GB
1988
1hr 31mins
Dir: David Green
Starring: Phil Collins and Julie Walters
The life of the great train robber Buster Edwards
The early part of the film features a relatively realistic depiction of the Great Train Robbery of 1963 filmed on the Great Central Railway at Swithland Sidings. Preserved Class 40 No.40106 was repainted into early BR green with small yellow warning panel and was fitted with mock split-headcode indicator boxes so as to represent D326, the actual class member involved. The GCR’s mail set was also ‘disguised’ on one side with flush sides so as to represent the ex-LMS mail coaches involved in the robbery. All in all, this was a well-recreated example of the historical event with much thought having gone into the continuity of the film. It would also appear that one piece of stock footage from the British Transport Films archives, of a mail train leaving a station, was used in this sequence.
