Railway footage in feature films and television...

[DY444]

19 hours ago, balders said:

South Wales. 1973 🤦‍♀️ Once again a fine drama spoilt in the first few mins by something that didn't need to be included..........given the period detail in the vehicles has been excellent throughout.........The Steeltown Murders. BBC 2023  

 

I watched that series when it was broadcast.  There's another shot later of the 56 going the other way at exactly the same place with the logo the right way round.

[balders]

31 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

I watched that series when it was broadcast.  There's another shot later of the 56 going the other way at exactly the same place with the logo the right way round.

Haven't got that far yet 😋 We shall continue tonight, before er' indoors falls asleep on the sofa. Again. Early early spares. The joys of being a senior con! 

 

Another excellent true crime revisit by the Beeb. 

 

Except Grid-Gate 😀

 

Regards

 

Guy

[MidlandRed]

10 hours ago, Northmoor said:

It's actually a Triumph 1500 and while there is definitely some CGI going on, I think the actual location used is real and is Lower West End Street in Margam.

It’s actually a Triumph 1300 - Triumph’s version of the Austin/Morris 1100 (and from 1967, 1300). Available from as early as 1966 (D reg IIRC). A very nice and quite luxurious car for its size. 

[MyRule1]

Bearing in mind the attention to detail with planes, Masters of the Air did not do too well with trains in episode 6,. Firstly a trip from Norfolk to Oxford on a train of Mk1's in carmine and cream hauled by a Southern loco'. Then as the POW's were loaded onto a train in Germany I remaked to Mrs Ruleone that the tender had a look of a GWR type and that the vans used looked British. The camera then panned round to show Didcot's coaling stage. However the CGI kreigsloco that passed was very well done.

[balders]

1 hour ago, MyRule1 said:

Bearing in mind the attention to detail with planes, Masters of the Air did not do too well with trains in episode 6,. Firstly a trip from Norfolk to Oxford on a train of Mk1's in carmine and cream hauled by a Southern loco'. Then as the POW's were loaded onto a train in Germany I remaked to Mrs Ruleone that the tender had a look of a GWR type and that the vans used looked British. The camera then panned round to show Didcot's coaling stage. However the CGI kreigsloco that passed was very well done.

Now this is what we all love! 

 

Well done sir! 😀

Edited February 23 by balders

[DK123GWR]

Benediction, about the life of Siegfried Sassoon, is on iPlayer at the moment. It has a few bits of black and white footage of railways, as well as a small number of scenes where Sassoon is travelling during WWI. They do seem to have made an effort, and probably couldn't have done much better given the era it's set in - he and his brother leave separately for war on an SECR coach and a GWR Toplight (chocolate and cream, but an older style with lining around the windows). This scene also features a loco pulling the SECR train, but the shot only shows it below the running plate, presumably concealing something innapropriate. Later, as Sassoon leaves Liverpool for Scotland, an LMS coach (Stanier?) is seen in the background. If it is it's too new, but still an awful lot better than the Mk1s that some productions would be happy with.

[Andy Kirkham]

On BBC iPlayer, an episode of Monitor with Betjeman reciting three of his poems in the bombed-out City of London. Several atmospheric glances of trains.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p022kr11/monitor-a-poet-in-london?seriesId=unsliced

[steve1]

Beyond Paradise, Friday 22nd. That was the South Devon Railway I assume?

 

steve

[009 micro modeller]

32 minutes ago, steve1 said:

Beyond Paradise, Friday 22nd. That was the South Devon Railway I assume?

 

steve

The SDR confirm on their own social media that it was.

[MyRule1]

8 hours ago, steve1 said:

Beyond Paradise, Friday 22nd. That was the South Devon Railway I assume?

 

steve

Next week's episode should be interesting The RAIB investigation into the runaway train with an unauthorized person in the cab.🤣

[Enterprisingwestern]

20 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

Next week's episode should be interesting The RAIB investigation into the runaway train with an unauthorized person in the cab.🤣

 

'To keep it topical they'll probably have Frankie Burgervan or whatever his name is as the lead character!

 

Mike.

[H2O]

6 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

Next week's episode should be interesting The RAIB investigation into the runaway train with an unauthorized person in the cab.🤣

In addition to 2 runaways shown there was no guard on the train when the murder happened and the fireman got on and off the moving loco and then walked alongside the moving loco in the tunnel :-(  We might chuckle at these 'errors' but sadly those scenes (whilst superficially amusing and part of entertainment) don't do much for the image of heretage railways operation to the wider public.  At least the signal looked to be off in the 2nd run away :-)

[MyRule1]

I know this is a detail  but having climbed into many Mk1 carriages over the years, I was amazed at the ease at which the murderer (aka the train driver) got into carriage.  I wish I knew his secret as I would only attempt the manoeuvre he made with a ladder and obviously not on a moving train. Life would be simpler with his super power. 

[pb_devon]

See also this parallel thread: 

 

[Ben B]

I didn't think they'd done too bad of a job (the cgi tunnel was good) but why the one shot of a pannier going in to the tunnel, when they'd worked so hard on the rest of the continuity?

Certainly seemed more attention to detail and effort than a lot of dramedy/sitcoms demonstrate mindyou...

[Hobby]

Anyone mentioned SAS: Red Notice yet? Another showing the Channel Tunnel entrance as bereft of OHLE but had some inside the tunnel, though at least they changed the name of the train to Eurostream! If you're thinking of watching it, don't bother, IMDB's 5 rating is about right! Not as bad as Bullet Train (2022) though.

Edited March 25 by Hobby

[Ben B]

Just watched the first 10 minutes of an old Morecambe & Wise on ITV3, "The Magnificent Two", with the Longmoor Military Railway apparently relocated to South America :) some nice set dressing, a rather good composite shot of the train running through the scenery (unless Hampshire has a snow-capped mountain range I didn't know about), and the blue Austerity ("Brussels"?) looks rather good with a cow catcher.

 

I'm away from home at the mo, but I think one of the Longmoor books has details on all the films shot there. St.Trinians is the favourite of course, but I always liked "Runaway Railway" and the cosmetically modified Austerity running as "Matilda". Must have been a nice little earner for the MoD before there were enough preserved lines to act as filming locations.

[Northmoor]

BBC4 has been repeating both series of "To the Manor Born" recently.  I don't remember it fondly enough to watch all of them but did record and watch the one where Audrey Forbes-Hamilton fights the closure of the village railway station.  Maiden Newton was used for "Marlbury" with a 3-car Met-Camm DMU in all blue used in several scenes.  Part of the story was how run-down the station looked; this being BR in about 1980 very little set-dressing was required.

 

I recall reading an article in one of the railway mags about an enthusiast ending up in a shouting match with the Maiden Newton signalman about photography on the station.  It didn't excuse his behaviour towards a member of the public, but the author suggested that he was probably sick of the sight of anyone with a camera.  He might have been on duty on the day of filming and had to deal with the constant shunting back and forth of the train and TV crew wandering across the tracks regardless of train movements. 

[H2O]

56 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

BBC4 has been repeating both series of "To the Manor Born" recently.  I don't remember it fondly enough to watch all of them but did record and watch the one where Audrey Forbes-Hamilton fights the closure of the village railway station.  Maiden Newton was used for "Marlbury" with a 3-car Met-Camm DMU in all blue used in several scenes.  Part of the story was how run-down the station looked; this being BR in about 1980 very little set-dressing was required.

 

I recall reading an article in one of the railway mags about an enthusiast ending up in a shouting match with the Maiden Newton signalman about photography on the station.  It didn't excuse his behaviour towards a member of the public, but the author suggested that he was probably sick of the sight of anyone with a camera.  He might have been on duty on the day of filming and had to deal with the constant shunting back and forth of the train and TV crew wandering across the tracks regardless of train movements. 

I remember watching that episode a year or so ago. IIRC a platform poster, best forgotten, was fortunately fuzzed out when broadcast at that time.

 

 

[Ben B]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

 

 

I recall reading an article in one of the railway mags about an enthusiast ending up in a shouting match with the Maiden Newton signalman about photography on the station.  It didn't excuse his behaviour towards a member of the public, but the author suggested that he was probably sick of the sight of anyone with a camera.  He might have been on duty on the day of filming and had to deal with the constant shunting back and forth of the train and TV crew wandering across the tracks regardless of train movements. 

 

The latest copy of the KWVR's house mag has an interesting article on the filming of the recent ITV drama "Platform 7", shot at Keighley. There's a lot about the conflict of what the director (with limited railway knowledge) expected in terms of how quickly stock moved, exact stopping points on platforms etc. versus the KWVR team who had to operate the trains. Things like production getting angry about why a class 50 was so noisy that it was drowning out recording of dialogue... they powered down the loco, then the director was angry it took so long to switch it back on and generate brake pressure etc.

 

They had two goes at filming, given the original director ended up leaving the shoot, and it used an astonishing number of trains (two Pacers, a 20 on engineers stock, and two hired-in mainline rakes with a 37 in the original shoot, and a 50 for the reshoots) often operating together. Tons of very convincing set dressing too, you can see how it was so complicated and demanding to do for all concerned.

 

A very interesting read :)

[Smiffy2]

I've just seen an episode of the Australian version of 'Repair Shop' - the programme where members of the public bring broken things with high sentimental value to a bunch of experts who fix them up and leave everyone with a nice, warm fuzzy feeling.

The Oz one left my jaw on the floor.

 

A kid brought in a train set - literally a Hornby Dublo 3-rail set which had belonged to his grandfather. Neither he or his mother had ever seen it set up or running but they wanted it fixed.

 

The boy said he wanted to see his 'favourite train' running again. He said it was the Flying Scotsman. That got my attention, 'cos I don't remember that one...

 

In fact it was 'Duchess of Montrose' in BR Green. Missing the front bogie, the pony truck and the tender. And, it transpired, the motor.

 

They gave the job to the 'electronics expert' - who repairs radios and so on. He proceeded to strip the motor from a working loco and just stuck it in Montrose. Which they then gave back to the child (who struck me as being a bit odd) still minus tender, bogie and pony truck, with no attempt to clean it up from its rather shabby condition.

 

Then triumphant bleating as it ran round an oval of track on just the driving wheels whilst said kid squealed with delight.

 

When I have seen what the team in the UK version can do I was appalled...

[Trestrol]

The Repair Shop is a good programme although even on the UK one some of the methods look a bit iffy. Dom on last night's was painting some large wooden wall plaque. Close up shot of a paint brush dipping in the paint, brush then lifted up and dribble paint everywhere. Anyone else get the feeling it's getting more about the sob story rather than the repair? Maybe it's just me getting a cynical old git in my old age. 

[Smiffy2]

1 hour ago, Trestrol said:

The Repair Shop is a good programme although even on the UK one some of the methods look a bit iffy. Dom on last night's was painting some large wooden wall plaque. Close up shot of a paint brush dipping in the paint, brush then lifted up and dribble paint everywhere. Anyone else get the feeling it's getting more about the sob story rather than the repair? Maybe it's just me getting a cynical old git in my old age. 

Same thing happened with DIY SOS, the stories took over, and it often felt awkward...

[MyRule1]

Just watching the Famous Five on BBC iPlayer.  Much of the programme is railway footage, supposably on a pre second world war night sleeper. Can anyone explain the various train shots. they seem to be mixture of stock shots, bits on the NYMR and CGI.

 

My own correction having looked the railway up the Dean Forest is the location not the NYMR,

 

Edited April 4 by MyRule1

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

It makes me smile when the punters bring in absolutely knackered and f*cked items which have been kept for the past 5 decades in a damp shed/dusty vermin infested attic/old world war one latrine or similar, but, it's a much treasured family heirloom which holds so many memories of the original owner/family member/punter as a child  and is so irreplaceable.

Yeah, right!

 

Mike.