Films that feature the railways

[EbbwJunction1]

I'm not sure whether we've had "Agatha", the 1979 film about Agatha Christie's famous eleven day disappearance in 1926. There are railway scenes at Harrogate and York, and the locomotive pulling the train is LNER A3 Class 4-6-2 No. 4472 Flying Scotsman, disguised as sister locomotives no. 4474 Victor Wild on one side and 4480 Enterprise on the other side.

There's also apparently a scene filmed in one of the bay platforms at York where a modern diesel unit is shown in the refection of the vintage coaches' window, although I don't know (not having seen the film!) whether this is correct or an urban myth?

 

[Falcon1200]

Last night's (Thursday 15th January) episode of the Channel 4 drama 'Patience' (based on the wonderful French series 'Astrid; Murder in Paris') featured a murder in a railway museum. Strangely, despite the programme's setting being York, rather than the local establishment the museum used was in Belgium!

 

[John Luxton]

This evening I have just finished watching a good 1939 drama "Sons of the Sea" which popped up on Amazon Prime.

Never heard of the film before which stars well known actor of the period Leslie Banks.

Filmed in the summer of 1939 in colour it is a murder mystery / spy drama.

It uses Dufaycolour which was the pre WWII British movie and Still slide film. Many pre WWII railway colour photos were taken on Dufaycolour stock.

What is even more interested it is filmed around Dartmouth, Britannia RN College as well as the wider South Hams area of South Devon and is filmed mainly on location rather than in studio sets.

Dartmouth (the rail less station), what is now the Dart Valley Railway also appears with a train running along the riverside between Kingswear and Britannia Crossing, Churston Station. We see the Dartmouth Lower Ferry which really hasn't changed in the intervening years but just before the cars drive off the GWR Passenger Ship MEW which provided the link between Dartmouth Station and and Kingswear Station can be seen in the background.

At Churston a Devon General bus can be seen crossing the bridge.

Also featured is Bayard' s Cove Dartmouth which became home 30 years later to the Onedin Line in 1970.

For a film of it's time it is very well done and doesn't mess around with the Geography of the area either though I don't think there is an Observatory near the RN College!

If you have access to Amazon Prime well worth the watch.

 

[D6130]

though I don't think there is an Observatory near the RN College!

....although there is one near the Royal Naval College at Greenwich!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Little known film made for the Festival of Britain , was "David" - a tribute to the town of Ammanford and in particular a local poet and writer "Amanwy" - to my great pleasure it shows Ammanford Town and level crossing with a typical 57xx Pannier on the branch train to Brynamman. (West)

 

[Gloster]

Little known film made for the Festival of Britain , was "David" - a tribute to the town of Ammanford and in particular a local poet and writer "Amanwy" - to my great pleasure it shows Ammanford Town and level crossing with a typical 57xx Pannier on the branch train to Brynamman. (West)

Available on bfi free ( .player.bfi.org.uk ). Described as a drama-documentary, 38 minutes.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Available on bfi free ( .player.bfi.org.uk ). Described as a drama-documentary, 38 minutes.

Thank you - it really has the feel of "Austerity Britain" - but then nothing had seen a paintbrush since 1939 ! .......

 

[Farang]

Films I've recently seen involving trains :
Horror Express. Hammer regulars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee have to chase down a brain-sucking body-hopping intelligence on a trans Manchurian express in the 1890s. The film was written just because there was a model train and some carriage sets left over from a couple of other films. It can be found on YouTube. As an aside, so can The Iron Mule, a silent that reused the train built for Our Hospitality.

"No-one can stop the fury and the terror of the Horror Express!"

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing’s Best Team-Up Ditches Hammer for Zombie Aliens on a Train

"Monster? We're British, you know."

collider.com

They don't make 'em like that any more.

 

[150219]

It’s probably been mentioned already but all three Paddingtons have featured the station in them. One of them (I believe the first) also featured the entrance to Marylebone, IIRC when Paddington is in the mail van and being dropped off or something like that)

I've often wondered whether the deleted scenes from the first Paddington film will surface, because what is featured was a mere fraction (totalling about 5 seconds in the film) of what was filmed, including trains and specially provided signage too.

Further filmed at Marylebone in the 1960's, including scenes on the depot with green DMUs is Work is a Four Letter Word.

 

[Arch9enius]

"No-one can stop the fury and the terror of the Horror Express!"

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing’s Best Team-Up Ditches Hammer for Zombie Aliens on a Train

"Monster? We're British, you know."

collider.com

They don't make 'em like that any more.

No, although the appearance of a tin toy sightly ruins the climax.

 

[Arch9enius]

Whilst I'm here, I also saw a 1979 effort from the states called Supertrain earlier this year; it's a made for TV screwball comedy set on a nuclear-powered breitspurbahn running from New York to Los Angeles at 70-80 mph whilst blowing steam everywhere from what I hope is the secondary cooling circuit. It was the pilot for a series that apparently bankrupted NBC and features models rather than real trains so unlike Horror Express which features at least one RENFE loco and carriages it maybe doesn't belo ng here. But then would Undersea Supertrain, Galaxy Railways or Galaxy Express 999, all anime shows, of the Orient Express in Space episode of Peter Capaldis' doctor (CGI)?

 

[Arch9enius]

Last night's (Thursday 15th January) episode of the Channel 4 drama 'Patience' (based on the wonderful French series 'Astrid; Murder in Paris') featured a murder in a railway museum. Strangely, despite the programme's setting being York, rather than the local establishment the museum used was in Belgium!

Cawston station was featured in a couple of Midsomer Murders episodes, played by somewhere on the Chiltern line.

Vera had an episode that wasn't called Murder on a Pacer that Terminates Here, Please Board the Replacement Bus Service that is Outside the Station.

 

[Arch9enius]

If we can stretch to music videos, the video for The Everlasting by Manic Street Preachers was shot at Euston.

See also Mansuns' Taxloss, at Liverpool Street I think.

 

[D6130]

Battle of Britain (1969?) has a sequence at the beginning in which Reichsmarschall Herman Göring's luxury private train pulls up at a small halt - supposedly somewhere near Calais - hauled by a RENFE 4-8-4.

Another WW2 film - The Malta Story (1953) has a sequence in which the three Malta-based Gloster Gladiator bi-planes take off on a bombing raid over Southern Italy. Coming out from the clouds, they find an FS freight train trundling along behind a class 740 2-8-0 and proceed to bomb and strafe it.

 

[150219]

Cawston station was featured in a couple of Midsomer Murders episodes, played by somewhere on the Chiltern line.

Beaconsfield. Which it features as itself in an episode of Inspector Morse too.

 

[birchesgreen]

One i am watching right now, episode 5 of Down Cemetery Road. Ending takes place at London Kings Cross and on a Caledonian Sleeper service.

 

[John Luxton]

Beaconsfield. Which it features as itself in an episode of Inspector Morse too.

GWS Didcot also appeared in an Inspector Morse episode when Morse and Lewis followed an American Tourist who they were a bit suspicious of. It turned out he wasn't the villain just a railway enthusiast.

Another crime drama which featured railways in a few episodes was S4C Y Gwyll / Hinterland in which the Cambrian Line featured in several episodes including one which featured Borth Station Museum. The curator of the museum turned out to be the murderer!

Vale of Rheidol depot at Aberystwyth also featured in one episode if I recall it is the building which is now the museum.

 

[birchesgreen]

Another crime drama which featured railways in a few episodes was S4C Y Gwyll / Hinterland in which the Cambrian Line featured in several episodes including one which featured Borth Station Museum. The curator of the museum turned out to be the murderer!

Plus the large model railway, that was superb

 

[Mr. SW]

What about Gomez Addams's train set that he was using to stage disasters?

 

[Arch9enius]

Last night's (Thursday 15th January) episode of the Channel 4 drama 'Patience' (based on the wonderful French series 'Astrid; Murder in Paris') featured a murder in a railway museum. Strangely, despite the programme's setting being York, rather than the local establishment the museum used was in Belgium!

I guess the Belgian one was more spectacular, though it has come in for some criticism regarding informativeness and accuracy.

 

[Arch9enius]

What about Gomez Addams's train set that he was using to stage disasters?

Might as well throw in The Wrong Trousers and the Ant-Man movie, both involving chases on model train sets.

 

[Arch9enius]

I'm somewhat puzzled!

Under what circumstances would you expect points to be able to be moved after the signal has been cleared and the train has taken the route?

You can rest assured that people like me make sure you can't do that!

This is basic stuff

The John Malkovich adaptation of The ABC Murders had points and colour light signals flipping and flashing like a pinball machine during a chase across a main line railway.

 

[Arch9enius]

Sorry if mentioned before:

Von Ryan's Express (1965) - Frank Sinatra war film

Silver Streak (1976) - comedy thriller (NOT about A4s!)

A previous movie by the name Silver Streak from the 1930s featured the Burlington Zephyr or one of its' successors in a mercy dash across the United States while a saboteur sabotages stuff.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The first film featuring "the Beatles - "Hard Day's Night" begins with a journey supposedly from Liverpool to London - but it begins at Marylebone station! I'm not sure where it ends - possibly the old Euston, maybe?

 

[MotCO]

The first film featuring "the Beatles - "Hard Day's Night" begins with a journey supposedly from Liverpool to London - but it begins at Marylebone station! I'm not sure where it ends - possibly the old Euston, maybe?

But they did have a Ticket to Ride

 

[D6130]

But they did have a Ticket to Ride

....or - if they were heading for the Isle of Wight festival - a ticket to Ryde?

 

[MotCO]

....or - if they were heading for the Isle of Wight festival - a ticket to Ryde?

(I had visited the Isle of Wight at about the same time as the record came out, and I was convinced it was called Ticket to Ryde. It made more sense to me at the time.)

 

[Arch9enius]

Another film which keeps swapping engines from electric to diesel is the pandemic style film Cassandra Crossing filmed in Europe where the World Health Organisation tries to kill off a train load of infected passengers by diverting it over a derelict bridge knowing it will collapse.

Avalanche Express, where the train in question is menaced by the Red Army Faction.. I wouldn't bother.

Europa (1991) . Set immediately post war on the German Railways featuring a conflicted Mitropa carriage attendant.

Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy features probably Spanish broad gauge trains puttering round Andalusia, most prominently The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, And the continental railway or a link in it is part of the plot of Once Upon a Time in the West.

One worth seeing is Kontroll, about ticket inspectors on the Budapest Metro

 

[EbbwJunction1]

But they did have a Ticket to Ride

....or - if they were heading for the Isle of Wight festival - a ticket to Ryde?

(I had visited the Isle of Wight at about the same time as the record came out, and I was convinced it was called Ticket to Ryde. It made more sense to me at the time.)

 

[Mcr Warrior]

'3:10 to Yuma'. Both the 1957 original and then the 2007 remake.

American Western action drama (film) set in 19th century U.S.A.