The Great Train Robbery BBC1 Series.

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

Hmm, there was all that drama over the loss of vacuum in the middle of the job.... But strangely they managed to shift the sheded loco without waiting, perhaps that's why it wouldn't stop....

 

Should be grateful they used the 40's little brother, at least and it was green with syp's, Would it have hurt to have lost the headlight for a day or two, bit of yellow tape over the hole?!

 

Unscrewing the bulb in the ground signal too.... if it was that simple why bother with the glove.......

 

 

I think that at this time bulb failure was advised to the signal box. It certainly is now.

 

And the road vehicles were no better researched !

 

I was particularly impressed with the car line up as the robbers all left the farm

 

In general though, i thought it was well made and tried to be as accurate as it could be given the sea change since. Remember that a goodly part of the audience might well have been too young to even know about the events at the time.

 

More proof that the sixties were a time of momentous events although they do say that if you remember the sixties you weren't there

[Keith George]

I think that at this time bulb failure was advised to the signal box. It certainly is now.

 

 

I was particularly impressed with the car line up as the robbers all left the farm

 

In general though, i thought it was well made and tried to be as accurate as it could be given the sea change since. Remember that a goodly part of the audience might well have been too young to even know about the events at the time.

 

More proof that the sixties were a time of momentous events although they do say that if you remember the sixties you weren't there

I remember the 60's very very well, AND  I was there.!!  [ and the 50's ]

[60021 Pen-y-Ghent]

I don't remember it snowing in August 1963. And what time did it get dark in Glasgow those days?

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

I remember the 60's very very well, AND  I was there.!!  [ and the 50's ]

So was I and for both but I require a good deal of input these days to recall it all in any detail. It was just too long ago and the edges get blurred.

 

BTW and back on topic, what happened to acceptance of artistic license?

[69843]

There's a bit of a difference between artistic license and redoing the whole artwork...

 

(I'll also add I have not seen this yet, being 'Down Under', but I will have to watch it now after reading all of the above)

[rodshaw]

Isn't that precisely why they make these programmes, so that people can blast holes in them? It's all part of the entertainment.

[Littlethorpe]

Don't ever remember seeing a ground signal that looked like that. Surely it would have been a regular colour light signal?

 

Also the scenes on the farm were set in August but none of the deciduous trees had leaves.

 

Basically the whole program was lazy and poorly researched. At the beginning I though that I had switched to the wrong channel; a cross between Monty Python & Reservoir Dogs.

 

I'll still watch part 2 though.

 

David

[John M Upton]

Would I be right in saying the Mk 2 Jag's in the opening job were wrong and as for that Series 2 Land Rover with the wing (as opposed to central radiator) mounted headlights, oh dear...

 

And what was with the strange bodge job lighting on the 37?

[dibber25]

Having researched and written an anniversary piece for RAIL back in the summer, I really struggled to find this believable or accurate in any way. I appreciate the difficulty of re-staging the event now, but while the original 'Railway Children' was good enough that you could forgive it for turning the KWVR into a main line to Scotland, you really can't get away with it on a dramatised documentary of this sort, intended for an adult audience. The means of stopping the train bore little resemblance to how it was actually done, there was no 'rehearsal' (see Steam World March 2013) the signals, stations, locomotive and road vehicles all bore little or no resemblance and smacked of a low budget 'that'll do' approach. The minor injury meted out to Jack Mills was also at odds with the widely published photo of him after the event.

Not sure I'll even bother with the second part.

A little knowledge can spoil these programmes though. My wife was a microbiologist and I recall, every time there was a TV movie with a laboratory in it, she would say "you don't use that machine/piece of equipment like that!"

CHRIS LEIGH

[Rugd1022]

I've not watched it yet but I've read all sorts of pokes and jibes at it on other forums I'm on... will reserve judgement until then but it doesn't sound very promising! I do like the idea of making two films back to back though, from different points of view.

 

On the other hand, the recent 'Mrs. Biggs' drama was very well made I thought, with good attention paid to some of the pertinent details and a clever bit of CGI in one ot two shots to represent the four track WCML, and they used D335 on the East Lancs as a stand in for D326.

 

I'd agree that so far 'Robbery' made way back in 1967 is probably the best attempt at depicting the real robbery on film, although it was only partially based on the events of August '63. Stanley Baker's production company had the advantage back then of having a real double track 'mainline' at their disposal, along with BR crews, the use of D318 and a rake of appropriate rolling stock for two weeks, resulting in a very good looking drama. Peter Yates's direction and eye for detail worked wonders here too, it's still a cracking, classic British movie today.

 

One day I'm sure someone with the right backing and good properly researched background will be able to make an accurate recreation of the real crime, using the technology available to them at the time.

[Kenton]

 

and yes it was 37075 disguised as class 40 D326. Drives me potty when researchers don't do their jobs properly. Also why didn't the guys from the K&WVR tell them it was wrong?

 

Let's face it where were they going to get a 40 for the cost of any old 37 which the K&WVR were willing to repaint. And why spoil the chance of a bucket of cash for the preservation fund by telling them of their ignorance?

 

I haven't seen it yet (recorded to play over some of the granny fodder on over Xmas) but from comments on here I'll not be too disappointed it turning out exactly as I suspected - a docusoap with about as much attention to facts as 1 hour of lame research could muster. Who in their right mind expected the BBC to research the fundamental railway facts and then have a director and production team of suitable calibre to do the job.

 

Is there actually a preserved 40? and I wonder how much it would have cost to transport it to a suitable location for what is probably only a few seconds of film that only a small minority of the viewing public actually care about?

 

Let's just accept it - there is probably just about as much credible facts as that Star Trek

['CHARD]

Is there actually a preserved 40? 

 

I expect so.  Google it  

[RedgateModels]

Is there actually a preserved 40? 

 

yep, http://www.cfps.co.uk/

 

sixteen 12by 10s of this parish is permanently covered in oil because of it

 

EDIT: sorry got my wires crossed, Gary is involved in this one .. http://www.trainweb.org/cfa/

[Kenton]

 

yep, http://www.cfps.co.uk/

 

Sixteen 12by 10s of this parish is permanently covered in oil because of it

 

So either it was not available, the BBC research team couldn't find it (are they allowed to use Google or RMWeb?) or the BBC production budget was not up to negotiating the price of the repaint and move to a suitable location.

 

i still think the target audience were the vast majority of the public who couldn't care less about such detail or facts, any many of whom have never heard of the GTR. SWMBO has just confirmed this fact by issuing the "anorak" statement.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I don't remember it snowing in August 1963. And what time did it get dark in Glasgow those days?

i)

The snow did hang around a bit after the 1963 winter. There was still some lying around the outskirts of Birmingham well into April.

 

ii)

About 9.10pm on the evening before the robbery.

 

Is there actually a preserved 40? 

Even a green splitbox just like D326 http://www.cfps.co.uk/40135history.htm.

Makes a noise just like a Class 40 as well.

[The Nth Degree]

I agree with Kenton above. As this was a fact-based drama, as opposed to an historical documentary/reconstruction, so the general context is fine. The typical viewer would not have noticed anything amiss at all, even with a reasonable knowledge of the reported crime.

[Joseph_Pestell]

SWMBO (who was born 8 years after GTR) is not bothered by cars and trains and gets fed up when I complain about such inaccuracies. But she did note the Yorkshire stone bridge looked a bit out of place in Bedfordshire. She's a surveyor.

[mcowgill]

SWMBO (who was born 8 years after GTR) is not bothered by cars and trains and gets fed up when I complain about such inaccuracies. But she did note the Yorkshire stone bridge looked a bit out of place in Bedfordshire. She's a surveyor.

 

So did the dry stone walls alongside the line, she sounds a bit like an 'anorak' to me...  

[Sweeps]

To the majority of the viewers, a train is just a train.

[D9020 Nimbus]

But surely the most obvious error--and one which *does not* need any special railway knowledge--was having the train running on the right-hand track! That said, I try to ignore the inaccuracies, and I did enjoy this at least enough to look at the second part tonight.

[Verityboo]

Why criticise the film for not portraying Bedfordshire correctly when it happened in Buckinghamshire   (Only spitting distance from where I sit now typing this) 

 

Second only to Yorkshire for its dry stone walling (not)

[Coppercap]

But surely the most obvious error--and one which *does not* need any special railway knowledge--was having the train running on the right-hand track! 

 

That's probably to go with the yankee diesel horns for when the programme is shown in the States. They probably think all train run on the right, not realising our trains run on the left, and maybe they wouldn't recognise our diesel horns as being on the locomotive (just like they wouldn't recognise a 'proper' steam whistle)!   

[The Stationmaster]

But surely the most obvious error--and one which *does not* need any special railway knowledge--was having the train running on the right-hand track! That said, I try to ignore the inaccuracies, and I did enjoy this at least enough to look at the second part tonight.

 

You'd be surprised - the great British public is not of the most aware when it comes to railways and at plenty of larger stations you can find trains effectively 'running on the right' in station platforms etc.

[Metr0Land]

OK this is a bit esoteric but another error.  Shortly after the robbery there's a scene outside a Lodnon tube staion where a wall map is shown eg:

 

 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clivebillson/tube/1960.html

 

In fact in Jan63 the tube map changed to the much UNloved and short lived (2 years) Hutchison design.  So for Aug68 should have been:

 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/1963.html

 

 

OK tube maps might be a bit esoteric BUT...   if you're setting something in 1963 then a quick call to LT Museum saying 'Can we have a 1963 map design pls?' isn't a big deal is it?

[60021 Pen-y-Ghent]

........  And what time did it get dark in Glasgow those days?

 

 

.........

 

About 9.10pm on the evening before the robbery.

 

 

Well, the gang were informed the train left Glasgow at 6:50 but the train left Glasgow in darkness.