Railway footage in feature films and television...

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Thanks Keefer. Shows I don't read through threads...

There must be many such bits of rail and pointwork around the country at various training facilities.

I know the Railway Engineering College (what was originally the LMS School of Transport) at Derby had such a set-up around the side. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I know the Railway Engineering College (what was originally the LMS School of Transport) at Derby had such a set-up around the side.

 

We had that on the abandoned rails a bit back!

 

Mike.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

5 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

We had that on the abandoned rails a bit back!

 

Mike.

 Another thread I obviously didn't read through... 🤪

 

Maybe a suitable subject for a PhD. "The implications on users for only partially reading online group threads, within the context of a railway environment, both real and model". 

[Ben B]

Bit of an unusual one the other night whilst on 4od. A "Grand Designs" where they were building a house in the woods in Herefordshire, and they couldn't get the trailer with building materials up a muddy track.

 

So, the ever-ingenious son of the ownwer built himself a narrow gauge railway from steel bar and wood, constructed a simple battery electric motorised bogie, all assisted with a winch. Essentially he built himswlf a temporary contractors railway to move the parts :)

 

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, Ben B said:

Bit of an unusual one the other night whilst on 4od. A "Grand Designs" where they were building a house in the woods in Herefordshire, and they couldn't get the trailer with building materials up a muddy track.

 

So, the ever-ingenious son of the ownwer built himself a narrow gauge railway from steel bar and wood, constructed a simple battery electric motorised bogie, all assisted with a winch. Essentially he built himswlf a temporary contractors railway to move the parts :)

 

This sounds amazing. Have you got a series and episode number so I can have a look?

 

9 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Maybe a suitable subject for a PhD. "The implications on users for only partially reading online group threads, within the context of a railway environment, both real and model". 

I’m not sure anyone could keep going for 3-6 years writing that. At the very least the topic has to be interesting to the PhD candidate themselves…

[Northmoor]

10 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

 Maybe a suitable subject for a PhD. "The implications on users for only partially reading online group threads, within the context of a railway environment, both real and model". 

implications likely to be limited to light-to-moderate tutting, muttering and eye-rolling but not much else.  This forum is one branch of social media which can seem to avoid Godwin's law, death threats and racial abuse (although the ardent GWR followers have to tread a fine line). 

[009 micro modeller]

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Godwin's law,

 

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

ardent GWR followers

Do you know who else wanted to build a broad gauge railway? 😂😂

[Hobby]

Russians, Spanish/Portuguese, US, Indian, Argentinian, Chilean... The list goes on... 😂

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

Russians, Spanish/Portuguese, US, Indian, Argentinian, Chilean... The list goes on... 😂

And includes the Great Western Railway in Canada - another broad gauge company although its track gauge was only 5ft 6"

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

Russians, Spanish/Portuguese, US, Indian, Argentinian, Chilean... The list goes on... 😂

Also the early Dutch railways.

[Hobby]

Yes there's plenty, though some think it was only that guy in the west of England that had the idea! 😊

[Pacific231G]

We've discussed it before but TalkingPicturesTV have shown "The Last Journey" again. This is the 1935 film about a driver forced to retire making his last run with a train full of stories. I had thought it might have been inspired to some extent by  Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine with Jean Gabin but it came out three years earlier though it's likely that Zola's novel may have done so. 

 

It's not a great film though it's not bad as 1930s melodramas go  It was also made with the full cooperation of the GWR which involved several weeks of filming, much of it around Paddington  and that does show on the screen. A number of scenes illustrate operations at Paddington Station. with pannier tanks bringing ECS in and out or following departing trains along the platform. , main line locos at Ranelagh Bridge and backing onto trains for departure or also following (tender first) departing ECS down the platform. 

There are a number of screen captures of railway scenes from it here  https://londononlocation.co.uk/films/last-journey-the/

TTPTV seem to run this film reasonably frequently and it's worth seeing.

Edited August 5 by Pacific231G

[Coach bogie]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

We've discussed it before but TalkingPicturesTV have shown "The Last Journey" again. This is the 1935 film about a driver forced to retire making his last run with a train full of stories. I had thought it might have been inspired to some extent by  Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine with Jean Gabin but it came out three years earlier though it's likely that Zola's novel may have done so. 

 

It's not a great film though it's not bad as 1930s melodramas go  It was also made with the full cooperation of the GWR which involved several weeks of filming, much of it around Paddington  and that does show on the screen. A number of scenes illustrate operations at Paddington Station. with pannier tanks bringing ECS in and out or following departing trains along the platform. , main line locos at Ranelagh Bridge and backing onto trains for departure or also following (tender first) departing ECS down the platform. 

There are a number of screen captures of railway scenes from it here  https://londononlocation.co.uk/films/last-journey-the/

TTPTV seem to run this film reasonably frequently and it's worth seeing.

But for a GWR fan it is a must. In their last years of operation there are a number of articulated coach sets featured. For me it is the ex Great Bear 111 Viscount Churchill in the background when the King is being turned.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Nick Gough]

11 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

We've discussed it before but TalkingPicturesTV have shown "The Last Journey" again. This is the 1935 film about a driver forced to retire making his last run with a train full of stories. I had thought it might have been inspired to some extent by  Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine with Jean Gabin but it came out three years earlier though it's likely that Zola's novel may have done so. 

 

It's not a great film though it's not bad as 1930s melodramas go  It was also made with the full cooperation of the GWR which involved several weeks of filming, much of it around Paddington  and that does show on the screen. A number of scenes illustrate operations at Paddington Station. with pannier tanks bringing ECS in and out or following departing trains along the platform. , main line locos at Ranelagh Bridge and backing onto trains for departure or also following (tender first) departing ECS down the platform. 

There are a number of screen captures of railway scenes from it here  https://londononlocation.co.uk/films/last-journey-the/

TTPTV seem to run this film reasonably frequently and it's worth seeing.

 

52 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

But for a GWR fan it is a must. In their last years of operation there are a number of articulated coach sets featured. For me it is the ex Great Bear 111 Viscount Churchill in the background when the King is being turned.

 

Mike Wiltshire

I do enjoy watching this one, though it's a bit of sport to spot all the continuity errors. Castle turns into Saint turns into King, Pannier turns into 2251. Formation of the featured train changes from scene to scene.

 

And how does Godfrey Tearle get onto the footplate? Still, that must have encouraged him to fire the Titfield Thunderbolt a couple of decades later.

 

All good fun and some nice shots of GWR trains in action in their heyday.

 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Nick Gough said:

 

I do enjoy watching this one, though it's a bit of sport to spot all the continuity errors. Castle turns into Saint turns into King, Pannier turns into 2251. Formation of the featured train changes from scene to scene.

 

And how does Godfrey Tearle get onto the footplate? Still, that must have encouraged him to fire the Titfield Thunderbolt a couple of decades later.

 

All good fun and some nice shots of GWR trains in action in their heyday.

 

It's probably one of the worst films ever made when it comes to railway continuity errors (as my email to 'The Footage Detectives' pointed out).  Apart from a considerable variety of engines working both the 'Boat Express' and the freight train the changes of direction in which both trains are heading are considerable and equally the progress westwards of the train being chased by out intrepid hero gores back & forth in terms of the stations through which it passes as well as the direction in which it is travelling.  And the fun even extends to the arrival of the hero's car at Paddington when he arrives in the wrong direction on the Arrival Side vehicle exit road.  There are incidentally one or two errors in the descriptions of locations given on 'Reel Streets' - but it's still well worth a look.

 

But - forgiving the closing shot, which was clearly filmed on SR territory - it's  a great film to watch if you don't take it too seriously and soak up all the railway scenes for the value of what they show rather than the order in which they appear.

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, Nick Gough said:

I do enjoy watching this one, though it's a bit of sport to spot all the continuity errors. Castle turns into Saint turns into King, Pannier turns into 2251. Formation of the featured train changes from scene to scene. And how does Godfrey Tearle get onto the footplate?

 

Was it through the corridor tenders on the Flying Scotsman?

[Pacific231G]

On 06/08/2024 at 12:37, The Stationmaster said:

It's probably one of the worst films ever made when it comes to railway continuity errors (as my email to 'The Footage Detectives' pointed out).  Apart from a considerable variety of engines working both the 'Boat Express' and the freight train the changes of direction in which both trains are heading are considerable and equally the progress westwards of the train being chased by out intrepid hero gores back & forth in terms of the stations through which it passes as well as the direction in which it is travelling.  And the fun even extends to the arrival of the hero's car at Paddington when he arrives in the wrong direction on the Arrival Side vehicle exit road.  There are incidentally one or two errors in the descriptions of locations given on 'Reel Streets' - but it's still well worth a look.

 

But - forgiving the closing shot, which was clearly filmed on SR territory - it's  a great film to watch if you don't take it too seriously and soak up all the railway scenes for the value of what they show rather than the order in which they appear.

Well Mike, the sequencing of stations is not really a continuity error if you accept that they, even Paddington, are standing in for imaginary stations on the fictional route of the "Boat Express". It surely can't be Paddington, however much it looks like it, because you didn't need a platform ticket to get to the buffet which was on platform 1. (That took me back to buying platform tickets at Oxford for train watching) 

I think it's the fact that most of the train scenes in The Last Journey seem to have simply been shots of normal activity picked up over several weeks of filming rather than all being specially staged that makes it such a good source of railway scenes.

 

Still on GWR territory, I've just been half watching on London Live TV a 1963  B feature called The Marked One. The only thing interesting about it was several shots filmed on and near Brentford Docks. No trains moving but various wagons being loaded or sitting in sidings and shots of the hydraulic (I think) dock cranes on the other side of the basin. I find Brentford Docks interesting as it's an unusual example of docks too far up river to be served by normal seagoing ships (though still well within the tidal Thames so PLA territory) but only by lighters (and of course narrrow boats and barges from the Brentford Branch of the GUC).  

The Pilot pub was not in Brentford but is in Chiswick - the film's budget presumably didn't run to re-dressing it for a couple of exteriors- and a notable bringer of unpleasant memories was the Watneys Red Barrel tap on the bar (but was Red Barrel really as awful as we now like to think?)

Edited August 7 by Pacific231G

[Ben B]

There's obscure, and then there's obscure ;)

 

Kids telly from the 1990's.  Some of the typical stereotypes of trainspotters, as popular at the time, but quite a lot of location footage from the Kent and East Sussex Railway.

 

This came to mind a little while ago, when talking with a mate about old progs from when we were growing up.  I did vaguely remember "Wolf It" from the time (it was 30 years ago for me now!), bought up because we're planning on doing a project with dog hand-puppets for a kids book (long story).  I don't think I saw this episode at the time, but I do remember my equally train-mad friend Richard enthusing about it the day after at school. 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53aLn7aTseg&list=PLohd5UVV10lxeuXRhPEPxWSHkyWprZa1v&index=2

 

 

[Rugd1022]

On 06/08/2024 at 12:37, The Stationmaster said:

It's probably one of the worst films ever made when it comes to railway continuity errors (as my email to 'The Footage Detectives' pointed out).  Apart from a considerable variety of engines working both the 'Boat Express' and the freight train the changes of direction in which both trains are heading are considerable and equally the progress westwards of the train being chased by out intrepid hero gores back & forth in terms of the stations through which it passes as well as the direction in which it is travelling.  And the fun even extends to the arrival of the hero's car at Paddington when he arrives in the wrong direction on the Arrival Side vehicle exit road.  There are incidentally one or two errors in the descriptions of locations given on 'Reel Streets' - but it's still well worth a look.

 

But - forgiving the closing shot, which was clearly filmed on SR territory - it's  a great film to watch if you don't take it too seriously and soak up all the railway scenes for the value of what they show rather than the order in which they appear.

 

In the film's defense Mike, with three week's worth of footage in the can, the editor would have no clue as to which sequence is on the up or on the down (even if each segment had been clapperboarded at the start when the camera rolls) and would have spliced it all together under the director's guidance. I've not seen it but I shall see if I can find a copy on DVD!

 

I've recently started rewatching 'The Saint' again with Roger Moore which in several episodes uses stock footage filmed 'somewhere in Europe', the same short clip appears in multiple episodes (much like the famous 'white Jag going off the cliff' footage first used {twice!} in 'The Baron'), old Lew Grade loved saving the pennies 😉.

 

 

[Ben B]

5 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

I've recently started rewatching 'The Saint' again with Roger Moore which in several episodes uses stock footage filmed 'somewhere in Europe', the same short clip appears in multiple episodes (much like the famous 'white Jag going off the cliff' footage first used {twice!} in 'The Baron'), old Lew Grade loved saving the pennies 😉.

 

 

 

An interesting one I really like with The Saint is an episode where he arrives in a small village... the close-ups and are shot on the typical Pinewood Backlot, but the wide shots are day-for-night of Temple arriving and parking up in the deserted centre of Tremadog, near Porthmadog (there's more footage in the episode of him driving up a winding mountain road, which I think is the lane from Tanygrisau to the Stlwan Dam).  It always amuses me, as we drive through Tremadog a lot when visiting family in Wales.  I think it would be quite hard to get Tremadog that deserted now, compared to the 1960's! 

[KeithMacdonald]

32 minutes ago, Ben B said:

I think it would be quite hard to get Tremadog that deserted now, compared to the 1960's! 

 

For a small fee, we   could arrange it for you. 😉 

I'm thinking  @The Johnster with his fleet of drones, and an incident on the A498 perhaps?

 

[The Johnster]

On 07/08/2024 at 18:41, Pacific231G said:

(but was Red Barrel really as awful as we now like to think?)

 

No, it was worse.  Utter dishwater.

8 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

I've recently started rewatching 'The Saint' again with Roger Moore which in several episodes uses stock footage filmed 'somewhere in Europe'

 

IIRC, several episodes of The Saint (🎶 der dera der doo doo, doo🎵) featured a stock shot of a Standard 5MT with a rake of SR stock being given the beans through somewhere like Woking, whistle screaming despite not being the right note and no steam issuing from it, on one occasion purporting to be an SNCF express from Paris to Bordeaux or somewhere.

 

On 06/08/2024 at 12:37, The Stationmaster said:

On 06/08/2024 at 11:23, Nick Gough said:

 

It's probably one of the worst films ever made when it comes to railway continuity errors (as my email to 'The Footage Detectives' pointed out).

 

You want continuity errors and daft plot that even decent stars like Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, and Burt Lanaster could not rescue, Mike, I give you The Cassandra Crossing (1976); absolute unadulterated rubbish but worth watching to see how many conterrs and plot holes you can spot.  The train is allegedly en route from Geneva to Stockholm, with a deadly virus and a terrorist aboard, and is divereted down a closed branch over the eponymous crossing, a rusting derelect steel girder bridge. 

 

In one scene, the train is an SNCF diesel with red stock on a single track which enters a tunnel (the producer knew all about scenic breaks) from which it emerges in the next shot as a Swiss electric with green stock on a double track route.  The driver is instructed to not stop for any reason, though how this information is passed to him in the cab in 1976 is not explained, and route knowledge from Geneva to Stockholm suggests a Saltley Seagull.  The train is stopped on a sealed-off platform in Frankfurt, where the US army turns up and welds plates over all the doors to make sure nobody can escape, but only on the platform side!!!   These plates do not appear in subsequent shots.

 

This wonder-train has varying types of locos and stock in different scenes, and of course as often happens in film runs absolutely silently so that normal dialogue can take place in the carriages.  The number of coaches varies a fair bit as well; you might explain less coaches by invoking the slip-coach principle (this is actually part of the plotline at the climax), but not when more have apparently been coupled since the last shot; apparently shunters can work on moving trains at 90mph. 

 

The final climax, as the train crashes off the bridge, is risible; there is an endless and ridiculous number of coaches flying into the ravine below despite the portion with the goodies in having been uncoupled and rolled to a stop a mile or so back.  It was an insult to audiences and the actors, and there were some big names there who knew what they were doing (as well as OJ Simpson) so budget couldn't have been the issue.  You can only regard it as a comedy, of errors.

Edited August 8 by The Johnster

[Northmoor]

21 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

This wonder-train has varying types of locos and stock in different scenes, and of course as often happens in film runs absolutely silently so that normal dialogue can take place in the carriages. 

OT but a common error with any film/TV programme with scenes on an airliner; there is none of the background roar of engines and air passing over the fuselage at 500mph+.  The recent ITV series "Red Eye" was a notable exception.

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

You want continuity errors and daft plot that even decent stars like Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, and Burt Lancaster could not rescue, Mike, I give you The Cassandra Crossing (1976); absolute unadulterated rubbish but worth watching to see how many conterrs and plot holes you can spot.  The train is allegedly en route from Geneva to Stockholm, with a deadly virus and a terrorist aboard, and is diverted down a closed branch over the eponymous crossing, a rusting derelict steel girder bridge. 

 

In one scene, the train is an SNCF diesel with red stock on a single track which enters a tunnel (the producer knew all about scenic breaks) from which it emerges in the next shot as a Swiss electric with green stock on a double track route.  The driver is instructed to not stop for any reason, though how this information is passed to him in the cab in 1976 is not explained, and route knowledge from Geneva to Stockholm suggests a Saltley Seagull.  The train is stopped on a sealed-off platform in Frankfurt, where the US army turns up and welds plates over all the doors to make sure nobody can escape, but only on the platform side!!!   These plates do not appear in subsequent shots.

 

This wonder-train has varying types of locos and stock in different scenes, and of course as often happens in film runs absolutely silently so that normal dialogue can take place in the carriages.  The number of coaches varies a fair bit as well; you might explain less coaches by invoking the slip-coach principle (this is actually part of the plotline at the climax), but not when more have apparently been coupled since the last shot; apparently shunters can work on moving trains at 90mph. 

 

The final climax, as the train crashes off the bridge, is risible; there is an endless and ridiculous number of coaches flying into the ravine below despite the portion with the goodies in having been uncoupled and rolled to a stop a mile or so back.  It was an insult to audiences and the actors, and there were some big names there who knew what they were doing (as well as OJ Simpson) so budget couldn't have been the issue.  You can only regard it as a comedy, of errors.

A truly disastrously bad disaster movie and not forgetting that the "Cassandra Crossing" was Gustave Eiffel's most famous bridge, the  Garabit Viaduct in the Massif Central, so a bit like choosing the Forth, Royal Albert, or Britannia Bridge as a generic British railway bridge.

It does strike me how often dramas set on trains manage to derail themselves.

 

Cassandra It was probably not much sillier (so very silly)  than many other derivative disaster movies. Who can forget Airport 79- The Concorde, Towering Inferno, Raise the Titanic (like Cassandra Crossing produced by Lew Grade)  or the 1957 "Zero Hour" (guilt-ridden ex-fighter pilot has to land an airliner when both pilots had the fish) which "Airplane" was actually a remake of. Most of the script is the same including "Looks like I chose the wrong day to give up smoking" and "Good luck, we're all counting on you"  which only shows how thin the line between melodrama and hilarious comedy really is. For more see.

https://paleofuture.com/blog/2019/3/18/this-fun-fact-will-change-the-way-you-watch-the-movie-airplane

 

Edited August 8 by Pacific231G

[Enterprisingwestern]

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

OT but a common error with any film/TV programme with scenes on an airliner; there is none of the background roar of engines and air passing over the fuselage at 500mph+.  The recent ITV series "Red Eye" was a notable exception.

 

Also when turbulence/spiralling downwards is filmed from within said aeroplane, the camera being rock steady whilst it's occupants are thrown mercilessly about the place!

 

Mike.