GB
1958
18mins
Dir: Theodore Zichy
Starring: Terence Alexander and Harriette Johns
Two passengers on a train recognise each other, bringing back memories of an airman’s close call with an enemy officer during the Second World War
This short drama is set onboard a train, though the carriage interior is entirely a set. As the story progresses we are treated to several shots of passing trains and though the continuity is all at sea there are some interesting shots, and most of the BR regions are covered. The trains that feature appear in the following order: An aerial shot of an ex-GWR ‘King’ pulling away from London Paddington at the head of the ‘Cornish Riviera Express’; a shot of an ex-GWR ‘Hall’ in BR black crossing Penadlake Viaduct east of Bodmin in Cornwall; an ex-LNWR Webb-designed Class 2F 0-6-0 hauling a two-coach passenger train on the Keswick branch in Cumbria; a low-level shot of an ex-LMS ‘Royal Scot’ passing on an express; the carriages of the same express are then seen passing again after the camera has cut back from the action; what looks likely to be an ex-SR S15 Class 4-6-0 bursting out of a tunnel; and a final, quite delightful shot, of an ex-LMS ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0 crossing Dulnain Viaduct at Carrbridge on the Perth-Inverness main line. The shots of the ‘Hall’, the Keswick branch 2F, and the ‘Black Five’ at Dulnain, are all taken from the 1952 British Transport Films production Train Time, with that of the ‘Hall’ reappearing later in the 1957 BTF production A Future on Rail. Meanwhile, the shot of the SR 4-6-0 bursting out of the tunnel initially appeared in the 1956 BTF production Making Tracks.
