SNOWBALL

GB
1960
1hr 09mins
Dir: Pat Jackson
Starring: Dennis Waterman and Zena Walker

Tragedy eventually strikes after an 11-year old school boy’s lie snowballs out of control

This drama was based on the 1958 novel of the same name by James Lake. It includes a scene at the end whereby the accused man, played by Kenneth Griffith, is run down in a marshalling yard by a train, though it is dark and quite difficult to make things out. The locomotive looks to be an ex-LMS ‘Patriot’ on an express and the scene is interspersed with a couple of other stock shots, one of which appears to show a ‘Black Five’. Although the location is not known the scene was filmed somewhere on the Midland Region, as the passing express is filmed at the same location as the one seen initially in Heavens Above! (1963), suggesting that it is a shot filmed at the same time then not used. It would be interesting to know for what production exactly these shots were taken as similar ones appeared in the 1966 BTF production Forward to First Principles so these may also have been filmed for a BTF production. A little earlier, Daphne Anderson attempts to rescue her husband from the tracks, only to have her path blocked by a passing Class 4F 0-6-0 in the form of No.44447 working a mixed freight. The railway shots are completed with an opening run-by of a train of grain hoppers hauled by what appears to be a BR Standard 4-6-0. Thanks to Trevor Johnson for providing the film.

The opening railway shot shows this freight train passing in the hands of a BR Standard 4-6-0
The establishing shot of the railway yard with the lights of a station visible in the right hand background
As Daphne Anderson scrambles down the cutting, an ex-LMS 4F 0-6-0 passes on a freight. The loco is No.44447.
This is the best of the ‘stock shots’ seen in the film, and it possibly shows a ‘Black Five’. This shot was also seen in Johnny, You’re Wanted (1956), Six-Five Special (1958), and The Mind Benders (1963).
The approaching train is the one which seals Kenneth Griffith’s fate. This shot shows it passing through a station.
As the express passes by the loco is revealed, and it looks to be a ‘Patriot’ 4-6-0
A going-away shot of another express, hauled again by a Patriot. The station in the background is the same one seen in the shot of a ‘Royal Scot’, that was seen firstly in Heavens Above! (1963), then reused on at least five other occasions. It is thought to be one somewhere on the southern end of the Midland main line.