Railways in period dramas

[deltic1989]

There was one railway continuity error that I picked out once.
That was in "Goodnight Mister Tom", IIRC they used a GWR hall, or rather 2 of them as the train leaves London in wartime black and arrives in the country in GWR green.
Oh and the number on the smokebox door changes too, even though I am sure at that time the numbers were painted on the buffer beam.

largely though it doesn't bother me, as has been said the films are made for the mass market who won't be sitting there waiting for the film company to screw up a railway scene.
The average film goer doesn't give a stuff in my experience, if it looks like a train and sounds like a train its a train and thats all there is to it really.

 

[Tiny Tim]

I chuckled at the Poriot Plymouth Express film. They were on a single track pulled by a pannier tank, good show like the plots

Even a show like Poirot with a reasonable budget has to draw the line somewhere. I'm sure the producers were aware that single track was wrong. I seem to remember that it was a GWR loco, so they at least tried. If I remember correctly, the station scenes are filmed elsewhere. The absence of the loco at these locations is concealed by carefully wafted 'steam'.

 

[coupwotcoup]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I too am
guilty as charged for constantly picking holes in period
dramas.

Parades End is good but would Benny Cumberbatch (nailed on
for the next Dr Who, shurely...ed?) really have
said that he'd rather be in the trenches before war had
actually broken out?

Mind you, continuity would be the last thing on my mind,
if Rebecca Hall was bouncing up and down on me in a sexually
provocative manner..nice tits too .

And the blond sort he's currently sniffing around scrubs up well
too..not a stunner but oozes sexuality.

I digress....In the film, The Fourth Protocol, Michael Caine jumps on the train
at Marylebone - at a ridiculously high speed and gets off at.... Colchester.

As for Mission Impossible, said TGV is supposed to be travelling from
the UK to France, no?

In a latter episode of Spooks they consistently refer to Stansted
Airport as Stanstead.

I'm sure I'll get over it though...now where's the bottle opener?

 

[D6975]

As someone else pointed out 'normals' don't care as long as it looks right.
Bad continuity is likely to be spotted by anyone though.

I watched an old episode of Doc Martin the other day and he collected his parents from Bodmin Parkway. The train arrived - a FGW purply-blue 153, but they then got off a silver and red voyager. Even the least observant viewer would have spotted that surely.
Completely different colour and suddenly grown in length somewhat.

 

[sprinterguy]

At the cinema yesterday saw the poster for the new version of 'Anna Karenina'... if the poster is anything to go by, this film set in 19th century Russia has at least one scene set on the Great Western in the 20th century... look in the bottom left of the image...
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/still/anna-karenina-poster02.jpg

There’s similar issues to be found in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, where quite a long sequence of scenes show the main characters picking their way around the Didcot Railway Centre being used to depict a German munitions factory. Clearly, this munitions factory is located deep within the “Great Western” region of German Railways, with tank and tender side company lettering, brass numberplates and Prairie tanks being blatantly obvious. I hadn’t realised that the Germans had such a predilection for copper capped boiler fittings! I didn’t feel that this in anyway detracted from the film, mind, but as an enthusiast it did mildly amuse me.

Interestingly, in the film the Didcot Railway Centre has also been “relocated” so that it borders onto a large forest, which it has to be said would be quite an improvement over having Didcot as its neighbour!

Conversely, I was very impressed with the lengths that one of the recent “Narnia” series of film releases went to, to provide a fully CGI-d Paddington station full of period GWR coaching stock, even going so far as to position a couple of (presumably computer generated) “Kings” and “Castles” stabled outside of the station throat as the train departs, as there would have been at the time, ready to back onto other waiting trains. Clearly, someone in the production department knew what they were doing there!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Thats not as bad as something advertised on ITV tonight, it looks like a 37 or 40 in BR blue with smoke around it. and the customary american steam whistle that is added to anything on wheels and rails

That’ll no doubt have been advertising for “Mrs Biggs” then, with a class 40 being (accurately) used to depict the Great Train Robbery. Admittedly, at that time some class 40s did have steam heat capability, although it being needed for a parcels train is unlikely.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Poirot on Sunday, St Pancras instead of Doncaster

 

[pendolino]

There was one railway continuity error that I picked out once.
That was in "Goodnight Mister Tom", IIRC they used a GWR hall, or rather 2 of them as the train leaves London in wartime black and arrives in the country in GWR green.
Oh and the number on the smokebox door changes too, even though I am sure at that time the numbers were painted on the buffer beam.

Or maybe there was no direct service and they changed trains en route. The footage of them getting off one train, waiting around for the next one, reading the paper, having a coffee, looking up at the station clock, tutting because the train's late (there's a war on!), asking the station staff what platform they need, crossing the footbridge to the right platform, then back again because they were told the wrong thing, then finally getting on the right train, the one with the green engine, was all too dull and ended up on the cutting room floor, or its digital equivalent.

 

[deltic1989]

Or maybe there was no direct service and they changed trains en route. The footage of them getting off one train, waiting around for the next one, reading the paper, having a coffee, looking up at the station clock, tutting because the train's late (there's a war on!), asking the station staff what platform they need, crossing the footbridge to the right platform, then back again because they were told the wrong thing, then finally getting on the right train, the one with the green engine, was all too dull and ended up on the cutting room floor, or its digital equivalent.

That is one option I agree, but I must admit to making a mistake in my original post. After rewatching I have seen that the loco number remains the same and only the colour changes enroute, sorry for any confusion.
I must say that apart from that the historical details in it were brilliant, my guess is that the more recent the period being depicted, the more accurate it is (although 'life on mars' has a couple of clangers, mainly with road vehicles) , probably because there are people who remember these periods who can advise. Where as with dramas set in the 19th Century there are no people alive that lived in that period so the production crew cannot work from first had accounts.
I don't know, but I can't say that i have ever had a railway or other error completely ruin a program for me.

 

[fourwheelsteer]

It isn't just period dramas. I remember seeing a 1980s adaptation of an Agatha Christie story starring Bill Bixby. Opening shots are of a HST, cut to Bixby in the compartment of a BR Mk1. Ok, you think, maybe there are supposed to be two trains. No; more HST, followed by a loco-hauled (25, 33 or similar) Mk1s pulling into a station and people boarding. Cut to the compartment where Bixby is engaged in conversation with a typical Christie old lady. Then more scenes of HST before we arrive at Marylebone.

I could understand filming a different loco and coaches but to film (or use stock footage) of two completely different trains makes no sense at all.

Still, I sort of enjoy spotting minor continuity errors.

 

[MP33]

One of the websites that lists film and tv mistakes has a rule that if it takes an expert to spot a mistake then it does not count.

I watched a training film at work once where someones journey started out on Chiltern Rail on a blue DMU and ended at Marylebone on a blue and white DMU.

That was the only thing I really remembered from the course.

 

[EM2]

In a latter episode of Spooks they consistently refer to Stansted
Airport as Stanstead.

To be fair, just before the barriers in the Tube ticket hall at LST, there's a sign that says exactly that!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Watching 'Bletchley Circle' on ITV last night, and mention was made of the 'GOBLin', i.e. the Gospel Oak - Barking Line. Which I doubt would have been known by that name immediately post-WWII, and almost certainly didn't terminate at Gospel Oak.
And later confirmed by them investigating a connection from a St Pancras - Barking service.
Also, the departure board at St Pancras showed a service calling Wellingborough - Northampton - Kettering, which seemed very unlikely?

 

[Wyvern]

Nevertheless they did a pretty good job of recreating the atmosphere of St Pancras as I used to know it.

I did notice the amount of smoke the train was putting out as it passed under a bridge. Presumably not possible to buy authentic period coal.

 

[RPM]

I don't know if anyone watched the first episode of "Mrs Biggs", but the railway scenes were exceptional. An almost perfect rendition of a mid to late 1960s railway complete with green 47s and even a glimpse of a blue Western. A certain amount to CGI seemed to have been employed and it was all beautifully done.
Unfortunately though, these scenes were meant to be the mid to late 1950s. Doh!

 

[coupwotcoup]

Last week's Bletchley Circle saw one of the girls
enter the train at Harringay into a 'Southern' carriage.

Also, they keep mentioning the 'Goblin' line originally
starting at St Pancras...did it used to run from there to
Barking then?

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Mind you, it's not just the modern films that do this.

In the 1930's, the GWR allowed a film called "The Last Journey" to be filmed along various parts of the main line from Paddington. Because they had to film when they were allowed to (i.e. when services permitted), the engines used change from frame to frame.

The express train on which most of the action takes place is hauled by various Kings, Castle, Halls - and it's supposed to be the same train! The same applies to the other trains that are seen - they change their locos at will, sometimes to something completely inappropriate.

I'd really like to get a copy of the film, though - any suggestions of how I can do this will be very appreciated !

 

[colchesterken]

Also, they keep mentioning the 'Goblin' line originally
starting at St Pancras...did it used to run from there to

Brings a tear to the eye I lived 2 houses from the viaduct at Wanstead Park used to watch the steam trains from my bedroom window..that must be why I failed 11+
They used to run boat trains from St P. to Tilbury must be all of 15 miles, those were the days, I think the locals started at Kentish Town before the fire cut the signals

 

[EM2]

Believe it or not, I now live three houses from the viaduct at Wanstead Park, and I can see all the trains from my bedroom window.
Without disclosing too much personal info, does the street where you used to live share its name with a recent former US president?

 

[colchesterken]

Hi EM2 nothing to hide not lived there for 40 yrs Cranmer road off Sebert road
when I think of all the photos I could have taken I regret not realising what I had available

 

[Oswyntail]

In the wonderful "Parades End" I have been impressed by the way they have used the exterior of St Pancras when people catch the train to the continent, while putting a CGI rendition of a different station in the background through the archway.

 

[EM2]

I'm the other side of Woodgrange Road, off Dames Road.
But back on topic, there were services into St Pancras, and in fact the Middleton Press book is called 'St Pancras To Barking'.

 

[colchesterken]

They used to run fast trains to Southend.all stations to woodgrange park fast to benfleet
many a happy day at southend in the late 50s early 60s evening sat cheap tickets to the lights
poor old southend it has gone to peices. I was at brighton on sat night a few weeks ago the place was alive.. southend dies at about 8 pm