Railway footage in feature films and television...

[Northmoor]

5 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

I believe it's Barmouth, with a Collett Goods hauling the train, sure I read that in a behind-the-scenes piece a while back

Thank you, that makes sense as the piers looked higher than Langstone Bridge and in the quick glimpse on film it looked like a small loco + tender.

[Chris116]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before in this thread but a boring day meant I was watching Skyfall the other day. The scene with Bond jumping onto a train departing what is supposed to be Temple and showing Wimbledon as the destination is tube stock not sub surface stock! How can a film get something so simple so wrong?

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Chris116 said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned before in this thread but a boring day meant I was watching Skyfall the other day. The scene with Bond jumping onto a train departing what is supposed to be Temple and showing Wimbledon as the destination is tube stock not sub surface stock! How can a film get something so simple so wrong?

I know we see it from an enthusiast's point of view, but very few of the general public - even those who live in London - would be able to tell the difference between tube and surface stock.  It's all known as The Tube, even the lines that aren't.

 

That scene was actually shot in the generally disused Jubilee platforms at Charing Cross, for good reason; you can hire it and a train at almost any time and for as long as you like, whereas filming elsewhere on the LU network will need to be during a planned closure (which might not come along when you want it) or in engineering hours.  In that case, everyone on the production team will be on night-shift rates and you have to set up, complete filming work and must be out of the station ready for start of service.  If I was filming, I'd use Charing Cross and rename it as the station I needed.

[whart57]

6 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I know we see it from an enthusiast's point of view, but very few of the general public - even those who live in London - would be able to tell the difference between tube and surface stock.  It's all known as The Tube, even the lines that aren't.

 

That scene was actually shot in the generally disused Jubilee platforms at Charing Cross, for good reason; you can hire it and a train at almost any time and for as long as you like, whereas filming elsewhere on the LU network will need to be during a planned closure (which might not come along when you want it) or in engineering hours.  In that case, everyone on the production team will be on night-shift rates and you have to set up, complete filming work and must be out of the station ready for start of service.  If I was filming, I'd use Charing Cross and rename it as the station I needed.

 

If I recall the tube shots in Sliding Doors were shot on the Waterloo and City line which is closed at weekends

[Northmoor]

3 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

If I recall the tube shots in Sliding Doors were shot on the Waterloo and City line which is closed at weekends

Until recently it was closed for a lot longer than that!  Once back to "normal" pre-pandemic services, it will be running 6 days/week again, Saturday services started at least ten years ago.  Sliding Doors was shot before the opening of the JLE, so Charing Cross wasn't available at that time.  Aldwych is the commonest location for period filming, but not with a moving train; the 73TS train left in the station has recently been removed,

[DY444]

14 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Until recently it was closed for a lot longer than that!  Once back to "normal" pre-pandemic services, it will be running 6 days/week again, Saturday services started at least ten years ago.  Sliding Doors was shot before the opening of the JLE, so Charing Cross wasn't available at that time.  Aldwych is the commonest location for period filming, but not with a moving train; the 73TS train left in the station has recently been removed,

 

<Pedant Mode>

It was a 72TS that was left at Aldwych and recently removed

</Pedant Mode>

Edited January 4, 2022 by DY444

[Chris116]

I agree that a lot of people could not tell the difference but if you have a train on a deep level line why not have the station and train being made to be on a deep level line. It would not have changed the story.

[DY444]

14 hours ago, Chris116 said:

I agree that a lot of people could not tell the difference but if you have a train on a deep level line why not have the station and train being made to be on a deep level line. It would not have changed the story.

 

To an extent they are damned if they do and damned if they don't but the bottom line is that most people wouldn't know the difference. 

 

Tube stations have styles which, in general, reflect the period or scheme in which they were built.  The new platforms built for the original Jubilee line opening (CX, Green Park, Bond St and one at Baker St) are quite distinctive.  So someone would no doubt have still complained if they'd used station names other than those, and someone would have complained if they'd used CX as it is closed.

 

Iirc the sequence was set up as part of an attempt by the baddie to get to M who was giving evidence to some sort of Parliamentary committee.  Such a committee meeting would be held somewhere in the Westminster area so you'd want a train heading that way or else someone would complain.  So the only choice would have been Bond St and Green Park, but you've then got to consider whether the location of those stations fits in with the external locations used before and after the tube sequence.  If they don't then someone will complain about that. 

 

It seems to me they picked station names that fitted the general story arc and ignored the rest on the basis that most people wouldn't know the difference.  I don't think that's unreasonable for a worldwide audience.  I mean if they'd done something similar with the New York subway or Paris metro I wouldn't have had a clue if it was right or not.

Edited January 4, 2022 by DY444

[Ben B]

If you want a really weird use of a London Underground station in a film, then one appears briefly in the Star Wars prequel "Rogue One", where the station at Canary Wharf was minimally re-dressed to represent the inside of an Imperial facility.  It hardly appears in the finished cut, but I gather an earlier cut of the film had more extensive scenes set there.  If you do a google images search for "Rogue One Tube Station" lots of pics show it

[Rugd1022]

Last night I watched 'The Fourth Protocol' on Talking Pictures, there's a scene where Michael Caine races after a 312 unit departing St.Pancras and jumps aboard as it moves off, the train supposedly being 'the 6.30 to Colchester! The next scene shows Caine at Colchester as the 312 departs from there.

[Welchester]

A couple of screen grabs from 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' (2006). I know nothing of Irish railways, except that a very successful detective novelist of the interwar years had been a civil engineer. The RPSI is credited in the titles.

[Northmoor]

42 minutes ago, Welchester said:

A couple of screen grabs from 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' (2006). I know nothing of Irish railways, except that a very successful detective novelist of the interwar years had been a civil engineer. The RPSI is credited in the titles.

Like most of Ken Loach's films, beautifully shot, but even he couldn't remove the pallisade fencing from the background and the tactile floor strip along the platform......

[Pacific231G]

I was watching Paris Blues (1961) on London Live with a young Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll last night. Not a great film though the Jazz is good and just enjoying the Paris of that era. There are a couple of very nice atmospheric scenes at Paris St. Lazare as the various protagonists arrive from and, at the end of the film depart to le Havre including a good shot of the terminus throat from the Pont d'Europ. The lovers parting scene isn't though a patch on the heart rending one near the start of Le Parapluies de Cherbourg as the young Catherine Deneuve's lover, who has been called up, departs for the war in Algeria.  

[keefer]

very sorry as i know this isn't film/TV footage but i can't think best where to put it.

Was listening to Dexy's Midnight Runners 'Geno' on YouTube and the thumbnail image was a b/w pic.

Turns out there was a photoshoot around Birmingham New St., maybe other will recognise the environs?

Google image search for Dexy's Birmingham 1980

[Steamport Southport]

I recognise "the ramp".

 

It's as you go towards the Academy from the city centre, near the pagoda. I'm afraid I don't know street names or areas. Just been to Birmingham a lot over the years for gigs. 

 

Strange place Birmingham as you think it's pretty flat and then you think how the hell did we get up here!

[keefer]

Funnily enough, the reason i thought of this is because i thought one of the main pics was inside a station with trains around - but it's just that one of them on the ramp

[jamie92208]

8 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

I recognise "the ramp".

 

It's as you go towards the Academy from the city centre, near the pagoda. I'm afraid I don't know street names or areas. Just been to Birmingham a lot over the years for gigs. 

 

Strange place Birmingham as you think it's pretty flat and then you think how the hell did we get up here!

Yes Birmingham is built on a bumpy plateau, from memory about 300' above sea level. The canal network there is only beaten for height by the Trans Pennine canals.  I'll have a look at that clip I always liked Dexy's Midnight Runners. Wasn't it two tone records.

 

Jamie

[doilum]

Seem to remember being told at college that in the days of cannal traffic it took two full days of lock bashing to cross the city. Also recall that the buses seemed to be much shorter geared compared to the ones back home giving them better acceleration and hill climbing ability.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, doilum said:

Seem to remember being told at college that in the days of cannal traffic it took two full days of lock bashing to cross the city. Also recall that the buses seemed to be much shorter geared compared to the ones back home giving them better acceleration and hill climbing ability.

Whichever way you approach it by canal it is a pull from the South west there are 36 locks at Tardebigge to get up the lickey hills.  There is a long flight up to Wolverhampton  and coming in from the south and east there are long flight from Aston with a 6 then 16 lock flight if my memory serves me, that ends by the NIA.  When we did them as a family there were  several teenage kids and each with a friend, they served well on those long flights..

 

Jamie

 

 

[MidlandRed]

11 hours ago, keefer said:

Funnily enough, the reason i thought of this is because i thought one of the main pics was inside a station with trains around - but it's just that one of them on the ramp

The ramp in the pictures is from the junction of Corporation St/New St to the Birmingham Shopping Centre as was at that time (changed names more than once, now rebuilt as Grand Central), also the main access at the time to New St Station from the City Centre. 

The adjacent Stephenson St slopes sharply down from the road junction, all of which is now pedestrianised but is now part of the tram network (when operating……) and the level where the main entrance to New St station for that area is now located. 

 

There are some steep hills around Birmingham and the West Midlands, not the least the area the Bull Ring Centre is built on. This is apparent in the current incarnation if you walk south from New St by the Rotunda, towards St Martins Church through the non-covered section of the shopping centre, which is at a considerably, and very obviously lower level. Pre the previous 1960s Bull Ring Centre, that was a direct traffic route, used by many of the bus routes and must have caused severe problems in wintry conditions. 
 

However, although the area has its share of hills, not least over towards Dudley, it’s not in the same league as Sheffield in that context, and particularly in terms of bus operation.

 

I think some of the other photos are in the taxi and drop off access to New St station. 
 

The pictures look to be late 70s/early 80s. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by MidlandRed

[doilum]

My other memory of New Street were the murmations of starlings coming in at dusk to  roost on the facade of the buildings opposite the Stevenson street entrance.

[U36B]

Sadly Sidney Poitier passed away on Friday, January 7.

 

 In the the famous 1967 movie "In the Heat of the Night"  Poitier played Virgil Tibbs, a homicide detective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d15DhX_ltls&t=156s

The movie starts and ends at the Railway station - some great RR footage with a GM&O E-Unit and  MoPac Diesels and roundhouse:

https://obscuretrainmovies.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/in-the-heat-of-the-night-1967/

 

Great film with a great actor and some great RR scenes.

[62613]

Film4 had "The Gentle Sex" on this afternoon just after lunch; it's a propaganda piece about the role of women in the ATS, as transport personnel and auxiliaries on an AA battery in World War 2. There are, near the beginning, some scenes shot at Waterloo Station, with a Lord Nelson pulling the recruits' train away; it morphs into an LNER express. About halfway through the film, there's short sequence of a goods train at a level crossing holding up a transport convoy, which the ATS are driving. When the women have delivered the trucks to the docks, they return by train, via Leicester, there is a sequence in a passenger brake with the heroines and some squaddies. There are remarks about it being better than 16 to a compartment

 

As I said, it was a bit of tub - thumper about why we were fighting, and the world we were going to create afterwards; it was also, I think, a recruiting tool, to try and get single women to do their bit early in the war, (before they started being conscripted)

Edited January 14, 2022 by 62613

[62613]

Admin, could you delete the second post, please!

[Ben B]

8 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

The ramp in the pictures is from the junction of Corporation St/New St to the Birmingham Shopping Centre as was at that time (changed names more than once, now rebuilt as Grand Central), also the main access at the time to New St Station from the City Centre. 

The adjacent Stephenson St slopes sharply down from the road junction, all of which is now pedestrianised but is now part of the tram network (when operating……) and the level where the main entrance to New St station for that area is now located. 

 

There are some steep hills around Birmingham and the West Midlands, not the least the area the Bull Ring Centre is built on. This is apparent in the current incarnation if you walk south from New St by the Rotunda, towards St Martins Church through the non-covered section of the shopping centre, which is at a considerably, and very obviously lower level. Pre the previous 1960s Bull Ring Centre, that was a direct traffic route, used by many of the bus routes and must have caused severe problems in wintry conditions. 
 

However, although the area has its share of hills, not least over towards Dudley, it’s not in the same league as Sheffield in that context, and particularly in terms of bus operation.

 

I think some of the other photos are in the taxi and drop off access to New St station. 
 

The pictures look to be late 70s/early 80s. 

 

As an aside, my Grandparents live high up on the hill at Tividale, near Dudley,; in the 80's a door-to-door salesman tried to sell Grandad flood insurance (and not merely for burst pipes either).  Grandad reasonably pointed past the mans shoulder to the view, mentioned there wasn't anything else as high as his house to the East until you reached the Urals, and commented that if the hypothetical floodwater the salesman was talking about reached his house, there would be bigger problems for the insurance company than replacing his carpets