Railway footage in feature films and television...

[trisonic]

The Hindenburg never landed in New York. It used Lakehurst Naval Air Station in the township of Manchester, New Jersey. It's about 80 miles from New York City and a completely different State of the Union. That's where it crashed.

 

Sir D. I'm only putting you straight because so many people in this thread complain about Film Crews getting locations wrong, it's easily done!

 

Best, Pete.

[Pacific231G]

 

 

If you think some of the stuff we see in films is daft you ought to come across some of the things they ask for - the producers of the Tom Cruise 'Mission Impossible' film originally asked to film the 'Channel Tunnel' scenes in the Tunnel on the roof of a moving train and apparently were surprised to learn there were overhead live wires which supplied the electricity which mad the train work.

If it was a Hollywood production they may simply have never encountered overhead electrification before and I believe current passenger train speeds in California are often around 50MPH so they were probably thinking Silver Streak rather than TGV. Judging by some of the comments about the proposed 220MPH high speed line between LA and San Frisco it sounds like many Californians think that trains going that fast are still science fiction.

[Ozexpatriate]

If you think some of the stuff we see in films is daft you ought to come across some of the things they ask for - the producers of the Tom Cruise 'Mission Impossible' film originally asked to film the 'Channel Tunnel' scenes in the Tunnel on the roof of a moving train and apparently were surprised to learn there were overhead live wires which supplied the electricity which mad the train work.

If it was a Hollywood production they may simply have never encountered overhead electrification before and I believe current passenger train speeds in California are often around 50MPH

What an outrageous assertion! According to the Amtrak schedule, the Surfliner manages a start-to-stop timing of 64mph between Solano Beach and Oceanside! (It's probably the fastest part of the route.)

 

Sadly most Los Angelenos have forgotten their extensive network of overhead electrification on suburban and interurban routes, now commemorated at the Orange Empire Railway museum. To tie this back into the thread, it was the Pacific Electric Red Cars (a subsidiary of the SP and self-styled as The Largest Electric Railway System in the World) that feature in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

 

There is a distressing amount of railway ignorance in Southern California particularly.

Judging by some of the comments about the proposed 220MPH high speed line between LA and San Frisco it sounds like many Californians think that trains going that fast are still science fiction.

I would be stunned to see it actually take place. LA-Vegas proposals pop up and disappear perennially too.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Ozexpatriate

[Coach bogie]

If you think some of the stuff we see in films is daft you ought to come across some of the things they ask for - the producers of the Tom Cruise 'Mission Impossible' film originally asked to film the 'Channel Tunnel' scenes in the Tunnel on the roof of a moving train and apparently were surprised to learn there were overhead live wires which supplied the electricity which mad the train work.

 

No wonder they ended up filming in Scotland on the Ayr line using a 33/1 and much modified 4TC unit (pre electrified days)

 

Mike Wiltshire

Edited May 11, 2012 by Coach bogie

[John M Upton]

A photo appeared in the Metro free paper the other day of Nicole Kidman on location filming a new movie set during the war (as in WWII), sure enough there she is looking out of the window of a BR Maroon Mk 1...

[keefer]

The Hindenburg never landed in New York. It used Lakehurst Naval Air Station in the township of Manchester, New Jersey. It's about 80 miles from New York City and a completely different State of the Union.

 

wasn't run by an early version of Ryanair was it?

 

Von Ryan Air perhaps?? - hat/coat out the door before me :-)

[M.I.B]

"It Always Rains on a Sunday" beautiful East London LNER working and a great final chase scene and and around a goods yard with shunting going on.

[jamie92208]

I've just watched 'The 70's' and in the last episode a reported is sent to Coventry to interview the staff of Two Tone records. He goes there by train and there was a nice shot of an 87 pulling into Coventry.

 

Jamie

[Pacific231G]

Though they are amongst my favourite movies the trains in Sergio Leone's westerns are wonderfully wrong. Side buffers, four wheel brake vans, track gauge of five foot six and if you look at the wide shots in the Flagstone station scenes in Once Upon a Time in the West you can see the real station (La Calahorra-Ferreira) on the other side of the tracks. Yet despite this they do capture the feel of the arrival of the railroads in the old west.

 

I'd always assumed that the railway scenes had all been shot on a closed or little used line but rather to my surprise, although the the station itself is closed and derelict alongside some of the derelict buildings erected for "Flagstone" it's actually on the RENFE "Media Distancia" line between Granada and Almeria about ten kilometres South East of Guadix where the station is open. The railway scenes for The Good the Bad and the Ugly also seem to have been shot around La Calahorra-Ferreira but for both films some scenes including "Cattle Corner" (the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West) were shot on the now long dismantled branch line that bifurcated a few hundred metres east of the station and ran south.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Pacific231G

[trisonic]

I dunno, gauges were all over the place in the USA - even on the East Coast until quite late in the 19th century. Maybe Leone was being really clever!!!!

Agree great movies and the ones with the Ennio Morricone music had great soundtracks.

 

Best, Pete.

[Pacific231G]

I dunno, gauges were all over the place in the USA - even on the East Coast until quite late in the 19th century. Maybe Leone was being really clever!!!!

Agree great movies and the ones with the Ennio Morricone music had great soundtracks.

 

Morricone wrote the music for all of Leone's westerns and his final Once Upon a Time in America and I agree that the scores were crucial to the films. I think Fistful of Dynamite was released in America as "Duck you Sucker"

You may be right about the gauge as 5'6" seems to have been the most common in the Southern States west of the Mississipi until the 1870s though the ex Spanish South West where Leone appears to have based his westerns had almost no railroads before the Civil War. Not that Leone was interested in historical accuracy (Tucumcari wasn't even founded until 1901)

 

From yesterday's research it looks like Leone shot all the railway sequences for his "Spaghetti" westerns including Fistful of Dynamite (which is only a sort of Western as it's set during the Mexican Revolution) on the lines around Guadix in Andalucia but the station at Mesa Verde in Fistful of Dynamite is actually the terminus of the line at Almeria. How he got to take over an active railway for the days or weeks it would have taken to film all these sequences I have no idea.

There is a complete run down of most of the Spanish locations used by Leone with maps on http://www.fistfuloflocations.com/location_maps.html and there are a number of then and now location films on YouTube.

[Michael Delamar]

does anyone remember an animated advert for kids sweets/candy made by Wonka called "nerds"? sometime in the mid 1990s.

 

it was definatley done by a steam enthusiast.

 

the character was on a station footbridge eating the sweets and it had an accurate looking standard class 5 passing below him.

in fact it looked like a rusty and grubby late 1960s one.

 

i dont think it was a cartoon as such, but animated in a sort of montypython way.

Edited May 25, 2012 by michael delamar

[BG John]

In Episode 1 of The Saint, "The Talented Husband" from 1962, the action takes place in Cookham, on the single track branch between Maidenhead and High Wycombe. The ungodly gets on the train at what I'm pretty sure is the real Cookham station, and thunders down a double track main line past upper quadrant signals behind a Black 5, although we see the end of the real Western Region branch train leaving the platform. He changes from his suit into his disguise as the female housekeeper, gets off at the next station, presumably Furze Platt Halt, and goes home to prepare the evil deed. Later in the day, back in disguise, he gets on the train again to go to London.

 

That night he leaves Paddington station behind a BR standard of some sort that magically changes into a Black 5, and returns home.

[keefer]

i've just went through 11 pages to check and i believe 'whatever happened to the likely lads' hasn't been mentioned!

 

blue DMUs over one of the bridges in the opening titles, but mainly the first episode 'strangers on a train'

mk1 SK action, then a buffet car of some sort. doesn't seem to fit any mk1 layout, an open bar counter next to a bay of seats, then the vestibule partition. the detail does seem to be quite good though, even for a TV mockup.

 

later on, hilarious platform mix-up ensues at doncaster

 

1st part here, click on links for the rest

 

Clip of series - Strangers on Train

 

 

just remembered, a later episode, with the competitive bike-ride, they end up at some station waiting room on a sunday with no trains?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Andy Y
Hotlink of clip removed due to youtibe's own screen grab.

[Rugd1022]

i've just went through 11 pages to check and i believe 'whatever happened to the likely lads' hasn't been mentioned!

 

blue DMUs over one of the bridges in the opening titles, but mainly the first episode 'strangers on a train'

mk1 SK action, then a buffet car of some sort. doesn't seem to fit any mk1 layout, an open bar counter next to a bay of seats, then the vestibule partition. the detail does seem to be quite good though, even for a TV mockup.

 

later on, hilarious platform mix-up ensues at doncaster

 

1st part here, click on links for the rest

 

Clip of series - Strangers on Train

 

 

just remembered, a later episode, with the competitive bike-ride, they end up at some station waiting room on a sunday with no trains?

 

Part of that later episode was filmed on a very cold Doncaster in the dead of night, with the distant sound of a 40 whistling away out of shot..... one of the Series 2 episodes I think.

[Coach bogie]

Slightly off topic but 'Big Bang Theory' has constant references to visits to 'model train' shops. Sheldon's bedroom has various 7mm American models around the room. A recent episode made reference to attending an open evening to argue the merits of 'O' gauge Versus HO, resulting in the purchase of a HO set and laid out in the lounge.

 

When comtemplating a move from LA a large map of the US is displayed where one of the main criteria for moving was the location of 'model train stores', a large X through states that did not comply.

 

I laugh but my wife reminded me how I dismissed one house purchase in favour of another as it within walking distance of Transport Treasures.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[sir douglas]

just the other day, seen a minituare of a narrow gauge andrew barclay well tank on a tv holiday advert

Edited June 25, 2012 by sir douglas

[Ozexpatriate]

Slightly off topic but 'Big Bang Theory' has constant references to visits to 'model train' shops. Sheldon's bedroom has various 7mm American models around the room. A recent episode made reference to attending an open evening to argue the merits of 'O' gauge Versus HO, resulting in the purchase of a HO set and laid out in the lounge.

 

When comtemplating a move from LA a large map of the US is displayed where one of the main criteria for moving was the location of 'model train stores', a large X through states that did not comply.

There is an episode of Big Bang theory set on the northbound Amtrak Coast Starlight. This is season 2, episode 17, "The Terminator Decoupling" and features Summer Glau (The Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles) who sadly detrains at Santa Barbara.

 

The move from LA to Montana is season 3, episode 13 "The Bozeman Reaction".

Sheldon's "It's official, I'm an HO trainiac" is from season 5, episode 3, "The Pulled Groin Extrapolation".

Edited June 27, 2012 by Ozexpatriate

[trisonic]

You'd detrain at Santa Barbara too if Howard sat next to you.....

 

What was the name of the episode when he got caught up in his robot hand and had to go to Hospital? I nearly had a seizure during that scene at A&E....

 

Best, Pete.

[bluebottle]

What was the name of the episode when he [Howard] got caught up in his robot hand and had to go to Hospital? I nearly had a seizure during that scene at A&E....

 

"The Robotic Manipulation". Series 4, Episode 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb627xDlqBs

Edited June 27, 2012 by bluebottle

[Rugd1022]

Thread bump...!

 

Just found out a bit more gen on the filming of 'Robbery' in 1967, having had a good chat this afternoon with Rugby's oldest encumbant railwayman Colin 'Griff' Griffiths....

 

Rugby Driver Mick Burton was in the chair of D318 for much of the night scenes where the blag takes place on the bridge over at Theddingworth on the Rugby - Market Harborough line, his secondman being John Atkinson, who also provided actor Robert Powell with a fully fitting BR uniform as the one provoded by the props department didn't quite fit him. Mick is also seen driving D318 in the title sequence and it's his hand on the controller in the shot where the front portion of the train gets pulled up to the bridge by Stanley Baker's mob of crims. During breaks in the filming Mick and John would retire to the back cab and chat with Stanley Baker and various other cast members, and once filming had finished, they and all the other railwaymen involved were invited to the wrap up party at a hotel near Market Harborough. We're still trying to find out who the other two Rugby train crew were (they would have been on the loco in front of D318 filming the title sequence).

 

Apparently, at that time (March '67) Mick was one of only two drivers at Rugby on the right shift who still signed the road to Market Harborough, even though the line had shut the previous June, hence why he was picked for the job, he came to Rugby from Harborough Shed in 1963 so knew the branch intimately. D318 was stabled on Rugby Shed overnight for the entire period of filming (about two weeks we think) while the coaching stock used was stabled for some of the time at Lamport on the Harborough - Northampton line. It's thought that a Northampton crew were on the Class 24 / 25 hauled freight that's seen passing the mail train in the film. At the time Griff was a booking lad up in Rugby's Power Signal Box and occasionally had to nip over to the shed's booking on point to drop off paperwork and notices, he saw D318 on the shed several times in those two weeks and climbed up into the cab one night to find it full of lighting equipment for that night's filming. He's due to meet Mick Burton for a pint at the BRSA Club tonight so I've asked him if he can jog Mick's memory a little more on the film... I'll report back if there's any more gen worth posting here.

 

(*although closed to steam in 1965, Rugby shed was still used for stabling diesel and electric locos and an office was kept in use during the filming of Robbery).

Edited August 3, 2012 by Rugd1022

[Michael Delamar]

you can just see him as the train pulls up at the bridge, he's wearing a bandage but then duck down and a few seconds later the driver actor jumps out of the cab.

[D803Albion]

Another one from The Saint.

 

Simon Templar takes the boat train from Victoria.

 

The trains departs showing an accurate class 71 in charge.

 

Later in the journey it seems that a Western has taken over the train.

 

A final look shows what looks like a Co Bo heading the formation (you only get a brief glimpse) but was probably a 71

[Derekl]

"French Connection" (1960's or 70's) has an inspiring chase scene where Gene Hackman in a car below follows an NY elevated train containing the "villain". Lots of shots of the train as it speeds through stations, eventually coming to a stop on the NY equivalent of "train stop". Great movie, aside from the NY elevated chase scene.

I don't know how they dealt with the "El" part, but presumably some arrangement must have been made to allow the train to run non-stop through stations it was intended to stop at. The car chase below the El was apparently done without closing roads as would be done today. At one point a woman pushing a child buggy appears from left, and Hackman has to swerve around her, hitting some obstacles in process. Watching the movie, that looked like a set-up, but apparently it is genuine - she happened to come on set and whether it is Hackman or a stunt driver, they had to avoid her.

[Ozexpatriate]

This commerical (Intel Ultrabook Convertible) has been getting a lot of airplay on TV in the US lately.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd7F4ZDdbjk

 

I assume that after the first scene we are on the Bluebell.

 

I'm guessing this is Horsted Keynes (as the presumably fictional "Duncan Park") with the London Brighton & South Coast Railway Class E4 0-6-2T 473, "Birch Grove" pulling into the station.

 

Can anyone confirm this for me?