NO TRACE

GB
1950
1hr 16mins
Dir: John Gilling
Starring: Hugh Sinclair and Dinah Sheridan

A crime writer helps the police to investigate a murder he has committed

This crime film was initially to be called Murder by the Book and includes a scene at the end where a couple of characters race to a railway station in a car. This used Taplow, in Buckinghamshire, and there is an unusual shot from the footbridge of the car heading for the station entrance with what looks like an ex-GWR ‘4300’ Class 2-6-0 approaching with a train. In addition to this, there is a more conventional shot of the train arriving into the platform, plus a very darkened night shot of an express passing the camera in close up, the locomotive of which can not be identified.

This lovely shot shows a train approaching Taplow on the up relief. It looks to be in the hands of an ex-GWR 4300 Class 2-6-0. A view of the station from this angle gives us a rare glimpse of the siding behind the platform, which known as Astor’s siding because it was used by Lord Astor of Cliveden House.
As the car pulls up it is framed beautifully against a gas lamp attached to the end of the footbridge. For those petrol heads amongst us, the car is a 1947 Triumph 1800 Roadster.
Hugh Sinclair talks to the stationmaster at the entrance to the up relief platform at Taplow
A moment later and the train arrives. The locomotive looks likely to be a 4300 Class 2-6-0 and may well be the same as that seen approaching in the first shot.
This is the shot of the express that ends the railway sequence in this film. The locomotive is unidentified, but looks to be ex-GWR in origin.