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Continuity and other errors in British films/TV

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oldrailman

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Just watched 'Brief Encounter' and noticed an interesting error. At one point as the main characters walk along the platform I spotted a platform indicator behind them which read something like 'Settle Keighley Leeds Bradford'. Thought it seemed out of place as the film was set in the souuthern Home Counties, Interested to read if anyone knows of British TV programmes or films where railways feature, but the wrong shots of stock are used?:roll:
 
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rail-britain

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Doomsday
Signed as "Glasgow Queen Street", but clearly isn't!

Not strictly British
Mission Impossible
The TGV is electric, but for one entire section of the filming there are NO overhead live wires!

The Railway Children
Jenny Agutter is talking to William Mervyn, when a white van can be seen in the background!

BBC Scotland have archive footage for EWS
Sadly it is a train passing through Reading
 
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142094

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Couple I remember of the top of my head:

1) Episode of Touch of Frost, where a dead body is rolled up in a carpet and thrown onto a train. When the police find the body in a tunnel, a train rattles through, but looks like a preserved line but was supposed to be a 'normal' train. Think the diesel was in BR green livery?

2) Poirot or another spin off of Murder on the Orient Express. The loco at the front is an EWS 47.
 

starrymarkb

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Doomsday was mostly shot in South Africa though - still an awesome film, love the gimp :).

Red Dwarf was notorious for continuity errors.
 

John Webb

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Just watched 'Brief Encounter' and noticed an interesting error. At one point as the main characters walk along the platform I spotted a platform indicator behind them which read something like 'Settle Keighley Leeds Bradford'. Thought it seemed out of place as the film was set in the souuthern Home Counties..........

The sign of course is at Carnforth Station on the platforms which serve the line through to Hellifield and Skipton, also the Arnside/Barrow/Cumbrian coast line, and which was still used for local services during the filming of 'Brief Encounter'. I'm not certain of the exact location that 'Brief Encounter' is meant to be, having never read the stage play on which the film is based.
 

jamesontheroad

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Almost all of Michael Portillio's recent BBC series Great British Railway Journeys. Since a fair proportion of them seem to be on routes served by Northern, it's been impossible for one camera crew to film the same DMU from one end to the other of any of his journeys.
 

LE Greys

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Edge of Darkness had an interesting loco hauling the nuclear flask train. It initially looked like a 31, but had coupling rods going round at the side. Turned out to be three shunters coupled together with a box on top.
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Couple I remember of the top of my head:

1) Episode of Touch of Frost, where a dead body is rolled up in a carpet and thrown onto a train. When the police find the body in a tunnel, a train rattles through, but looks like a preserved line but was supposed to be a 'normal' train. Think the diesel was in BR green livery?

Frost never seemed to make its mind up as to where the town of Denton is. A lot of the rail shots use Leeds, but the line seems to electrify and de-electrify itself all the time, and occasionally jumps to Manchester. The map in the police station is Swindon tilted through 45 degrees (you can see the junction). One episode involved a lot of location shoots in a depot. I think it was Neville Hill, can anyone confirm this?

2) Poirot or another spin off of Murder on the Orient Express. The loco at the front is an EWS 47.

They do their utmost in Poirot to keep things looking authentic, using pre-nationalisation coaches in the correct livery most of the time. It resulted in a rather weird dressed-up 4MT being dropped into a shot of a French viaduct as the 'Blue Train' once. Hollywood could learn from them, and I wish they would. However, that 47 got in there somehow, probably from lack of budget and using any old shot they could get.

You can tell I watch too many whodunnits.
 

oldrailman

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The sign of course is at Carnforth Station on the platforms which serve the line through to Hellifield and Skipton, also the Arnside/Barrow/Cumbrian coast line, and which was still used for local services during the filming of 'Brief Encounter'. I'm not certain of the exact location that 'Brief Encounter' is meant to be, having never read the stage play on which the film is based.

'Brief Encounter' is set in what used to be called the 'Home Counties', complete with southern commuter belt posh accents. Apparently the director, David Lean chose Carnforth as most filming was done at night and up north there was likely to be less risk of night aircraft raids as it was filmed towards the end of WW2.
 

gordonthemoron

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Smiley's People (1982) features what purports to be Lübeck Hauptbahnhof, the building looks like it may have been genuine but the tracks behind the station building are of a terminus which Lübeck isn't. Also, the train Smiley catches to Hamburg looks like no german train I've ever seen and is travelling on the wrong side of the tracks
 

richw

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there is a double decker bus visible in the back ground of robin hood, there were also a couple of cast members wearing modern watches
watches are a common muck up in films set in the olden days!
 

NSEFAN

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I seem to recall a Doctor Who episode (I think it was "Fear Her") where the story is set in a housing estate in London, but an ATW 158 is seen passing in the background. Perhaps a sign that Arriva may well end up running services to Marylebone afterall? :p
 

MCR247

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Almost all of Michael Portillio's recent BBC series Great British Railway Journeys. Since a fair proportion of them seem to be on routes served by Northern, it's been impossible for one camera crew to film the same DMU from one end to the other of any of his journeys.

I loved the way he was sat on a 156 and a pacer was filmed from above :lol:
 

bnm

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There was the recent remake of Reggie Perrin where Martin Clunes experienced delays at such places as Coulsdon South, Raynes Park and Cheam. All while apparently travelling on a thinly disguised ('Grand Southern') Chiltern Clubman into Marylebone. A Clubman that apparently had a 1st class section.
 

MCR247

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EM2

Well on this programme on BBC1 I'm sure they were at a freight yard, and he correctly showed the woman an EWS Coal train hauled by a class 66 :)

Wait, although he then went on to say that it was a binliner hauled by a class 60
 

oldrailman

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This thread will be much, much shorter if we list totally accurate railway sequences in film & TV.

I started this thread as over the years I have noticed quite a lot of errors on filmed railway sequences. As an ex-railwayman it began to niggle me a bit. Strange, but I can't recall many examples which have actually used correct locations and rolling stock. Could this reflect the country's general apathy with our rail system? I'm not trying to be pedantic or 'sad' - it's just a subject that I thought would make a good thread, and it seems to have worked.
 

EM2

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Sorry, I should have put a :D in there really!
I think pretty much *every* railway sequence I've seen has been wrong in one way or another, to the point that I've learnt to keep quiet about them to avoid annoying my missus!
 

MCR247

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What about the advert for thats filmed in Paddington and the announcer is announcing the correct stations and there is a guitar interrupting him.
 

LE Greys

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This thread will be much, much shorter if we list totally accurate railway sequences in film & TV.

Back to my whodunnits, Morse did incredibly well, but it helped that almost every episode was set in Oxford, so we only ever saw that station, Paddington and Didcot. As well as omnipresent HSTs, the earliest ones showed Pressed Steel DMUs and 50s on MkIIs, the later ones Turbos galore. The only mistake I can remember was one DMU that was blue/grey in long shots and NSE in close-ups (I won't count numbers changing between takes - they usually cut out the numbers anyway).

Perhaps they had a genuine enthusiast on the production staff.
 

oldrailman

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I've just remembered the one in 'Keeping up Appearances' where Mrs Bucket meets a VIP at Leamington station. The train approaches as an HST, then in an opposite camera shot it's a Class 47 and Mk2s. Also, anyone seen the drama 'Last Train' from a while back. The characters supposedly board a train from St Pancras to Sheffield, but all the exteriors are of West Coast electrics, plus a stop at Stafford!
 

me123

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Almost all of Michael Portillio's recent BBC series Great British Railway Journeys. Since a fair proportion of them seem to be on routes served by Northern, it's been impossible for one camera crew to film the same DMU from one end to the other of any of his journeys.

Some of the continuity on that has been shocking. Even my family (who are about as interested in trains as I am in football - that is to say not at all) can tell the difference between a pacer and a 158. So they just thought that the whole thing looked really unprofessional.

Fair enough, getting the same unit on the same line when Mr. P's doing the journey is nigh on impossible. But they could at least have made an effort to get their stock shots of trains rolling through the countryside vaguely right.
 

Lampshade

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Almost all of Michael Portillio's recent BBC series Great British Railway Journeys. Since a fair proportion of them seem to be on routes served by Northern, it's been impossible for one camera crew to film the same DMU from one end to the other of any of his journeys.

Don't get me started on that, he arrives into Preston on a 158, presses the button to open the door on a 156 and steps off a 185 :shock:

Then there's Wakefield Westgate masquerading as Denton in A Touch of Frost :lol:
 

oldrailman

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What about the advert for thats filmed in Paddington and the announcer is announcing the correct stations and there is a guitar interrupting him.

I think that's the ad for Comparethemarket.com or one of the price comparison websites. Can't see the point of the ad, but at least they get the stations right.:D
 

yorksrob

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Not quite a continuity error, but I was half watching some programme last night in which a group of posh young ladies had to spend a few days roughing it in inner-city Brixton.

Naturally they tried to capture the gritty urban essence of Brixton by panning down from a concrete tower block to the railway, no doubt hoping to find some graffiti covered unit rattling through the suburbs. I had to chuckle to myself when of all the trains that could have came through at that moment they happened on the immaculately turned out Orient Express passing through in all it's splendour. (Unless they were being ironic of course) :lol:
 

Peter Mugridge

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Frost never seemed to make its mind up as to where the town of Denton is. A lot of the rail shots use Leeds, but the line seems to electrify and de-electrify itself all the time, and occasionally jumps to Manchester. The map in the police station is Swindon tilted through 45 degrees (you can see the junction). One episode involved a lot of location shoots in a depot. I think it was Neville Hill, can anyone confirm this?

They used Longsight for filming about three or four years ago, but if you are thinking of the final episodelast month, I'm not sure where that was filmed.

I do remember a very clear scene of Wakefield Westgate in one episode from fairly early on.

Now, given that Denton is a suburb of Manchester, that it was a northern ITV franchise which filmed it and that so many of the scenes are recognisably from that area, it was a great shock to me to find out only a couple of months ago that in the series "Denton" is supposedly in the Thames Valley!!!:lol:




As for adverts, the VT one currently running depicting a student off home for the weekend to meet her boyfriend, supposedly representing an Euston - Manchester journey, is particularly interesting even without the refurbishment of the portals of Shugborough Tunnel...:lol:
 

Drsatan

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The BBC's adaptation of 'Wind in the Willows' broadcast in 2007 featured Mr Toad, disguised as a washerwoman, trying to get on a train at an English country station hauled by a distinctly German or Austrian looking steam locomotive.

I'm assuming that scene was shot on the Nene Valley Railway.
 
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