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Railway footage in feature films and television...


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Another episode of The Bill from 1990, DC Mike Dashwood liked his railway locations for meeting his snouts (informants) as the episode I saw the first five minutes were various disused parts of Euston Tube Station, the old exchange ticket office window and blue tiling rings were unmistakable.

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On 27/07/2020 at 10:12, steve1 said:

Watched an older Poirot last night about a kidnapped Prime Minister, set in the early 1930s at a guess. The railway scene was supposed to be Charing Cross but passing that by, the coach the PM boarded was in SR green with Sxxxxx numbers and looked suspiciously like an EMU. It set off with the obligatory steam sound and clouds of smoke...

 

The rest of the programme was fine for period cars and such, so why get the railway scene so wrong? One little dud I did spot was a squaddie in one scene had his shoulder insignia upside down.

 

steve

 

"So wrong" is overstating it. As for using an EMU, surely that's because it's a lot cheaper to just blow smoke and steam into shot rather than hire a steam engine and crew plus fill in all the necessary forms and get permissions

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2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Rocknrolla features what looks to be a single track line supposedly in London . Gerrard Butler gets chased by a Russian heavy down the tracks 

 

Not only supposedly it actually is in London.  It was filmed on the then disused North Woolwich line including the section with the arched buttresses leading to the Connaught Tunnel which has subsequently been reused as part of the Crossrail Abbey Wood branch.

Edited by DY444
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Thanks once more to Talking Pictures, tonight I watched The Small Back Room (AKA Hour of Glory), a 1949-made film set in 1943 about a bomb-disposal expert with a drink problem. The climactic scene takes place on Chesil Beach and our hero is seen both arriving and departing by train. I imagine the location is Abbotsbury, which must make it pretty rare footage. Apologies for the quality of the pictures; they were made by simply pausing the film and snapping the TV with my camera.

 

Small-Back-Room-01.jpg.f62c3e758e233a981ce002d1a33da4c5.jpgSmall-Back-Room-02.jpg.a64e2c78c99a1cd4efba06afc41df382.jpgSmall-Back-Room-03.jpg.fae93c15ecb8983250cd0093ddf5531e.jpgSmall-Back-Room-04.jpg.45fcbc53148d7c99845ed9b91f823f3d.jpgSmall-Back-Room-05.jpg.307c8add4c6edbd110fbc4b4e5315643.jpg

 

The arrival scene features a genuine auto-train. In the last two pictures showing the departure, I don't believe the coach is an auto-trailer at all, although the locomotive does propel it out of the station. I'm not quite sure of the loco's number but I  think it's 1403. Great Western pedants will be infuriated because of course in 1943 it would have been numbered 4803.

 

Apart from the railway interest, the film - a lesser-known production of Powell and Pressburger -is well worth seeing. The cinematography is of the highest quality in beautifully rich black and white; the pace is leisurely with no cheap shocks, but the scene where the infernal Nazi device is disarmed is utterly gripping and to my eyes technically convincing; the realities of defence procurement and office politics are portrayed with a cynical eye and the relationship between the hero and his girlfriend is portrayed in a very truthful and grown-up fashion - it is quite clear that they were all but living together despite being unmarried.

 

By the way, was there ever any intention to extend the line beyond Abbotsbury? To me the end of the line has a rather provisional look to it.

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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I’m a big fan of the Powell & Pressburger films and “ The Small Back Room” is one of my favourites.  Interesting to see in the film Michael Gough, who played Alfred the butler in the Michael Keaton Batman films, in much younger days and Sid James as a pub landlord.

 

“The war will be won by the Army, the Navy and the Air Force... in that order.”

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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7 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

By the way, was there ever any intention to extend the line beyond Abbotsbury? To me the end of the line has a rather provisional look to it.

Page about Abbotsbury:

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/abbotsbury/index.shtml

Says there were plans for an extension westwards but they came to nothing and the railway petered out west of the station.

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Another howler on a recent Poirot, The Plymouth Express. Victim say she is catching a train from Paddington to Plymouth, via Bristol and gets on a set with a Southern loco in lined green and sunshine lettering and all green Mk 1 coaches. Loco was at least a large tender one but no smoke deflectors. I’m no Southern expert but I can recognise Horsted Keynes when I see it...

 

steve

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2 hours ago, keefer said:

Page about Abbotsbury:

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/abbotsbury/index.shtml

Says there were plans for an extension westwards but they came to nothing and the railway petered out west of the station.

Thanks. That site has a photo of 1403 at Abbotsbury, which tends to confirm that that is the loco in the film. Perhaps the use of the conventional coach in the departure scene is because the auto coach did not have a suitable window for David Farrar to lean out of

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And as I also have another Powell & Pressburger movie recorded - A Canterbury Tale - here are a couple of scenes from that. I don't know the Canterbury area, but presumably the first shot is of the place where one line crosses over the other.

Canterbury-01.jpg.d883145adbaceea8c1e814514b46b08e.jpg

 

The other two show H Class No.1306 arriving at a station. I'm sure someone will be able to tell us whether it's actually at Canterbury.

Canterbury-02.jpg.17a298275570ba72497503cc8581dee8.jpgCanterbury-03.jpg.56ee9b58d3d54a4485ad1dadaa12ff17.jpg

The fireman's rather flamboyant gymnastics are notable (the train is still moving). I wonder if this was at the request of the filmmakers or just happened to take place when a routine arrival was filmed.

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20 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

And as I also have another Powell & Pressburger movie recorded - A Canterbury Tale - here are a couple of scenes from that. I don't know the Canterbury area, but presumably the first shot is of the place where one line crosses over the other.

Canterbury-01.jpg.d883145adbaceea8c1e814514b46b08e.jpg

 

The other two show H Class No.1306 arriving at a station. I'm sure someone will be able to tell us whether it's actually at Canterbury.

Canterbury-02.jpg.17a298275570ba72497503cc8581dee8.jpgCanterbury-03.jpg.56ee9b58d3d54a4485ad1dadaa12ff17.jpg

The fireman's rather flamboyant gymnastics are notable (the train is still moving). I wonder if this was at the request of the filmmakers or just happened to take place when a routine arrival was filmed.

 

The first shot could well be Harbledown Junction. The junction that the signal box controls however is between the Ashford and Elham Valley lines and not with the line the engine is on.

 

The other two shots look to be at Canterbury West. As far as I can ascertain from my limited information H class 1306 was shedded at Ashford so might well have been used on Ashford-Ramsgate locals

 

What is interesting is the locomotive underneath the signal box gantry. I think it might be on the goods yard headshunt and is it one of the stubby funnelled R1s used on the Whitstable branch.

 

Canterbury Tale was made in 1944 so the Elham Valley and Whitstable branches were still open, albeit that the only trains on the Elham Valley line were troop specials (when they weren't playing with the rail mounted gun parked on the line). In World War One the Elham Valley line saw a lot of traffic as an alternative route to Dover, especially after the landslip in Folkestone Warren.  After the fall of France though there just wasn't the demand for traffic to get to the Channel ports and the Elham Valley was to all intents and purposes closed in World War 2

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On 14/08/2020 at 23:28, Andy Kirkham said:

Thanks once more to Talking Pictures, tonight I watched The Small Back Room (AKA Hour of Glory), a 1949-made film set in 1943 about a bomb-disposal expert with a drink problem. The climactic scene takes place on Chesil Beach and our hero is seen both arriving and departing by train. I imagine the location is Abbotsbury, which must make it pretty rare footage. Apologies for the quality of the pictures; they were made by simply pausing the film and snapping the TV with my camera.

 

Small-Back-Room-02.jpg.a64e2c78c99a1cd4efba06afc41df382.jpg

 

The arrival scene features a genuine auto-train. In the last two pictures showing the departure, I don't believe the coach is an auto-trailer at all, although the locomotive does propel it out of the station. I'm not quite sure of the loco's number but I  think it's 1403. Great Western pedants will be infuriated because of course in 1943 it would have been numbered 4803.

 

Apart from the railway interest, the film - a lesser-known production of Powell and Pressburger -is well worth seeing. The cinematography is of the highest quality in beautifully rich black and white; the pace is leisurely with no cheap shocks, but the scene where the infernal Nazi device is disarmed is utterly gripping and to my eyes technically convincing; the realities of defence procurement and office politics are portrayed with a cynical eye and the relationship between the hero and his girlfriend is portrayed in a very truthful and grown-up fashion - it is quite clear that they were all but living together despite being unmarried.

 

By the way, was there ever any intention to extend the line beyond Abbotsbury? To me the end of the line has a rather provisional look to it.

 

LSWR 'Gate' stock being hauled by a 14xx 48xx?

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On 15/08/2020 at 08:06, steve1 said:

Another howler on a recent Poirot, The Plymouth Express. Victim say she is catching a train from Paddington to Plymouth, via Bristol and gets on a set with a Southern loco in lined green and sunshine lettering and all green Mk 1 coaches. Loco was at least a large tender one but no smoke deflectors. I’m no Southern expert but I can recognise Horsted Keynes when I see it...

 

steve

 

Yes the Bluebell did well out of the bulk of the Poirot TV series as far as railway stuff went. To some extent the closeness to London and the quantity of stories televised meant it was simply easier to do everything there than rush round the country to get the shots right. Probably the most notable example is the ABC murders where the Bluebell plays host to such locations as Doncaster and Churston

 

However the final 10 or so stories to 'complete' the full set of novels were filmed around two decades after the initial ones and for these later editions not only were the scripts noticeably darker / gritty but the production crew cast their net much wider in terms of locations with all railway scenes shot elsewhere, many outside the South East IIRC

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3 hours ago, talisman56 said:

 

LSWR 'Gate' stock being hauled by a 14xx 48xx?

No, it's a GWR auto-trailer (possibly a former steam railmotor) in GWR post-war livery.

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Watched a bit of the film Charlotte Gray the other evening; the bit I saw involved sabotaging a French 9F on a single line somewhere in the UK; then yesterday evening they had The Molly Maguires on Freeview, not sure which channel, again involving the sabotage of a train, this time from a Pennsylvania coal mine. I'm not sure what the loco was, but either an 0-4-2 or an 0-6-0, with what looked like "period" wagons.

 

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On 15/08/2020 at 08:06, steve1 said:

Another howler on a recent Poirot, The Plymouth Express. Victim say she is catching a train from Paddington to Plymouth, via Bristol and gets on a set with a Southern loco in lined green and sunshine lettering and all green Mk 1 coaches. Loco was at least a large tender one but no smoke deflectors. I’m no Southern expert but I can recognise Horsted Keynes when I see it...

 

steve

 

I didn't understand why Flossie Harrington said she was "travelling from Paddington to Plymouth, changing at Bristol" when she was actually going to Bristol. She didn't get off there as she told her maid she had "business in Taunton". At least the scriptwriters got the sequence of stations right.

 

The loco is "King Arthur" 777 Sir Lamiel - the number is clearly visible in some of the closeup shots. The green MK1s were crudely "backdated" with what are clearly self-adhesive stickers on the doors showing "First", "Third" and "Guard" in large, old fashioned, gold lettering. The same set was also used in a subsequent episode shown on ITV3 a couple of nights later (can't remember which one, I'm afraid), which was presumably shot at the same time. There were, however, some nice interior shots of a Maunsell open third and a Bulleid corridor composite.

 

While much of the episode was filmed on the Bluebell, the "Paddington", "Bristol" and "Plymouth" shots were apparently filmed at Hull Paragon.

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Just watching an episode of A Touch Of Frost, Benefit Of The Doubt, and there is some good railway scenes, where the victim has been run over by several trains, and there is a shot inside a railway works as well. Not sure of the location. There’s a big brick building in the background that could possibly be Swindon but it was filmed in 1999 so doubtful if it could actually be Swindon.

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10 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Yes the Bluebell did well out of the bulk of the Poirot TV series as far as railway stuff went. To some extent the closeness to London and the quantity of stories televised meant it was simply easier to do everything there than rush round the country to get the shots right. Probably the most notable example is the ABC murders where the Bluebell plays host to such locations as Doncaster and Churston

 

However the final 10 or so stories to 'complete' the full set of novels were filmed around two decades after the initial ones and for these later editions not only were the scripts noticeably darker / gritty but the production crew cast their net much wider in terms of locations with all railway scenes shot elsewhere, many outside the South East IIRC

 

According to the Bluebell Railway Facebook page, Poirot was filmed there every year from 1987 to 2007.

 

(Production of the series concluded in 2012)

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11 hours ago, Hilux5972 said:

Just watching an episode of A Touch Of Frost, Benefit Of The Doubt, and there is some good railway scenes, where the victim has been run over by several trains, and there is a shot inside a railway works as well. Not sure of the location. There’s a big brick building in the background that could possibly be Swindon but it was filmed in 1999 so doubtful if it could actually be Swindon.

 

The railway scenes in that episode were filmed in and around Longsight depot.

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18 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Yes the Bluebell did well out of the bulk of the Poirot TV series as far as railway stuff went. To some extent the closeness to London and the quantity of stories televised meant it was simply easier to do everything there than rush round the country to get the shots right. Probably the most notable example is the ABC murders where the Bluebell plays host to such locations as Doncaster and Churston

 

However the final 10 or so stories to 'complete' the full set of novels were filmed around two decades after the initial ones and for these later editions not only were the scripts noticeably darker / gritty but the production crew cast their net much wider in terms of locations with all railway scenes shot elsewhere, many outside the South East IIRC

 

The shots of the characters emerging from "Doncaster" station were filmed at St.Pancras.  They are coming out of the arch which took the carriage road through to P5 and 6.  In the background you can see a rail blue GUV on the blocks in P6.

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12 hours ago, 602Squadron said:

While much of the episode was filmed on the Bluebell, the "Paddington", "Bristol" and "Plymouth" shots were apparently filmed at Hull Paragon.

 

Yes it was Hull.  If you look carefully in the background of some shots you can see a selection of BR second generation DMUs.

Edited by DY444
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Was watching a new TV documentary last night "Reported Missing", which as the title suggests follow the police investigation when a person is reported as missing by their relatives.  This particular show followed the investigation of an ex-services chap which went missing form his home in Warrington.  Much of the investigation centred around him boarding a train to head to Scotland at Bank Quay station and there were various CCTV shots of voyagers and pendos.  For reasons best known to himself the producer then inserted views that were clearly of Crewe (which never had any mention in the story), one from the heritage centre signalbox looking south , and another general view of the station.  Another case of "its only a railway station, nobody will know"

 

Jim

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