage of JP Getty (Christopher Plummer) alighting from a steam hauled train in Saudia Arabia in 1948, all done with excellent CGI apparently. 

[hmrspaul]

On 23/11/2021 at 13:12, Andy Kirkham said:

 

 

Yes it's Bristol docks. The former Wapping Wharf lines now operated by M Shed museum to give steam train rides.

 

The nearby area represented Weymouth Quay in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, with the Balmoral standing in for the Channel Islands ferry.

https://www.seenit.co.uk/revealed-how-bristols-princes-wharf-doubled-for-guernsey-in-mike-newells-the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-society/

 

Thanks for confirming that, it was shown last night (19/12/21) on BBC 2. One or two odd looking wagons, and I think a Palvan - bit modern - and a very good looking Sulphuric acid tank but certainly a better railway scene than most - and seen in at least two parts of the programme. 

 

Paul

[Ohmisterporter]

Yesterday we watched Bite the Bullet which is a film about a 700 mile horse race that took place in 1908, for a prize of $2000 dollars, ending in Denver. Dated 1975 and starring Gene Hackman and James Coburn there are plenty of shots of the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad, indeed it is a significant part of the story. Those large three foot gauge locos look very impressive. I think the film may have been initially banned in the UK because trip wires were used to trip horses for serious falls; a practice banned in the UK. Yesterday's showing was edited to cut out the worst falls although the end credits say that no horses were injured in the making of the film. Worth watching if you get the chance.

[John M Upton]

From a 1991 episode of The Bill:

 

Queenstown Road Battersea or somewhere near Wimbledon?

[DY444]

7 hours ago, John M Upton said:

From a 1991 episode of The Bill:

 

Queenstown Road Battersea or somewhere near Wimbledon?

 

The latter.  Wimbledon West Junction and the train is on the Down Slow.

[Ben B]

Couple of Disney ones recently (more kids films on at home now that The Childs have broken up for Christmas!)

 

"Jungle Cruise" has a brief scene of two of the heroes (Emily Blunt and Jack Whitehall) stepping down off a train hauled by a vaguely colonial locomotive in 1916 at a riverside, jungle town... Given it seemed to be a single-track terminus, I'd guess it was a studio build.  Interestingly at Disney in Florida one of the themed rides, set in Africa, has diesel-powered replica locomotives built to look like L&Y tank locomotives I think, they were constructed by Severn Lamb.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_Express_Train  I did wonder if they might have shot the sequence in the park using one of these trains, I haven't had chance to check yet.

EDIT  Kauai Plantation Railway on the Kilohana Plantation, Hawaii.  The loco does look like a cosmetic mock-up though, maybe built around one of the resident diesels.

 

 

The more interesting one, was the live-action remake of "Dumbo".  The circus train was (I believe) CGI, but there's a scene where Colin Farrell has come back from WW1 to a station somewhere in the midwest, with a USATC loco at the head of the train.  It's the Worth Valley's "Big Jim", and it was shot on a soundstage at the studios in London where only the loco, the track, and the station (and maybe one carriage I think?) were real.  Quite convincingly done!

Edited December 21, 2021 by Ben B
Added more information.

[whart57]

The Big Freeze was on BBC4 last night. Plenty of shots of steam engines crashing snowplough into snow drifts 

[Andy Kirkham]

Has anyone mentioned The Smallest Show on Earth?

It's about a fleapit cinema situated between two railway lines https://www.reelstreets.com/films/smallest-show-on-earth-the/ in North London.

 

There are shots of an A3 and an (?) L1 passing on the Great Central main line. There are also shots at Uxbridge Vine Street, Etruria Junction and Longport.

[Ben B]

One on talking pictures we watched on catchup this evening, "Without a Clue", the Michael Caine+Ben Kingsley mickeytake on Sherlock Holmes. Nice railway scenes on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite, though confused me a bit as it was a KWVR loco and Vintage Carriages Trust stock. Interesting that someone had gone to the trouble of shipping in the stock for the scenes... but then the carriage interiors were filmed in a Mk.1 by the look of it (corridor compartment, where the VCT's metropolitans are pure compartment coaches). Decent job of dressing up Lakeside Station as a Victorian-era Windemere Station.

[dibber25]

Have started reading Forever Young Hayley Mills's memoir, (family asked what I wanted for Christmas) and that prompted getting the DVDs out to watch in order, starting with Tiger Bay. Some glimpses of Cardiff's dockland in 1958/9, including wagons and a pannier tank, plus a transporter bridge (presumably Newport?). Nice historic dockland settings, too, apparently all long since bulldozed and replaced with modern flats - now called Bute Bay not Tiger Bay. (CJL)

[dibber25]

On 20/12/2021 at 17:30, hmrspaul said:

 

Thanks for confirming that, it was shown last night (19/12/21) on BBC 2. One or two odd looking wagons, and I think a Palvan - bit modern - and a very good looking Sulphuric acid tank but certainly a better railway scene than most - and seen in at least two parts of the programme. 

 

Paul

And with the mv. Balmoral posing as the Channel Islands ferry, an obvious choice as she was often in the Bristol Channel for excursion work during the summer. Pretty good CGI destroyer doing the 'evacuation' too, most of the scenes being shot in Clovelly, not Guernsey. (CJL)

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Round the World on 80 Days, the new BBC one with David Tennant featured some sort of 0-6-0 with outside Stephensons motion (or possibly Heusinger) and a four wheel tender. Purporting to be Italy, and the scene at 'Brindisi' featured a smashing roundhouse with what appeared to be 2-4-0 tender engine on the turntable.

 

Something about the locos and particularly the roundhouse rang a distant bell, but I can't place them.

 

Anyway, it was a jolly romp for a Sunday night. I've never seen any of the previous versions nor read the book.

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, dibber25 said:

Have started reading Forever Young Hayley Mills's memoir, (family asked what I wanted for Christmas) and that prompted getting the DVDs out to watch in order, starting with Tiger Bay. Some glimpses of Cardiff's dockland in 1958/9, including wagons and a pannier tank, plus a transporter bridge (presumably Newport?). Nice historic dockland settings, too, apparently all long since bulldozed and replaced with modern flats - now called Bute Bay not Tiger Bay. (CJL)

A young Hayley Mills featured in the original Whistle down the Wind, filmed near where I grew up in the Dales. That had a railway scene in a tunnel which I think was somewhere near Clitheroe.

 

Jamie

Edited December 26, 2021 by jamie92208

[dibber25]

58 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

A young Hayley Mills featured in the original Whistle down the Wind, filmed near where I grew up in thevDales. That had a railway scene in a tunnel which I think was somewhere near Clitheroe.

 

Jamie

I must take a look at that - just about the only one of her early films that I don't have on DVD. Does anyone remember the layout 'Hayley Mills' - based on Healey Mills? I believe she visited it a show on one occasion? (CJL)

[jamie92208]

31 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

I must take a look at that - just about the only one of her early films that I don't have on DVD. Does anyone remember the layout 'Hayley Mills' - based on Healey Mills? I believe she visited it a show on one occasion? (CJL)

It would have been about 1965 or thereabouts.

 

Jamie

[steve1]

9 hours ago, dibber25 said:

I must take a look at that - just about the only one of her early films that I don't have on DVD. Does anyone remember the layout 'Hayley Mills' - based on Healey Mills? I believe she visited it a show on one occasion? (CJL)

 

I knew the layout well, having seen it on several occasions. It was a pioneering D&E layout in its day.

 

steve

[62613]

10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

It would have been about 1965 or thereabouts.

 

Jamie

Earlier than that. I think I saw it, at the cinema, in about 1963. It was filmed around Burnley as well; Pendle Hill gets in a couple of shots

 

[jamie92208]

12 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Earlier than that. I think I saw it, at the cinema, in about 1963. It was filmed around Burnley as well; Pendle Hill gets in a couple of shots

 

Yes I knew it was early 60's, I grew up at Giggleswick and one of my schoolfriends had been an extra in the last scene.  Our local plumber laid on a special showing of it in the dining room of a local pub as the cinema at Settle had closed by then.

 

Jamie

[MR Chuffer]

15 minutes ago, 62613 said:

It was filmed around Burnley as well;

The tunnel scene was filmed at Britannia Tunnel, Bacup on the Facit line to Rochdale. See a photo in Disused Stations.

[EddieB]

13 hours ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

Round the World on 80 Days, the new BBC one with David Tennant featured some sort of 0-6-0 with outside Stephensons motion (or possibly Heusinger) and a four wheel tender. Purporting to be Italy, and the scene at 'Brindisi' featured a smashing roundhouse with what appeared to be 2-4-0 tender engine on the turntable.

 

Something about the locos and particularly the roundhouse rang a distant bell, but I can't place them.

 

Anyway, it was a jolly romp for a Sunday night. I've never seen any of the previous versions nor read the book.

Shot in Romania...

 

Most of the action involves a train pulled by (what I think is) 0-6-0 no. 1497 (Henschel 3824/1894, restored for the museum at Sibiu as "1493").  Upon arrival at "Brindisi", it turns into a side view as no. 43 "CALUGARENI" (2-4-0 Canada Works, 233/1869) posing on the turntable at Bucuresti Calatori (it's home depot until recent removal to the museum adjacent to Bucuresti-Nord), though with a backscene added to make it look like a port!

[Fat Controller]

On 25/12/2021 at 13:59, Andy Kirkham said:

Has anyone mentioned The Smallest Show on Earth?

It's about a fleapit cinema situated between two railway lines https://www.reelstreets.com/films/smallest-show-on-earth-the/ in North London.

 

There are shots of an A3 and an (?) L1 passing on the Great Central main line. There are also shots at Uxbridge Vine Street, Etruria Junction and Longport.

The winter quarters of Barnum and Bailey (The self-proclaimed 'The Greatest Show on Earth') were near the two North Staffs locations....

[mac1960]

Anybody mentioned Bohwani Junction with Stuart Granger and Ava Gardner filmed in the newly formed West Pakistanis 1956. All about the build up to British withdrawal from India and about Anglo Indians rail workers. Lots of shots of the typical exports from Glasgow and maybe Gordon back in the 40s.

 

Cheers

Mac

[John-Miles]

5 hours ago, EddieB said:

Shot in Romania...

 

Most of the action involves a train pulled by (what I think is) 0-6-0 no. 1497 (Henschel 3824/1894, restored for the museum at Sibiu as "1493").  Upon arrival at "Brindisi", it turns into a side view as no. 43 "CALUGARENI" (2-4-0 Canada Works, 233/1869) posing on the turntable at Bucuresti Calatori (it's home depot until recent removal to the museum adjacent to Bucuresti-Nord), though with a backscene added to make it look like a port!

Drink had been taken in the Miles household when this programme was on, so I might have missed something, but it involved the engine crossing a significant gap with no more than the rails to support it and also draining all the water out of a steam engine to reduce its weight. There was no attempt to take on water afterwards. Also David Tennant did some structural calculations with no idea of what the train weighed. Sorry for being a pedant but I used to be a civil engineer.