Jump to content
 

Railway footage in feature films and television...


Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Gold

Cheers, can't find any footage on the net. Was the hymek a preserved one or was it still in service with br?

I'm fairly sure that 'the Hymek' you see in the shots where it runs down the foxhounds was in fact a mock-up and not a real one and I believe that all the railway filming was done on the West Somerset. Incidentally Eric Porter - who played the Master of Foxhounds in that film - was a railway modeller.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

The Cassandra Crossing is just pure end to end unintentional comedy. Always bemused how the pantograph fitted red kitchen car manages to change direction between shots and then in order to save the 'A' list cast still alive, at the very end several carriages of unlisted extras suddenly turn up at the front of the train in order to be sent to their grisly deaths. Where as there were just three or four cars after the kitchen car where they seperated the train, all of a sudden there was something like nine or ten of the things!!!

 

Also recall a bizzare WWII movie, fairly recent where the French Resistance proceed at night to sabotage the track in the days prior to the D-Day Landings in nothern France, thus stopping the passage of the German troop and supplies train headed by BR Class 9F with full BR tender crests and smokebox numberplate!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

re: that sinking feeling

 

my memory played tricks, but continuity plays more! the scene from 3:00-3:14 involves going down the steps to springburn station,

from 3:20-3:40 shows the push-pull set (albeit lengthened for dramatic effect).

 

does anyone recognize the station (not disused as i originally thought)?

 

might be bishopbriggs, the train is defo glas-edin with the BSO at the back

 

http://youtu.be/zG7jbpHjNPU

 

 

p.s. how do i get a youtube video to show? have tried different tags/brackets etc but always shows as a link?

Edited by keefer
Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anyone mentioned "Bank Job" with Jason Statham, and Platform one of Paddington station, with a supporting role by a rake of Maroon Mark 2 D/E/F stock? :D

 

There is "Unstoppable" with Denzel Washington and Christian Bale - Inspired by true events. And 'Runaway Train' (1985) Starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.

 

I found this site, and half of the ten it mentions are already listed here - http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/11/10/movies-set-on-trains/

And a more obscure collection of RailRoad movies - http://myplace.frontier.com/~lindsay.korst/

 

I hope that doesn't spoil this thread.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Bad Day At Black Rock - Spencer Tracy.

 

The opening scene has a tremendous long shot of a Southern Pacific 'Covered Wagon' in Black Widow scheme and stock in Daylight livery.

 

http://www.tcm.com/m...Adobe-Flat.html

 

steve

In CinemaScope no less - the perfect format for shooting trains! Some great helicopter shots there. This must have been a big release back in 1955, but I've never seen it before. Nice find!

Link to post
Share on other sites

re: that sinking feeling

 

my memory played tricks, but continuity plays more! the scene from 3:00-3:14 involves going down the steps to springburn station,

from 3:20-3:40 shows the push-pull set (albeit lengthened for dramatic effect).

 

does anyone recognize the station (not disused as i originally thought)?

 

might be bishopbriggs, the train is defo glas-edin with the BSO at the back

 

http://youtu.be/zG7jbpHjNPU

 

 

p.s. how do i get a youtube video to show? have tried different tags/brackets etc but always shows as a link?

Try copying the link at the top (cntrl C) then paste into your post...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG7jbpHjNPU&feature=youtu.be

Link to post
Share on other sites

A couple more that have come to mind:

 

The Camomile Lawn has a few trips between London and Cornwall using steam trains (not going to attempt to guess what they were :-) )

 

In music, the band Squeeze had a single called "Electric Trains" (referring to model railways) in the mid 1990s. Never seen the video (and too lazy to look for it) but there might be something there.

 

On the slightly absurd side, nobody has mentioned that scene from Wallace and Gromit ... :-)

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

And this is what was on it! http://www.flickr.co...157626469109761

 

Paul

 

Looking at the picture, there is 37073 in the foreground with a central headcode panel and 37119 in the background with individual indicator boxes.

 

Now from memory 37119 was the pioneer (D6700) but I also thought that it was dropped in at '119' for TOPS at the end of the initial batch of locos of which it was the first; the 309th 37, which didn't make TOPS, was in one of the later batches so '6700' wasn't filling that gap.

 

What I'm trying to say is that I didn't expect a loco with a number as low as 073 to have central headcode panel and I don't recall it being one of the crash damage rebuilds (006 and 100).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anyone mentioned "Bank Job" with Jason Statham, and Platform one of Paddington station, with a supporting role by a rake of Maroon Mark 2 D/E/F stock? :D

 

There is "Unstoppable" with Denzel Washington and Christian Bale - Inspired by true events. And 'Runaway Train' (1985) Starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.

 

I found this site, and half of the ten it mentions are already listed here - http://blog.moviefon...-set-on-trains/

And a more obscure collection of RailRoad movies - http://myplace.front...~lindsay.korst/

 

I hope that doesn't spoil this thread.

 

 

Viz 'The Bank Job'... there's avery brief glimpse of D1015 Western Champion in maroon at the head of the Mk2 stock at Paddington, blink and you'll miss it.

 

A couple of the films already mentioned here have related outake footage included in the 'D&E On 35mm' DVDs, in one of them, the blue 47 (1509) seen departing Kings Cross was filmed for but inclusion in the opening sequence of 'Get Carter' but was never used, and there's a shot or two of green Peaks on the Midland Mainline at Elstree for use in 'Crooks In Cloisters'. In one of the first two volumes there's a few seconds of black and white footage shot at West Ealing for the 1965 Julie Christie / Dirk Bogarde film 'Darling', including a maroon Western and the Blue Pullman.

Edited by Rugd1022
Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm fairly sure that 'the Hymek' you see in the shots where it runs down the foxhounds was in fact a mock-up and not a real one and I believe that all the railway filming was done on the West Somerset. Incidentally Eric Porter - who played the Master of Foxhounds in that film - was a railway modeller.

 

Quantock online forum indicates filming was near Crowcombe so well remembered Mike - you know, it must be over 30 years since I have seen the film, and now I'd really like to see it again - just to see if the Hymek (I recall it being rail blue) was all it seemed to be ! + I am sure my daughters would love the film.

 

Isn't there either an Arthur Askey film, (or is it Norman Wisdom), when his trilby goes out a coach window and there are some cracking shots of him retrieving it on the canted curve on the down line past the Langstone Rock while the guard gives him a mouthful, (after pulling the communication cord) - edited for sense, since otherwise it'd sound like Arthur or Norm did a passable contortionist act at speed, only to rejoin the train - its been a long day today !

 

http://www.quantocko...c.php?f=5&t=316

 

Regards

 

Matt Wood

Edited by D826
Link to post
Share on other sites

Someone's already mentioned Hitchcock's 39 Steps and the insanely glamorous North by Northwest, but the maestro loved trains so there are others including, of course, Strangers on a Train (the clue is in the title!) and, my favourite, 1938's The Lady Vanishes, his last English film before taking Hollywood by storm, almost the entire film set on board a train hurtling across Europe. Very saucy and witty, too (English censors at that particular time were either less po-faced than the US ones or were more stupid).

 

Another English cinema genius (or, rather, pair of them) to use trains was Powell & Pressburger. There's a wonderful sequence at the start of 1945's I Know Where I'm Going in which the heroine boards a London sleeper bound for Scotland, and the Black 5 transforms itself into a Bassett-Lowke (I think) model that then swerves and flies her to another world.

 

And for something different, what about 1959's North West Frontier: a glorious boy's own adventure set in the Raj, where the stiff upper lipped English have to escape from a native uprising by crossing India using a battered Victorian-era shunter and an ancient coach. Nerve-wrackingly brilliant, including a scene where our heroes have to cross a breathtakingly high trestle bridge on foot.

 

Paul

 

PS: If you want 1980s music videos, how about one of the biggest-selling singles ever, Bronski Beat's Small Town Boy, featuring the high-voiced singer leaving town on what appears to be some sort of Sprinter ("alone on a platform, the wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face..."). Presumably he was disappointed at the crapness of the rolling stock.

Edited by Fenman
Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 

Isn't there either an Arthur Askey film, (or is it Norman Wisdom), when his trilby goes out a coach window and there are some cracking shots of him retrieving it on the canted curve on the down line past the Langstone Rock while the guard gives him a mouthful, (after pulling the communication cord) - edited for sense, since otherwise it'd sound like Arthur or Norm did a passable contortionist act at speed, only to rejoin the train - its been a long day today !

 

http://www.quantocko...c.php?f=5&t=316

 

Regards

 

Matt Wood

 

 

That's from "The Ghost Train", Matt, with Arthur Askey.

 

Peter

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

The Blue Lamp (1950)

Standard Stock appears in a scene where Dirk Bogarde is chased across the Central Line heading towards White City greyhound stadium.

 

The Death Line (1972)

A wonderfully sounding film set around Russell Square station (although filmed at Holborn and Aldwych) with lots of appearances by 1959 tube stock

 

F

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Edge Of Darkness - TV version with Bob Peck.

 

It featured a Class 31 in Banger Blue, which had sets of coupling rods on the two 4-wheel bogies...

 

steve

 

I'm not sure that it was a 31.

 

I read somewhere that BR were not happy about filming flask trains, so the close up shots were done on the Middleton Railway, the loco was a mock up to look like a main line loco, but was a temporary body on shunters. Shown in the dark you can pretty well get away with it, until someone starts to run the film frame by frame to see what it is.

 

 

Adrian

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

 

I'm not sure that it was a 31.

 

I read somewhere that BR were not happy about filming flask trains, so the close up shots were done on the Middleton Railway, the loco was a mock up to look like a main line loco, but was a temporary body on shunters. Shown in the dark you can pretty well get away with it, until someone starts to run the film frame by frame to see what it is.

 

 

Adrian

 

Quite correct, it was a wooden (plywood I think) mock up which was placed over 2 industrial diesels. It was filmed on the Middleton Railway in Leeds. I saw it from a distance when passing on the motorway, which necessitated a brief diversion to investigate. Wish I'd taken a picture.

 

Another US film which springs to mind is the magnificent "In the Heat of the Night" with SIdney Poitier and Rod Steiger which has some nice footage of Gulf, Mobile & Ohio stock.

 

Douglas

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...