*BUSTER
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-up split-headcode indicator boxes so as to represent D326, the actual class member involved. The GCR’s mail set was disguised on one side with flush sides so as to represent the ex-LMS mail coaches involved in the robbery and Loughborough Central station was renamed ‘Glasgow Central’ with much of the station signage being changed to Scottish Region light blue. 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 being loaded at a station, was used in this sequence.
*CEMETERY JUNCTION
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, 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).
*CONTROL
GB / US
2007
2hrs 02mins
Dir: Anton Corbijn
Starring: Sam Riley and Samantha Morton
The life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis
This biographical film features a ‘BR’ train at Loughborough Central on the Great Central Railway. Some of the line’s preserved Mk1 coaching stock was embellished with ‘Inter-City’ stickers, one of which is TSO No.4630. No locomotives are seen, and little of the station is visible. The film was based on the biography Touching from a Distance by Curtis’s widow Deborah, who served as a co-producer on the film.
*ENIGMA
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
All the railway scenes in this wartime espionage thriller were filmed on the Great Central Railway, with Loughborough Central and Quorn & Woodhouse stations featuring prominently, as well as a number of lineside shots around 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, and 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! 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! The script was adapted from the 1995 novel Enigma by Robert Harris and is highly fictionalized.
*THE HOURS
GB / US
2002
1hr 54mins
Dir: Stephen Daldry
Starring: Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore
The story of three women in different times, related only by a parallel in their personal lives – the novel Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This drama is based on Michael Cunningham’s 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title. One scene features Nicole Kidman on the platform of ‘Richmond’ station, in reality Loughborough Central on the Great Central Railway. The locomotive is ex-LNER Class O4/1 2-8-0 No.63601 on a train of historic LSWR coaches. What is astonishing is that these coaches were brought to the line from the Isle of Wight Steam Railway by the production team, only to then be paired up with a loco in BR livery. For a scene that was supposedly set in 1941, a much more accurate ‘Southern’ station could so easily have been sought at the Bluebell Railway, or at Swanage. Or the Isle of Wight come to think of it. The scene filmed at Loughborough Central is quite lengthy and there are good shots of other rolling stock, particularly LNER teak carriages.
*THE NAVIGATORS
GB
2001
1hr 36mins
Dir: Ken Loach
Starring: Dean Andrews and Thomas Craig
Five railway workers in a Yorkshire depot are affected by the privatisation of British Rail in 1995
A film about railwaymen! The Navigators was inspired by the failure of the Connex South Central and the Connex South Eastern franchises, both lost because of poor service. The film takes its name from the ‘navvies’ (or ‘navvys’), the manual labourers that built Britain’s rail system in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The name was shortened from ‘navigator’ as most of the labourers had built the canal navigations before moving on to undertake railway work. The opening scene features a near-miss incident filmed on the Great Central Railway using Class 25 No.25265 and the ‘Windcutter’ rake of wagons. Most of the film, however, was shot in the yards at Balby, Doncaster, and there is a whole multitude of stock on display. There is a glimpse of the now closed Doncaster Carr loco depot with a pair of Class 37’s (likely 37252 along with 37209 in BR large-logo blue) and a withdrawn Class 47 in the scrap line, along with OHLE coaches, rail-carrying wagons and a 07-series Plasser & Theurer track machine. A yard derailment uses withdrawn Class 47 No.47348 as a prop along with a rake of stored PGA hopper wagons, and the front end of a Class 08 and a Class 66 creep into view during this sequence. When the track gang are working on the lines, Class 56 No.56073 Tremorfa Steelworks passes light engine, and in another scene filmed on the Great Central Railway this time at Rothley, a green Class 127 DMU passes. Perhaps the most unusual sequence is when the gang watch a training video provided by the new company, outlining their aspirations towards the ‘customer’. A huge amount of trains feature on this video, but all are very short, brief glimpses. These include an InterCity and a Res Class 47, a Loadhaul Class 56, a Class 08 shunter, HSTs, Class 91s, a pair of Class 158 DMUs and a Class 320/321 EMU. The character Mick, played by Thomas Craig, lives in a flat in Sheffield that overlooks the railway and in one shot there is a brief glimpse through a window of a Class 156 ‘Sprinter’ DMU crossing a viaduct in the background. Finally, look out for a real rarity. In one scene Mick arrives at the yard in Doncaster and through the windscreen of his car there is a glimpse of a Class 08 shunter lurking amongst all the wagons. This is the former Tinsley depot celebrity shunter No.08879, identifiable through its unique turquoise and black livery. In the final night-time scene filmed at an overbridge on the Great Central Railway, an unidentified diesel loco is moving off in the distance, but its exact identity is unclear. The film had the working subtitle ‘stories from the trackside’ but despite all of the railway content, the remainder lacks bite. The story is quite clear. It becomes all too apparent that the new dynamic, forward thrusting, modern thinking railway is a complete shambles with cost-cutting and agency staff under mining the ‘old guard’, but it isn’t one of Ken Loach’s better films, and the story never quite gets away from the one-sided nature of the script. Workers are all represented as jovial, hardworking types, put down by their bosses who only care about money. The latter may well be true, but the way the workers constantly joke makes them look too good, and the film has far too much sympathy for them when the wider picture needed to be portrayed. Nonetheless, it was a brave film at the time, and Loach’s foray into the privatization of the British Railway system and its devastating effects on its workers is still a worthy cause to champion.
*THE RAILWAY MAN
GB / AUS
2013
1hr 56mins
Dir: Jonathan Teplitzky
Starring: Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman
A former British Army officer discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment as a PoW is still alive and sets out to confront him
This war drama is an adaptation of the bestselling autobiography of the same name by Eric Lomax, published in 1995. It has some very good railway scenes early on that were filmed at Perth station, with BR maroon-liveried Mk.1 coaching stock provided by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society forming the train. In the first scene as Colin Firth runs to get on the train at Platform 3, Perth stands in as ‘Crewe’ and Corridor Brake Standard No.35185 is one coach that is identifiable. The scenes onboard the train were filmed on the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway, though Platform 4 at Perth can be seen through the window as the train initially departs. There is then a very good run by of Class 45 ‘Peak’ No. D123 Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry on the Great Central Railway with a train of maroon Mk.1s before Perth is then seen again, masquerading this time as ‘Edinburgh Waverley’, and the train is standing at Platform 5 with 37676 Loch Rannoch at the helm. For the arrival at ‘Perth’ in these scenes the train is in fact arriving at Bo’ness, and through the carriage window, an unidentified diesel shunter is seen passing behind Colin Firth. The shot of the ‘Peak’ is actually stock footage, having originally been filmed for the 2010 film Cemetery Junction (qv)! Other shots filmed at Bo’ness appear throughout the movie. There is a good platform level shot and Mk1 Open Standard No.4856 is visible in another. The traumatic scene whereby Stellan Skarsgård hangs himself from the station footbridge was also filmed at Bo’ness, though it was implied in the film as being Warminster. Finally, there is a shot of Colin Firth overlooking the Royal Border Bridge and a very rare shot filmed beneath the arches of the bridge on the southern banks of the River Tweed at Tweedmouth. This imposing structure has featured surprisingly little in UK films.
*THE SECRET AGENT
US / GB
1996
1hr 35mins
Dir: Christopher Hampton
Starring: Bob Hoskins and Patricia Arquette
In Victorian London, a double agent becomes involved in a terrorist plot
This period drama features sequences filmed on two preserved railways. ‘Maize Hill’ station is in fact Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway and appears in two scenes with Bob Hoskins. In the first, there is a shot from onboard what maybe one of the line’s Norwegian carriages followed by a scene on the platform with a freight train passing in the background. The image is blurred and although not entirely clear it would appear to be hauled by a small industrial tank engine, possibly Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST No.1539 Derek Crouch. No trains feature in the second scene at Wansford but there is a better shot of the platform and station building. Towards the end of the film is a scene whereby Patricia Arquette and Gérard Depardieu flee London for the coast and this was filmed on the Great Central Railway at Loughborough Central station. The initial establishing shot used some amount of CGI as the station has been given an overall roof (!) and the train formed of vintage carriages is hauled by ex-L&YR Aspinall Class 27 0-6-0 No.52322, though little of the locomotive is actually seen. The film was adapted from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel of the same name.
*SHADOWLANDS
GB
1993
2hrs 11mins
Dir: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger
The story of Oxford academic C. S. Lewis and his relationship with an American woman
The screenplay for this biographical film was by William Nicholson and it is based on his 1985 television production and 1989 stage adaptation of the same name. The critically acclaimed film is about the love-relationship between Oxford academic C. S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman, her death from cancer, and how this challenged Lewis’ Christian faith. The railway scenes in the film were shot on the Great Central Railway, with Loughborough Central standing in for ‘Oxford’. Ex-LMS Class 5MT ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0 No.45231 and ex-GWR ‘Castle’ Class
4-6-0 No.7029 Clun Castle were used in the film and were commendably weathered so as to look like typical work-stained locos of the 1950s.