GB
2010
1hr 35mins
Dirs: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
Starring: Christian Cooke and Felicity Jones
The lives of three young working class friends in 1970s suburban Reading
This decent coming of age comedy drama has some excellent railway scenes. Cemetery Junction is set in a small town in 1973. Gervais explained that the title of the film was taken from Cemetery Junction, Reading, an area he knew as a child – an actual road junction in Reading, where the Wokingham Road diverges from the London Road. Despite this, no part of the film was shot in the Berkshire town and all the railway scenes used the Great Central Railway. Loughborough Central station features prominently throughout as ‘Cemetery Junction’ station. There is a shot of the frontage and a number of scenes filmed in the station’s café. The first railway scene features a track walk involving the three boys and a train is passing formed of carmine & cream-liveried BR Mk1 coaching stock hauled by Class 47 No. D1705 Sparrowhawk. Another rake of maroon-liveried Mk1s is visible in the background and the Class 47 appears later in another platform scene. The departing train at the end is also formed of maroon Mk1 coaching stock (two vehicles of which are SO No.4788 and TSO No.4982), and the film ends with a very good run by of Class 45 ‘Peak’ No. D123 Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry with another train of maroon Mk.1s. This shot was in part reused three years later in the 2013 movie The Railway Man (qv).