DavidB-AU Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 IIRC the station exteriors were filmed at Liskeard, although the interiors were filmed at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush. Cheers David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 As far as I know, it was a film set for the Arthur Askey version. Don't forget that fail safe systems do work, but what you can't guard against is deliberate actions - so opening the bridge to drop the train could be done if you deliberately set out to do it! Depends on what you define as deliberate. Abermule (head on collision on single line due primarily to mishandling of single line tokens), amongst others including Quintinshill, is a case where each individual contributory action by railway staff was "deliberate", in that most were a result of a concious effort to avoid effort, as it were. However the resultant crash was certainly not an intentional outcome, although, with the benefit of hindsight, it appears to have been a forseeable one.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim V Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Yes and no. In Abermule, it was the incorrect operation of systems that led to the crash. It shows that fail safe systems can be overcome by carelessness. For the train to run off the bridge would have meant (hypothetically) opening the bridge and then pulling the signals off by foul means - ie not with their levers. That would be a deliberate act. Just checked John Huntley's "Railways on the Screen", he says that apart from the beginning sequences of trains, the station was a film set. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Strathwood Posted March 26, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 26, 2015 I found my theatre programme for The Ghost Train. It was at the Vaudeville Theatre in January 1977 (so I'd have been 13). The cast included Wilfrid Bramble, Geoffrey Davies (quite a big name at the time, as a raffish doctor in the very successful sitcom Doctor in the House), Allan Cuthbertson (another familiar TV face at the time, often as army officers or as exasperated authority figures in comedies with Tommy Cooper, Harry Worth and Morecambe and Wise)and Patrick Newell ("Mother" in The Avengers). In those days I was quite the one for hanging around the stage door after the show and my programme is autographed by all those four and several others in the cast. Man, that was a long time ago... Jim Okay it was not such a splendid production but in the early 1990s I was a member of the Somborne Players in Hampshire and aside from playing the detective, I was in charge of the set and special effects. Remembering my days with Traing-Hornby's smoke producing locos, I had a brain wave and borrowed a large smoke puffer from a local bee keeper to make for a steamy/smokey atmosphere. Loaded with a bit of old sack it worked a treat, but everyone smelt of smouldering old sack by the end of the last of our three nights... Kevin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Yes and no. In Abermule, it was the incorrect operation of systems that led to the crash. It shows that fail safe systems can be overcome by carelessness. For the train to run off the bridge would have meant (hypothetically) opening the bridge and then pulling the signals off by foul means - ie not with their levers. That would be a deliberate act. SPAD? A signal being at danger doesn't guarantee that a train will stop, and missing a signal isn't usually a deliberate act by a driver. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raised On Steam Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 I'm just going to quickly hijack this with an Arthur Askey/ train related question. I vaguely remember a black and white movie I saw on TV as a kid, but all I can remember is that Arthur Askey (again) was in it (I think) as an engine driver who was sacked at the end and the final shot was him driving a RH&D size miniature engine as his new job. I've tracked down what I could of the Arthur Askey films where he is an engine driver (and it was an onerous task having to sit through his mugging) but as yet haven't found that scene at the end. Did I just dream this? Has anyone seen this film (or TV show or whatever it was). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mcfarlane Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 For the train to run off the bridge would have meant (hypothetically) opening the bridge and then pulling the signals off by foul means - ie not with their levers. That would be a deliberate act. IIRC the back story in the play is that the person operating the bridge (supposedly the Station Master) dropped down dead between pulling off the signal for the train to start and closing the bridge, thus leaving the bridge open for the train to plunge through. I'd imagine the interlocking would stop that in reality. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I'm just going to quickly hijack this with an Arthur Askey/ train related question. I vaguely remember a black and white movie I saw on TV as a kid, but all I can remember is that Arthur Askey (again) was in it (I think) as an engine driver who was sacked at the end and the final shot was him driving a RH&D size miniature engine as his new job. I've tracked down what I could of the Arthur Askey films where he is an engine driver (and it was an onerous task having to sit through his mugging) but as yet haven't found that scene at the end. Did I just dream this? Has anyone seen this film (or TV show or whatever it was). I can safely say that I've never seen an Arthur Askey film in it's entirety. However, I did once catch the very end of one on TV and I do seem to recall a last scene such as you describe so I don't think you dreamt it. Given that I wasn't very interested and that it must have been more than 30 years ago, though, I'm unable to assist further. IIRC the back story in the play is that the person operating the bridge (supposedly the Station Master) dropped down dead between pulling off the signal for the train to start and closing the bridge, thus leaving the bridge open for the train to plunge through. I'd imagine the interlocking would stop that in reality. Yes, that does seem rather more unlikely. I couldn't remember the backstory. Again, though, even interlocking has been known to fail to protect trains (Hull, for example, where a lever, which should have been locked, due to the design of the interlocking remained free for a crucial fraction of a second). I'll concede, however, that this is probably not the idea behind the backstory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Thom, As you live in PA are you aware that probably (he says cagily) the first movie to film a lady tied to the railway track “The Perils of Pauline” was filmed just outside New Hope PA on a branch of the Reading RR. It is now part of the “New Hope and Ivyland RR”. I can recommend a visit even now. Amazingly New Jersey was the centre of the nascent US film business before they discovered the weather in Hollywood.... Best, Pete. (actually living in New Jersey) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I'm not that far from New Hope and years ago did the New Hope and Ivyland RR but did not know that detail. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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