Railway footage in feature films and television...

[Grasslands]

 

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

 

Wonder if we can convince Hornby to do the 'edge of darkness' class 31?

 

The depressing series The Last Train has some pre-apocalypse electric train action. Also the new Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie has some CGI train action, but not too sure what it was, thought it was a brighton bell.

[keefer]

There is a music video from the 1980's that must contain the only known footage both interior and exterior of the experimental Class 210 DEMU in service.

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.

 

you see him getting on the train (nice and polite shutting the doors behind him!) and the interior, then at the very end @4:45, when he gets off you see the DMS

 

[jamie92208]

 

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.

 

Douglas

 

Yes there is a picture of the mocked up 31 in "From Rag to Railway" published by the Middleton Railway on Page 62. This was co authoried by an RM Webber and the "31" was indeed two diesels together. A lot of Edge of Darkness was shot in West Yorkshire. The star, Bob Peck had relatives in West Yorkshire Police and they somehow managed to use one of the offices in the Bradford HQ to film a sequence in. The building has now been demolished.

 

Also the derailing 9F in the French resistance mentioned above was in "Charlotte Grey".

 

Jamie

[ForestPines]

The depressing series The Last Train has some pre-apocalypse electric train action.

 

As far as I recall it was pre-apocalypse MML action - the characters were on a journey from London to Sheffield when the apocalypse hit. Scenes supposedly at one of the intermediate stations were shot at Sheffield, and "Sheffield station after a few years of abandonment" was played by Manchester Mayfield.

[Grasslands]

 

As far as I recall it was pre-apocalypse MML action - the characters were on a journey from London to Sheffield when the apocalypse hit. Scenes supposedly at one of the intermediate stations were shot at Sheffield, and "Sheffield station after a few years of abandonment" was played by Manchester Mayfield.

 

Just had a quick look at episode I. It appears to be an Intercity Class 87, and then turns into a class 90 in another shot.

 

Sheffield does seem to be the UK base of post-apocalypse drama

Edited December 9, 2011 by Grasslands

[Michael Delamar]

can just see an intercity class 87 at Liverpool lime street in 1989 from about 9 mins 30.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9M00F9tUjU&feature=related

[melmerby]

What about the Bee Gees video where they walk around a dilapidated (US?) station complete with decrepit rolling stock.

Staying Alive possibly? is the video.

 

Keith

 

Edit: found the video!

Edited December 9, 2011 by melmerby

[scotcent]

"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."

 

The heroine boarded an LNER sleeper then disembarked from an LMS sleeper in Glasgow. Later shots featured a Black 5 appropriately on an Oban train near Dalmally, and the steamer from Oban to Tobermory was, properly, the Lochinvar in wartime grey livery.

 

Another Scottish film with railway interest was "The Bridal Path" starring Bill Travers (1959) which has a lovely shot (in colour) of a Caledonian 0-4-4T on a Ballachulish train. It doesn't seem to be possible to get this film anywhere now.

 

Allan F

[pH]

Another Scottish film with railway interest was "The Bridal Path" starring Bill Travers (1959) which has

a lovely shot (in colour) of a Caledonian 0-4-4T on a Ballachulish train. It doesn't seem to be possible to get this film anywhere now.

 

Allan F

Not the film as a whole, but it is available in 7 parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.c...l1.4.4.2.1l12l0

[Michael Delamar]

Stanley Baker film Violent playground has a nice sequence shot under the liverpool overhead railway and a mersey docks and harbour board avonsode tank chuffs past with bell ringing

[daveyb]

Many moons ago I had a wet Sunday watching a b&w film where the '5th columnists' were going to blow the bridge to stop supplies getting through. No idea which film but ended with them being captured and held in station waiting room at gun point but not before the model crashed fairly unconvincingly off a wobbly model bridge!

 

That wooden mock up 31 in Edge of Darkness was awful, a shame considering the quality of the drama - even by current standards.

 

There was another film where the police were chasing the baddies through a marshalling yard taking pot shots through the mist between the wagons rolling off the hump... someone even got run over, I think - might be the LadyKillers now I think about it.

 

I don't have the memory for the names of these films.

 

 

Surprised no-one has mentioned the two versions of The Taking of Pelham 123... the first one has some fantastic '70s signalling detail and some interesting electrical effect and air brake details.

[lmsforever]

Very old film filmed on the light railway near Alton in Hants consisting of a train crash supposedly caused by the IRA dont know who was in it or anything else about it.

[Debs.]

Surprised no-one has mentioned the two versions of The Taking of Pelham 123... the first one has some fantastic '70s signalling detail and some interesting electrical effect and air brake details.

 

.....and David Shire`s incredible score for the original Messrs. Blue, Green,Grey and Brown.

 

http://youtu.be/7XdHgltVbHY

[Fay Singpoint]

Very old film filmed on the light railway near Alton in Hants consisting of a train crash supposedly caused by the IRA dont know who was in it or anything else about it.

 

I think that would be Oh Mr Porter. Already noted in post #2.

 

F

Edited December 12, 2011 by Fay Singpoint

[Peter Kazmierczak]

 

I think that would be Oh Mr Porter. Already noted in post #2.

 

F

 

I think lmsforever is possibly thinking of the film "The Wrecker". Made in 1928 and realised the following year. Based on the play by Arnold Ridley, it was filmed on the Basingstoke & Alton line.

 

Peter

[Fay Singpoint]

I think lmsforever is possibly thinking of the film "The Wrecker". Made in 1928 and realised the following year. Based on the play by Arnold Ridley, it was filmed on the Basingstoke & Alton line.

 

Peter

 

Now there's interesting...

 

Oh Mr Porter sprung to mind because that was an old film, it was also filmed on the Basingstoke to Alton line, and had a train crash although I don't think it was as spectacular as "The Wreckers". And not forgetting the IRA (gun runners in this instance) although I don't recall this being part of the story line in the Wreckers.

 

Over to lmsforever I think?

 

F

[steve1]

Passport To PImlico, an Ealing comedy with Stanley Holloway has passing Tube stock.

 

steve

[keefer]

was watching 'can blue men play the whites?' on iplayer, showed muddy waters at chorlton station in 1963

looked on u-tube for it, turns out it was a whole (rather contrived) show, but with legengds of the blues

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2011 by keefer

[Pacific231G]

I've noticed that just about every single UK news report filmed in middle America includes a shot of a freight train going through the town.

 

I think my favorite US railroad scenes are in Emperor of the North - which though unpleasantly violent does seem to depict steam era railroad operation quite well. It doesn't seem to get shown very often though.

 

I also rather like the opening title sequence of Breakheart Pass though the film as a whole is not great.

 

There is a very dramatic scene set to music of a military train being assembled in "The Mercenaries" aka "The Dark of the Sun" It's supposed to be set in the Congo during the violent period after the Belgians suddenly pulled leaving chaos in their wake but was actually filmed in Jamaica and the loco looks very Baldwin- probably one of the USATC S161s that were used by the American military in Jamaica during WW2 and bought by the British Government after the war. The Jamaica railway was apparently the first railway to be built outside Europe and North America in 1844 and though it closed as a public railway in 1992 reopened this year.

[Rugd1022]

A mate pointed out to me a couple of days ago an interesting clip from one of the Dirk Bogarde 'Doctor' films, 'Doctor In Distress' from 1963, which has shows two different green Hymeks arriving at what looks very much West Drayton station in 1963. As well as the colourfull appearence of the hydraulics in their original two tone green liveries, there's an abundance of Western Region chocolate and cream paintwork and signage on the station itself.

 

I had another quick look at 'Bedazzled' again last night and noticed in the scene filmed at Westbourne Park the old GWR wooden signalbox, seen very briefly in chocolate and cream, standing out against it's grubby West London surroundings.

[The Stationmaster]

A mate pointed out to me a couple of days ago an interesting clip from one of the Dirk Bogarde 'Doctor' films, 'Doctor In Distress' from 1963, which has shows two different green Hymeks arriving at what looks very much West Drayton station in 1963. As well as the colourfull appearence of the hydraulics in their original two tone green liveries, there's an abundance of Western Region chocolate and cream paintwork and signage on the station itself.

 

I had another quick look at 'Bedazzled' again last night and noticed in the scene filmed at Westbourne Park the old GWR wooden signalbox, seen very briefly in chocolate and cream, standing out against it's grubby West London surroundings.

That being Portobello Jcn Signalbox Nidge. And with all this talk of the Western don't forget that Windsor was used in numerous films, complete with a 'Britannia' in one of them and 'The Magic Christian' (with Peter Sellars and Ringo Starr) was filmed on the Henley branch (I know that because I did a lot of the initial arrangements with the film company - who started off by asking if they could hire 'a blue Pullman train please' when it turned out that what they actually wanted was a train painted blue so they got a Class 47 instead ).

[Michael Delamar]

sooty, 5 mins 30 in

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-qBdlt_WMI&list=FLgMChEn1kWpPdFD97GCeYTg&index=14&feature=plpp_video

[Richard_S]

The Ipcress File begins with the disappearance of a scientist from a train waiting to depart from Marylebone.

 

The Fourth Protocol, also starring Michael Caine, has a pursuit on an ac emu that leaves St Pancras and arrives in Colchester.

 

Goldeneye has a "Russian" armoured train, actually a Class 20, on the Nene Valley Rly

 

Smiley's People includes a sleeper train at Paddington.

 

And Norman Stanley Fletcher began his journey to Slade prison from St Pancras.

[Michael Delamar]

some of the class 20 shots in goldeneye are done with large models

[Rugd1022]

That being Portobello Jcn Signalbox Nidge. And with all this talk of the Western don't forget that Windsor was used in numerous films, complete with a 'Britannia' in one of them and 'The Magic Christian' (with Peter Sellars and Ringo Starr) was filmed on the Henley branch (I know that because I did a lot of the initial arrangements with the film company - who started off by asking if they could hire 'a blue Pullman train please' when it turned out that what they actually wanted was a train painted blue so they got a Class 47 instead ).

 

Cheers Mike . The Henley branch filming rings a bell... I'm sure I've seen some outakes of this somewhere with the 47 drawing forward and setting back into one of the platforms.... it's bugging me now!! Pretty sure it's not on any of the 'D&E On 35mm' films though. Would love ot hear more on your part in it's planning! Wasn't Windsor used at the end of 'Two Way Stretch' with Peter Sellers and Wilfred Hyde White?

 

More useless trivia on that grotty Hymek in 'Bedazzled'.... it's heading towards Old Oak on either the down relief or the down engine and carriage line with a single parcels van in tow, underneath the grime it looks like a Southern Utility type, as per the old Hornby model and the more recent Ratio kit.

 

Moving on... the first episode of The Sweeney entitled 'Ringer' has a chase sequence filmed at Peckam Rye station in 1974, where Regan and Carter catch up with their villain and give him a good seeing to.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Rugd1022