BREAKFAST ON PLUTO

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GB / IRE
2005
2hrs 09mins
Dir: Neil Jordan
Starring: Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson

An Irish transvestite goes to London to search for his mother

This pretty weird comedy drama may well be a clever and astute piece, but it does get rather wearisome. It features a number of London-based railway scenes that include a scene filmed on the footbridge at London Paddington station with an HST, a Class 332 ‘Heathrow Express’ EMU and a Class 180 ‘Adelante’ DMU visible in the background. There is a brief scene filmed onboard a D stock train of the London Underground District Line, and a scene filmed at Gloucester Road Piccadilly Line Underground station with 1973-built tube stock present. Finally, there are good scenes filmed on Southend Pier which include some of the rolling stock operating the 3ft gauge pier railway. Train A Sir John Betjeman, one of the two seven-car sets built by Severn Lamb Engineering Co. is visible in one long shot, along with the 3-axle battery car built by Castleline of Nottingham in another. This vehicle is numbered 1835, the year in which Southend Pier first appeared on Admiralty Charts, and it is used for winter services. The Southend scenes are quite good, and they include a brief ‘ride’ on a train. The film was based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe.

The brief scene filmed onboard London Underground D stock somewhere on the District Line
Cillian Murphy makes an unsuccessful attempt to board a Piccadilly Line train at Gloucester Road station
A Class 332 ‘Heathrow Express’ EMU can be seen to the right of Ruth Negga in this shot from the footbridge at Paddington
And in the immediate foreground now, is the cab of a Class 180 ‘Adelante’ DMU, beyond which lie an HST set and the 332 seen above
Battery car No.1835 arrives into the Shore station at Southend Pier
Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea at Southend Shore station
A driver’s view of Shore station
And a view looking down the pier. The 3′ gauge tramway is just over a mile in length
To the left of the holidaying crowds is Train A Sir John Betjeman, one of the two 7-car sets built for the pier in 1986 by Severn Lamb (despite this view they are seven-car sets, its just the carriages are very short and the depth of this shot suggests otherwise). In 2006, the year after this film was released, the burgundy and white scheme was replaced by a blue and white livery. They were replaced by new trains in 2021.