Railway footage in feature films and television...

[Cruachan]

32 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

Sorry, I meant a redressed 91, teach me to type when I'm half-asleep :)  I couldn't tell looking at the shots if they'd modified an old power car with a new nose for the filming at station scenes, or borrowed one of those off-lease TPE sets and done a new livery.

 

EDIT

Having re-watched the scenes at Glasgow Central, I think you're right, and it's a TPE Nova 2/class 397 with vinyls covering the windows of the dvt to make it look like a power car.

No DVT in the formation of a 397 - there's no van element and the driving cars are motored. I haven't watched the show yet myself, but from discussion on the dedicated thread I've gained the impression that that external shot was done with CGI rather than physically redressing an actual train.

[whart57]

I'm watching A French Case via the Walter Presents stream on Channel 4. Based on a real case from the Vosges it has a number of scenes with a typically French two coach autorail set running into a French rural station. I don't know if this is filmed on a preserved line or on a line that is now freight only using a museum train but I'm pretty sure the last of those autorails were retired thirty years ago. They certainly wouldn't be in the red and cream livery which they had in the 60s and 70s.

 

 

The producers have also been assiduous in getting hold of period cars. The police are driving around in Renault 4s.

[rodent279]

A Touch of Frost, series 2 episode 4, HST leaving a station right at the end. Not sure which, but it is electrified at 25kv.

[DY444]

10 hours ago, rodent279 said:

A Touch of Frost, series 2 episode 4, HST leaving a station right at the end. Not sure which, but it is electrified at 25kv.

 

Wakefield Westgate

[jamie92208]

4 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

Wakefield Westgate

Filmed before the relatively recent rebuilding. 

 

Jamie

[ess1uk]

On 17/09/2024 at 07:12, Ben B said:

 

We ended up box-setting it over 2 nights. There's odd moments of course if you're an enthusiast and know the network, and I'll admit to the occasional shout at the tv, but it was quite watchable. And a lot of the sillier plot bits like the complex electronics that control everything are at least silly in-universe, exasperate the characters, and are a plot point in that they're shown to be weakneses in-universe that allowed the hack to happen.

 

Clearly there's some decent CGI and by the look of it, some composited miniatures work, but a lot of real- world filming too. I'm guessing the loco is a redressed 94 or HST with a new nose, but I'll need to look it up to be sure.

My wife just said she was putting something on tv I might want to watch 

I said are you sure?

it’s as bad as I thought 

[The Johnster]

I predicted that Nightsleeper would be a) full of the same gaffs as most American train movies; uncoupling on the move, people clambering around outside and on the roof, quiet enough inside at 100mph+ even when the windows are missing for subdued conversations to take place, hairdos immaculately in place despite the 100mph gale shreiking through the train, and b) As many nonsenses and continuity errrors as Cassandra Crossing.  There were some plot references to Cassandra when authority is planning to divert the train to disaster to save Central London.

 

a) Delivered in spades, all boxes ticked.

b) As many plot holes as Cassandra if not more, but not so bad in terms of continuity.

 

Among the more obvious (I thought) plot holes was the setup that every train in the country except this 'Heart of Britain' sleeper had been stopped and the network was in paralysis.   Despite this, HoB runs from Glasgow Central to Victoria via the WCML, Settle & Carlisle, Midland Mainline, Birminham, Oxford, Reading, and Clapham Jc over six hours, during which it encounters not one single other train ahead of it.  Is the rail network really that empty at night?  There are trains involved in collisions for dramatic effect, including one at Gretna Jc which seems to cross the WCML on a right-angled level crossing; TTBOMK none of the layout at Gretna Jc resembles that.

 

We will ignore the ficticious loco and stock, the risible plot lines, and the Secret Service across the road from Victoria Station, and that the signal that Abby switches to red automatically stopping the train just in time was facing in the down direction, the train having passed numerous red signals on it's adventure.  We will also (I'm feeling charitable) ignore the inability to detrain on 'the viaduct', plainly Ribblehead.  Ribblehead has a single track line in the middle of it's originally double track trackbed, and there is more than enough room both sides of the train to get off, though I'll admit you could twist an ankle or graze your hands in the process.  And there wouldn't have been enough of the oil rigger left for Joe to see what had happened in the dark, nor would he have heard the squelch (bet fx loved doing that) from the length of  the loco away; those on the train would have only known that he'd gone missing, and assumed he'd attempted to make it to the hospital by road.

 

Couple of daft assumptions.  A train running through the buffers of a London Terminus at full speed is not going to improve anyone's day, but at that time of the morning it won't kill too many people and by the time it hits the secret service building having gone through Victoria concourse and booking hall is not going to do more than cosmetic damage to the building.  It is not going to be a major disaster taking out a good part of Central London.

 

Nor is it going to stop from the speed it is shown to be doing as it passes Abby within the Victoria platform length. Why not Canon Street, where the real MI5 building would be damaged?

 

A locomotive, even one that doesn't exist, should be hittable from a helicopter flying alongside the train carrying trained army machine gunners without peppering the coaches as well.  And a per.way crew could have removed a rail or so to derail the train in a way that passengers braced for impact would have survived. 

 

I was promised (in the Beeb's Blurb) CGI window fx; apart from a few yards out of Glasgow Central, I saw nothing that resembled the world outside the train.  And the scaremongering of the storyline, that electronic control and ownership of the rail network is foriegn and out of hands completely, is hogwash; there are too many systems to control.

  

I had a good laugh out of it all, though!

 

 

[Phil Parker]

24 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I predicted that Nightsleeper would be a) full of the same gaffs as most American train movies; uncoupling on the move, people clambering around outside and on the roof, quiet enough inside at 100mph+ even when the windows are missing for subdued conversations to take place, hairdos immaculately in place despite the 100mph gale shreiking through the train, and b) As many nonsenses and continuity errrors as Cassandra Crossing.  There were some plot references to Cassandra when authority is planning to divert the train to disaster to save Central London.

 

a) Delivered in spades, all boxes ticked.

b) As many plot holes as Cassandra if not more, but not so bad in terms of continuity.

 

Among the more obvious (I thought) plot holes was the setup that every train in the country except this 'Heart of Britain' sleeper had been stopped and the network was in paralysis.   Despite this, HoB runs from Glasgow Central to Victoria via the WCML, Settle & Carlisle, Midland Mainline, Birminham, Oxford, Reading, and Clapham Jc over six hours, during which it encounters not one single other train ahead of it.  Is the rail network really that empty at night?  There are trains involved in collisions for dramatic effect, including one at Gretna Jc which seems to cross the WCML on a right-angled level crossing; TTBOMK none of the layout at Gretna Jc resembles that.

 

We will ignore the ficticious loco and stock, the risible plot lines, and the Secret Service across the road from Victoria Station, and that the signal that Abby switches to red automatically stopping the train just in time was facing in the down direction, the train having passed numerous red signals on it's adventure.  We will also (I'm feeling charitable) ignore the inability to detrain on 'the viaduct', plainly Ribblehead.  Ribblehead has a single track line in the middle of it's originally double track trackbed, and there is more than enough room both sides of the train to get off, though I'll admit you could twist an ankle or graze your hands in the process.  And there wouldn't have been enough of the oil rigger left for Joe to see what had happened in the dark, nor would he have heard the squelch (bet fx loved doing that) from the length of  the loco away; those on the train would have only known that he'd gone missing, and assumed he'd attempted to make it to the hospital by road.

 

Couple of daft assumptions.  A train running through the buffers of a London Terminus at full speed is not going to improve anyone's day, but at that time of the morning it won't kill too many people and by the time it hits the secret service building having gone through Victoria concourse and booking hall is not going to do more than cosmetic damage to the building.  It is not going to be a major disaster taking out a good part of Central London.

 

Nor is it going to stop from the speed it is shown to be doing as it passes Abby within the Victoria platform length. Why not Canon Street, where the real MI5 building would be damaged?

 

A locomotive, even one that doesn't exist, should be hittable from a helicopter flying alongside the train carrying trained army machine gunners without peppering the coaches as well.  And a per.way crew could have removed a rail or so to derail the train in a way that passengers braced for impact would have survived. 

 

I was promised (in the Beeb's Blurb) CGI window fx; apart from a few yards out of Glasgow Central, I saw nothing that resembled the world outside the train.  And the scaremongering of the storyline, that electronic control and ownership of the rail network is foriegn and out of hands completely, is hogwash; there are too many systems to control.

  

I had a good laugh out of it all, though!

 

 

 

There is a separate thread for The Night Sleeper -

 

[The Johnster]

Apologies, Phil, I missed that.  Wasn't one thread locked?

[Coach bogie]

Rumpole of the Bailey - Rumpole and the Show Folk, currently on talking pictures has Leo Mckern arriving at Manchester Victoria with a class 40 on PW train going through. Internal carriage shots are air condition stock, he gets out of a DMU in the bay platforms then walks passed mark 1 stock on the further through platforms, which changes to a DMU again.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[John M Upton]

North Sea Hijack, a.k.a ffolkes, long forgotten early 1980's film with a bearded cat loving not being James Bond Roger Moore trying to defeat hijackers of a North Sea oil rig and its support boat (led by Anthony Perkins of all people), hilarious film with a great soundtrack, yet our hero of the hour who lives in his Scottish castle, lobbing live hand grenades into loch's to encourage his team of ex SAS types to swim faster as part of their training, somehow manages at his local station to board a west country allocated DMU, (one of the Class 117 et-al family) in all over blue.

 

Interior shot, probably a Pinewood Studios set as it seems familiar from other films duly follows...

[Pacific231G]

13 hours ago, John M Upton said:

North Sea Hijack, a.k.a ffolkes, long forgotten early 1980's film with a bearded cat loving not being James Bond Roger Moore trying to defeat hijackers of a North Sea oil rig and its support boat (led by Anthony Perkins of all people), hilarious film with a great soundtrack, yet our hero of the hour who lives in his Scottish castle, lobbing live hand grenades into loch's to encourage his team of ex SAS types to swim faster as part of their training, somehow manages at his local station to board a west country allocated DMU, (one of the Class 117 et-al family) in all over blue.

 

Interior shot, probably a Pinewood Studios set as it seems familiar from other films duly follows...

I once needed a railway compartment for an item in a studio programme I was producing. There was no way on our budget we could afford a new build but in those days (over thirty years ago when Television Centre was a real "vertically integrated" and very efficient TV production factory) the designer could simply order such a thing from the scenery store as a stock item. You could order it with a corridor but I don't think we did. It was  a pretty nondescript BR Mk 1 type and I  suspect that quite a lot of it, especially the seats, had been bought from them.  I'm sure I've seen the same compartment in other BBC programmes. A single compartment did of course require a smaller build than would a saloon carriage. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Pacific231G