4.50 from Paddington query

[Dave W]

One only needs to look at the steady stream of budding novelists who come by these four walls asking for advice to see that it can be done with some proper resesrch. I'm always very disappointed when a railway scene is egregiously wrong in television or film although I accept it's logistically a lot more difficult and a liberal application of one's suspension of disbelief is needed.

Perhaps my all time favourite cock up - on road, not rail - was in the film adaptation of the Borrowers with John Goodman. The setting was a British town and all except Goodman were British actors, so imagine the jarring scene as heritage British road vehicles, on British roads, drove on the bloody right

 

[Taunton]

Noises off can be amusing, often taken from stock recordings which just have a simplistic labelling. I've certainly heard USA Nathan 5-Chime train horns applied to passing British trains. There used to be an actual vinyl LP of the traditional type which studios all bought with a whole range of noises and one-sentence descriptions in the accompanying notes, which turned up everywhere, just sounds like "car driving off".

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

One only needs to look at the steady stream of budding novelists who come by these four walls asking for advice to see that it can be done with some proper resesrch. I'm always very disappointed when a railway scene is egregiously wrong in television or film although I accept it's logistically a lot more difficult and a liberal application of one's suspension of disbelief is needed.

Perhaps my all time favourite cock up - on road, not rail - was in the film adaptation of the Borrowers with John Goodman. The setting was a British town and all except Goodman were British actors, so imagine the jarring scene as heritage British road vehicles, on British roads, drove on the bloody right

Must have been in Gibraltar then! Fun fact - it is the only British territory, former or current, that drives on the right. It did feel strange cycling there with familiar road signs and markings, but riding on the 'wrong' side.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Must have been in Gibraltar then! Fun fact - it is the only British territory, former or current, that drives on the right. It did feel strange cycling there with familiar road signs and markings, but riding on the 'wrong' side.

Canada drives on the right. And if you go back far enough, the USA is a former British territory

 

[PeterC]

Perhaps my all time favourite cock up - on road, not rail - was in the film adaptation of the Borrowers with John Goodman. The setting was a British town and all except Goodman were British actors, so imagine the jarring scene as heritage British road vehicles, on British roads, drove on the bloody right

I lost my faith in film and TV historical drama when I saw a supposedly 18th century carriage on a tarmac surface at the age of 11 or 12.

In railway terms modern codes such as VGA on goods vans supposedly in wartime Poland is only going to be caught by an enthusiast but a loco with British Railways painted on the side in an 1890s setting was a step too far.

 

[Rescars]

Inaccuracies in films is nothing new. IIRC the 1929 film "Flying Scotsman" depicted so many unsafe practices that Gresley demanded a disclaimer was included in the opening credits and subsequently forbade further filming on the LNER.

 

[Gloster]

In one of the mystery/crime stories by Canon Victor L Whitechurch that involve signalling, he has to admit in a note that he has taken liberties with how signals work in order to get the plot to work. Most of his stories involve completely fictitious companies and locations, but one of the more interesting ones includes what seems to be a fairly accurate depiction of Churn Halt on the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton; Whitechurch was the vicar at nearby Blewbury.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

I lost my faith in film and TV historical drama when I saw a supposedly 18th century carriage on a tarmac surface at the age of 11 or 12.

In railway terms modern codes such as VGA on goods vans supposedly in wartime Poland is only going to be caught by an enthusiast but a loco with British Railways painted on the side in an 1890s setting was a step too far.

The whole point of John Buchan's "Thirty-nine Steps" is that it's set in the period just before the outbreak of the First World War. I recall seeing what I think was a film advertisement, but might have been a book cover (or both) showing the fugitive Richard Hannay being pursued by a 1950s helicopter, with a 1930s Coronation Scot in the background

 

[MarlowDonkey]

The whole point of John Buchan's "Thirty-nine Steps" is that it's set in the period just before the outbreak of the First World War.

Wasn't Hitchcock's 1930s film version set in what was then the present day?

 

[Gloster]

Wasn't Hitchcock's 1930s film version set in what was then the present day?

Hitchcock’s 1935 version and the 1959 version were both set in the (then) present day, but the 1978 and 2008 versions were both set in the correct period just before The Great War. All take liberties, sometimes diabolical ones, with the plot and reflect contemporary (to date of production) attitudes, but the 1978 one comes closest to the book…or doesn’t stray quite as far as the others.

 

[Cadno]

Re 39 Steps. I've always understood that a Driver would use the large ejector to keep the train going when a communication cord was pulled if the train would otherwise come to a stand in a tunnel or ON A BRIDGE. Reality would spoil cinema I suppose.

 

[Bevan Price]

Was it one version of 39 Steps, or some other film, in which the leading character made a supposedly single journey - filmed in two different types of coach ?

 

[Gloster]

Was it one version of 39 Steps, or some other film, in which the leading character made a supposedly single journey - filmed in two different types of coach ?

It could be any of them or any one of a large number of films or TV programmes where the accuracy of railway details is not at the forefront of the crew’s mind, i.e. almost any one. Hitchcock’s chase through the train had twenty-six shots, so a mistake could easily be made. He did make one mistake: when Hannay is heading north on the Flying Scotsman and the landlady turns to the camera to scream, her open mouth turns into a tunnel out of which comes a loco…but it is a King coming out of (what may be) Box Tunnel.

 

[Harvester]

Was it one version of 39 Steps, or some other film, in which the leading character made a supposedly single journey - filmed in two different types of coach ?

In the 1959 version with Kenneth More as Hannay (filmed in 1958) two special train-sets were handed over to the film makers. Haymarket depot also provided A4s 60012 and 60027 to cover filming over four Sundays in late August and early September 1958. Footage in the Final Cut shows 60012 arriving at Waverley, 60027 departing and 60012 coming to a stop on the Forth Bridge. A1 60162 rushes by with an up working while Hannay makes his escape from the train onto the bridge.

Source: Haymarket Motive Power Depot 1842-2010 - Harry Knox