GB / CAN 2004 2hrs 12mins Dir: John Duigan Starring: Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend
Three lives are interlaced against the political unrest of a war torn Europe
This moody war drama includes a scene set in a French marshalling yard where the Resistance blow up a German munitions train at night. This was actually filmed at Sheffield Park on the Bluebell Railway, with a disguised BR Standard Class 4MT 2-6-4T No.80151 as the train loco. As well as coaches and wagons present in the yard, other locomotives can be seen that include BR Standard types and ex-LSWR B4 Class 0-4-0T No.30096 which, appropriately enough for a scene set in France, was formerly named Normandy. Some of the wagons have been given military hardware for the scene and a snowplough was painted in camouflage colours. The latter was No.ADS 70225, an ex-Schools Class tender plough which was fitted with a mock machine-gun nest for filming. Although it does not feature in the completed film it remained in this condition afterwards and can be still be seen today among the stored stock on the railway. There is an earlier shot in the film of a Bluebell Railway train passing through the countryside hauled by one of the line’s BR Standard Class 4-6-0’s. This was not the first time that the railway had hosted an explosion as two years earlier the residents of Horsted Keynes were alarmed at those in Charlotte Gray (qv). The explosion in Head in the Clouds was the biggest set off on a preserved line and was apparently heard as far away as Uckfield!!
A train steams through the countryside somewhere on the Bluebell Railway. The loco is one of the line’s BR Standard Class 4-6-0’s.
This is BR Standard 2-6-4T No.80151. Its ‘disguise’ seems to boil down to the removal of its BR emblem and number, the same treatment meted out to the B4 0-4-0 tank loco visible in the background. Only the B4 tank is ‘old enough’ to be in this movie, having been built way back in 1893. No.80151 was not built until 1957.
At least four steam locomotives can be seen in this establishing shot of the German occupied freight yard. The loco on the right is a BR Standard 4-6-0 whilst that further beyond could be a 9F 2-10-0.
The ammunition train begins to move off. Note the Southern Green-liveried BR Mk.1 on the left, far too young for a scene set in 1944. But then so are all the BR Standard locos in the film, which were built in the 1950s.
Train loco No.80151 emerges from the cloud of steam, the smokebox numberplate is painted out but still readable.
One of the wagons fitted with its mock machine gun
A BR Standard Class stands in the yard in light steam. IF that is a nameplate visible on the running plate then this will be Class 5 4-6-0 No.73082 Camelot.
The explosion is a result of the Resistance, and it lights up the locos in the yard pretty clearly. That on the right is No.80151 again, clearly showing the ‘patches’ on its bodysides where its BR identity has been temporarily covered. In front of that is BR Standard Class 4 4-6-0 No.75027, and then furthest back is possibly the shape of a streamlined Bulleid pacific, but that could be deceiving.
