Railway footage in feature films and television...

[EddieB]

5 hours ago, melmerby said:

They'll need a fair bit of computer wizardry to remove all the modern accoutrements from the shots.

There was a guy in the regulation minion-yellow hi-vis stopping the general public from loitering on the footbridge.  Obviously they only wanted the luminescent to be visible in the background.

[62613]

17 hours ago, fulton said:

Watched Tuesday on German TV, "A MAN CALLED OVE" Swedish film, dubbed into German, much enjoyed, lots of wit, dark humour, anyway one scene has a modern wheel tuning lathe being loaded with a wheel set in the back ground, several other shots look to be done on a preserved line, with two nice shots of a diesel shunter passing by, the main character had been a railway fitter.

Saw this one, too; an exellent film, and very poignant in the end. The guy playing Ove was one of those who also played Wallander.

 

[steve1]

Watched that Grantchester last night with ‘Cambridge’ station. It was so ridiculous they needn’t have bothered. Even the ordinary public surely wouldn’t believe that could be a station as big as Cambridge.

 

steve

[melmerby]

If you fancy a bit of nostalgia aroung Kings Cross/St Pancras, Great Movies Classics (Ch52 on Freeview) has the Ladykillers on tonight at 19:10

[petethemole]

Over the last two evenings I watched the Indian film Kesari, about a last stand battle at Fort Saragarhi on the North West Frontier in 1897, where a detachment of 21 Sikhs of the 36th Sikh Infantry fought to the last man against over 10,000 Pathans,  At one point the hero and unit commander, Havildar (Sergeant) Ishar Singh, reminisces about leaving home to join the army.  At the station stands Maunsell SR Q class No. 30541.

[steve1]

Can someone please enlighten me as to which preserved railway is featured on that house buyer advert with the Class 31?

 

Thanks

 

steve

[eldomtom2]

On 21/04/2022 at 15:39, melmerby said:

They'll need a fair bit of computer wizardry to remove all the modern accoutrements from the shots.

Perfectly possible these days, especially on a big-budget film like this.

[billy_anorak59]

22 hours ago, steve1 said:

Can someone please enlighten me as to which preserved railway is featured on that house buyer advert with the Class 31?

I'm open to correction, but I think it might be North Weald Station on the Epping Ongar Railway.

 

[Pacific231G]

I've just seen some fascinating  scenes in an episode of the original Maigret series (BBC Rupert Davies) currently showing on talking Pictures TV. The epsiode is The Golden Fleeece and, like all of them, the studio scenes were recorded at Lime Grove Studios (telerecorded onto film from 625 line studio cameras) with location shooting in France. In this episode you see a lot of the metre gauge towing tractors  that, from the 1920s or before,, used to haul unpowered barges (replacing horses) along  the canals of North and North East France. In fact, one of the protagonists is a driver of what the script describes as a "traction engine". With most barges motorised the towing service closed in 1970 (apart from a few short sections associated with tunnels  too long, because of fumes,  for motorised barges)  but this episode was first shown at the end of 1961 when it was still quite well used.

The towing railways themselves ran for about 1000kms from just south of Dunkerque to Mulhouse and the Swiss border with branches to Lille etc. About two thirds of them were metre gauge and the rest - in the formerly German Alsace-Lorraine where the towing paths were narrower 600mm gauge.

They were perhaps the longest industrial narrow gauge railway system in the world but very little known . I've written a couple of articles about them but film of the towing  tractors actually moving are very rare which makes this epidode a definite "to be kept."

There's a huge website devoted to them here    http://papidema.fr/halage-mecanique.php   It's in French but translates very easily. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Pacific231G

[melmerby]

34 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

(telerecorded onto film from 625 line studio cameras)

In 1961 TV was still 405 lines.

[Pacific231G]

On 26/05/2022 at 23:35, melmerby said:

In 1961 TV was still 405 lines.

For broadcast yes, BBC-2 started on 625 lines in 1964 but they'd started switching some production from 405 lines before then. Just as programmes were made in HD for some time before HD was broadcast and currently are in 4K,   by 1961 cameras and production chains that could be switched to 625 line standards were in use. The main British TV camera makers Pye, Marconi and EMI had been producing multi-standard camera since 1954 as most European broadcasters used 625 lines from the start of their television services and they needed to export them.  Later on, programmes were mostly made in 625 lines and down converted for transmission though some regional studios were still using 405 lines until quite late.

 

Looking at the Maigret series it's very obvious that the studio scenes weren't telerecorded from a 405 line system, the quality is far too high*. Maigret was apparently the BBC's most lavish drama production to date so they would have used the then current top of the range facilities. It is possible that this was the first major BBC production to be oriignated on 625 line studio camera though AFAIK it was distributed and transmitted from film. 

*I've used archive telerecorded materiai in a number of programmes for the BBC and the difference between 405 and 625 was  very obvious. If you look at older programmes such as Quatermass and compare them you'll see the difference.

 

UPDATE

I've just found an article about the Maigret series in the 1961 Television Annual that says the series was recorded on tape. That would be interesting as the BBC didn't get it's first Ampex VTRs until the end of 1958 and I didn't think they had  editing capabilities that early.  Looking again at the studio sequences in The Golden Fleece it looks like the studio cameras were 1956 EMI CPS Emitron 10678s and I know these were  in use at Lime Grove until  about 1965.  The picture shows greater lag in pans and movement  than the later 4.5 inch image orthicons though the still image is very good. The BBC  had seventeen of these camera. They were made in 405 and 6325  line versions but, as the only other broadcaster to use them was the Australian ABC and they had the 405 line "B" verrion, some at least of the BBC camera must have been 625line. The studio seqences don't though look as if they were recorded "as live" so possibly the studio recordings were then telerecorded and cut with the filmed sequences into the final programmes. I'll see if any of my RTS contacts know any more.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Fat Controller]

13 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I've just seen some fascinating  scenes in an episode of the original Maigret series (BBC Rupert Davies) currently showing on talking Pictures TV. The epsiode is The Golden Fleeece and, like all of them, the studio scenes were recorded at Lime Grove Studios (telerecorded onto film from 625 line studio cameras) with location shooting in France. In this episode you see a lot of the metre gauge towing tractors  that, from the 1920s or before,, used to haul unpowered barges (replacing horses) along  the canals of North and North East France. In fact, one of the protagonists is a driver of what the script describes as a "traction engine". With most barges motorised the towing service closed in 1970 (apart from a few short sections associated with tunnels  too long, because of fumes,  for motorised barges)  but this episode was first shown at the end of 1961 when it was still quite well used.

The towing railways themselves ran for about 1000kms from just south of Dunkerque to Mulhouse and the Swiss border with branches to Lille etc. About two thirds of them were metre gauge and the rest - in the formerly German Alsace-Lorraine where the towing paths were narrower 600mm gauge.

They were perhaps the longest industrial narrow gauge railway system in the world but very little known . I've written a couple of articles about them but film of the towing  tractors actually moving are very rare which makes this epidode a definite "to be kept."

There's a huge website devoted to them here    http://papidema.fr/halage-mecanique.php   It's in French but translates very easily. 

At least one of the towing companies is still active today, though its focus is now on rail wagon leasing and hire. You will even see their vehicles in the UK. The company in question is TOUAX; in recent years, they have bought GERS's wagon fleet in the UK.

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

At least one of the towing companies is still active today, though its focus is now on rail wagon leasing and hire. You will even see their vehicles in the UK. The company in question is TOUAX; in recent years, they have bought GERS's wagon fleet in the UK.

Could this have been the Compagnie Générale de Poussage sur les Voies Navigables? This was formed to take over the towing (or pushing) that had been carried out by the CGTVN when that was folded up. 

After about 1926  electric towing was placed entirely in the hands of the metre gauge CGTVN- a subsidiary  of the ONN (French equivalent of British Waterways more or less)  except in Alsace where Traction de l'Est was formed in 1930 to operate the 600mm gauge towing ralways there. There were other towing companies that used tugs and, where canalside towing wasn't electrified (and therefore a CGTVN/TE monopoly)  diesel tractors that ran on the towpaths.

In 1958 CGTVN operated 1047 km of towing railways with 1700 metre gauge electric locoss. They also had 139 kms using 161 electric tractors on penumatic tyres and operated 609 diesel tractors on 2545ksm of canal. I've not been able to find equivalent numbers for TE.

 

[Fat Controller]

The company I'm thinking of is this one:- https://www.touax.com/en

[Pacific231G]

I tried to post this yesterday but my desktop  PC is playing up.  I had a look at Touax. They are (amongst other things now) a river towing company originally focussed on the Seine and Oise where they were the largest operator. The Seine is tidal and navigable by ocean going ships as far as Rouen where the first locks are. River tows normally use tugs - pushing or pulling several barges- rather than towpaths but Paris was,and to some extent still is, a fairly large port for river and canal barge traffic. Many of the barges were the Freycinet sized boats that ran on the system of wide canals that covered most of the northern half of France and connected with Belgian and German canals but there were also larger ones that just ran on the navigable rivers. There's no mention of canal towing in anything I can find about the company but that doesn't mean they weren't involved. Electrical bankside haulage was confined to the chain of canals between Dunkerque and Mulhouse along with some branches off them to places like Lille and Thionville. The barges that used them were unpowered, previously horse drawn, so the service extended on the canals they used less using diesel tractors.

 

On this map, from I think the 1930s, Remorquage would mean haulage by tugs mainly on rivers and concédes would be the services where the CGTVN and TE had a monopoly of canalside towing.  My impression is that the barges hauled by rail tractors were mostly carrying coal and tended to be the older, previously horse drawn, boats  that could carry on without capital investment in motorising them.

After CGTVN and TE closed their operations several sections of towing railway were kept on by ONN either to haul barges through the longer tunnels or, where the tunnels were equipped with electric chain tugs, to take the tow, which could be almost a kilometre long, as it emerged, very slowly, from the tunnel and pull it clear rather more quickly  after which the barges would proceed under their own power. As the tows got shorter that became less needed and though I've watched a chain tug emerging from a tunnel I was too late to see the railway being used for that purpose.

[jamie92208]

Has anyone seen the first two episodes of Sherwood. It's set in Nottinghamshire in thevpresent day but deals with various topics connected with the 84 miners strike.  Episode 1 introduced a stereotypical 'train nerd' who gave a speech at a wedding where he likened a marriage to the Settle and Car.isle line. This had many howlets butbit was apparently  built in the 1840's.  Tonights episode showed that he was a driver driving a 2 car 144 along a single track version of the Robin Hood line. Has anyone anynodea where it was filmed.

 

Jamie

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Has anyone seen the first two episodes of Sherwood. It's set in Nottinghamshire in thevpresent day but deals with various topics connected with the 84 miners strike.  Episode 1 introduced a stereotypical 'train nerd' who gave a speech at a wedding where he likened a marriage to the Settle and Car.isle line. This had many howlets butbit was apparently  built in the 1840's.  Tonights episode showed that he was a driver driving a 2 car 144 along a single track version of the Robin Hood line. Has anyone anynodea where it was filmed.

 

Jamie

I've not watched it yet but 2-car 144s are preserved at:

Nottingham Heritage Railway

Aln Valley Railway

Cambrian Heritage Railway

Weardale Railway

Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

Telford Steam Railway

I'll need to compare the footage with that.  Geographically the NHR is closest but for TV production, being in the right area isn't a major consideration, availability and suitability for filming is much more important.

[russ p]

10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Has anyone seen the first two episodes of Sherwood. It's set in Nottinghamshire in thevpresent day but deals with various topics connected with the 84 miners strike.  Episode 1 introduced a stereotypical 'train nerd' who gave a speech at a wedding where he likened a marriage to the Settle and Car.isle line. This had many howlets butbit was apparently  built in the 1840's.  Tonights episode showed that he was a driver driving a 2 car 144 along a single track version of the Robin Hood line. Has anyone anynodea where it was filmed.

 

Jamie

 

For me that was the worst part of the episode. If that had been real would have been crawling with network rail, police and TOC staff and driver certainly wouldn't be sitting in train waiting 

And seemed to be driver only.... don't encourage things!

It was also reversed somehow as there are white lights on the back of the train and cab footage shows brake handle is the shut down step 3 position.  Had very good brakes to stop in just over a train length 

Not sure where it was filmed  I may be wrong but railway seemed a bit computer generated. 

Apparently the series is filmed in Lancashire although the real Newstead station did feature last night 

[31A]

In one of the shots you can see the unit number 144009; according to this web site it is on the East Lancs - some pictures on this page show it in the livery used on the TV show, although with the unit number missing:

 

http://preserved.railcar.co.uk/144009.html

 

[Compound2632]

On 10/05/2022 at 19:27, petethemole said:

Over the last two evenings I watched the Indian film Kesari, about a last stand battle at Fort Saragarhi on the North West Frontier in 1897, where a detachment of 21 Sikhs of the 36th Sikh Infantry fought to the last man against over 10,000 Pathans,  At one point the hero and unit commander, Havildar (Sergeant) Ishar Singh, reminisces about leaving home to join the army.  At the station stands Maunsell SR Q class No. 30541.

 

Maunsell Q No. 30531:

 

 

[Embedded link to SREmG Q class page]

 

Eastern Railway of India SGC2 class No. 34171:

 

 

[Embedded link to World Railways website]

 

OK, both are wrong for 1897!

[Johann Marsbar]

I seem to have gained some urge to watch episodes of Cannon which are on YouTube and, altough I haven't got round to watching this particular episode from 1971 as yet, it does feature a train journey as part of the plot (even if its filmed in the studio..)

 

 

This screenshot does at least show some locos.....

 

 

Seems to have been filmed during the early days of Amtrak, as some Amtrak signage does appear in another shot.

 

 

[ejstubbs]

4 hours ago, 31A said:

In one of the shots you can see the unit number 144009; according to this web site it is on the East Lancs - some pictures on this page show it in the livery used on the TV show, although with the unit number missing:

 

http://preserved.railcar.co.uk/144009.html

 

 

I'm sure that I read that the railway scenes were filmed on the East Lancs, but I can't track down the source now.

[Steamport Southport]

4 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

I'm sure that I read that the railway scenes were filmed on the East Lancs, but I can't track down the source now.

 

They were. Mentioned on the Facebook page.

 

144009

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2188167681351816&set=p.2188167681351816&type=3

[ejstubbs]

Thanks for confirming what I thought I'd seen.  However, as I don't "do" Facebook on a regular basis, I'm quite sure that wasn't where I read it!

[Coach bogie]

The second episode of DI Ray was screened in Australia last night. There was a scene  at a container base with an 08 shunter.

 

Mike Wiltshire