THE LEATHER BOYS

GB
1964
1hr 48mins
Dir: Sidney Furie
Starring: Dudley Sutton and Colin Campbell

A young motorcyclist gets married but soon becomes disillusioned with his wife

This drama features a number of scenes at a rubbish dump overlooking the LSWR main line close to London, possibly in the Wimbledon area, and a number of EMUs pass by but they are too indistinct to identify. In a later scene, a rebuilt Bulleid ‘Pacific’ passes on an express followed in the opposite direction by another steam-hauled train, though again the shot is too indistinct for an exact identity to be ascertained. Eleswhere in the film there are shots that show EMUs passing above the streets of Battersea (in the now redeveloped Roydon Street / Southolm Street area), which cannot be identified, and scenes filmed in the Stonebridge, Brent and Wembley areas of the North Circular Road. The viaducts across the Brent form the backdrop to a number of scenes but apart from a signal box that briefly crops into the background of one shot nothing railway related appears. At the end of the movie, Dudley Sutton and Colin Campbell leave the Tidal Basin Tavern in Canning Town, East London, and in the railway yard behind, a mixed freight is slowly moving past. The image is a little blurred, but the train appears to be hauled by one of the short-lived North British Locomotive Company Class 16 diesels. Only ten of these unreliable single-cab locomotives were built and all had been scrapped by the end of 1969, so this is probably the rarest diesel to appear in a British feature film. And to think it passed by purely by chance as well.

An electric train passes overhead at the junction between Roydon Street and Southolm Street, Battersea, SW19
And in a later scene in Roydon Street another electric unit is visible
All the Leather Boys outside the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road in Stonebridge Park, NW10. On the viaduct behind is a signal box on the West Coast main line.
At work on the rubbish dump and a Bulleid pacific passes by, its smoke lazily drifting across the surrounding area.
Outside the Tidal Basin Tavern in Canning Town, East London and a mixed freight is passing in the background in the hands of a Class 16 diesel. This is incredibly fortuitous but sadly it is blurred. The loco is above the concrete plinth in the foreground.