GB / US
2001
1hr 59mins
Dir: Michael Apted
Starring: Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott
A decoder at Bletchley Park tries to trace his missing girlfriend who is thought to be a spy
The script for this wartime espionage thriller was adapted from the 1995 novel Enigma by Robert Harris and is highly fictionalized. All the railway scenes in the film were shot on the Great Central Railway with Loughborough Central and Quorn & Woodhouse stations featuring prominently, as well as a number of lineside shots filmed at Rushey Lane bridge near Swithland. Rolling stock was largely erroneous for a film set in WWII; ex-GCR O4 Class 2-8-0 No.63601 which although built in 1911 was portraying BR livery was coupled to BR Mk1 coaching stock, one of which is Corridor Composite No.16070 built in 1959. LMS roundels were applied to the coaches to add a degree of authenticity, and in one run-by the locomotive’s smokebox number plate has been amended to read ‘3601’, but for a film in which so much effort was carried out in portraying the correct period details it seems a shame that the railway scenes should be all wrong! However, this is always a problem with wartime recreations and the Enigma railway sequences are in fact pretty good. In the background to one of the station scenes Ransomes & Rapier 45T steam crane No.RS1097 is visible which, being built in 1940, is at least of Second World War vintage!