THE HEROES OF TELEMARK

GB
1965
2hrs 11mins
Dir: Anthony Mann
Starring: Richard Harris and Ulla Jacobsson

Norwegian Resistance workers set out to destroy a Nazi heavy water plant

Based on the true story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during World War II, this somewhat embellished account was shot on location in Norway. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the railway scenes are Norwegian, including good shots of a train ferry near the end, but there are a couple of shots of British locomotives. The early dockyard scenes were filmed at New Quay, in Hamworthy Docks, Poole, and a small green 0-4-0ST can be clearly seen shunting vans in the background. This loco is No.1 Bonnie Prince Charlie (Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Works No.7544 of 1949), and a quite detailed account of the locomotive’s use in the film appears in Rails to Poole Harbour by Colin Stone (and published by The Oakwood Press). It was given the temporary name Oslo Havnevesen (Norwegian: Oslo Port Authority) for filming but this seemed wholly unnecessary given the fact that very little of the loco is actually seen in the completed movie. It moved to the Corrall’s Depot on Dible’s Wharf, Southampton, in 1965, the year of the film’s release, suggesting that all filming at the docks had taken place earlier in 1964. The loco was purchased for preservation in 1969 and moved to the Didcot Railway Centre where it still resides today. There is also one elevated shot soon after that shows an SR express passing through Winchfield station on a damp and dreary day. The express appears to be hauled by a streamlined Bulleid ‘Pacific’, which is a loco of quite dubious accuracy for a Second World War film, but then so is Bonnie Prince Charlie, which wasn’t built until 1949.

The diminutive Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns built saddle tank is clearly visible in the background to this shot, shunting vans on the New Quay at Hamworthy Docks in Dorset
A view of Bonnie Prince Charlie from the former Channel Islands steamer TSS Roebuck. The Roebuck, incidentally, was a freighter built in 1925 for the GWR, who set her to work out of Weymouuth on cargo traffic to the Channel Islands. She was nearing the end of her career by this stage, and would last sail in railway service from Weymouth on 27th February 1965, not all that long after filming. Her demise was swift, and by the end of July she had been scrapped.
An express approaches a station somewhere on the LSWR main line. With all the available evidence, this is thought to be Winchfield. The locomotive, meanwhile, is a believed to be a streamlined Bulleid pacific. Note that third rail electrification was only on the outer slow lines at this time and that the closed centre platform had yet to be demolished.