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Trivia: Fictional Railways in Media

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Gloster

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Two Conan Doyle short stories The Lost Special and The Man with the Watches (Holmes is possibly involved remotely but not actively with both) involve railways - the former involving a special train disappearing between Liverpool and Manchester, and may have involved a fictional line; the latter involves the Buckinghamshire section of the LNWR main line.

I think The Lost Special was lost between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss when it was turned into a disused line (“two kilometres, or rather more than one mile in length” (sic)) that ran to a disused colliery and had been reconnected for the purpose. It has to be said that for a number of reasons it would have been clear much earlier than written in the story that something was up and the site of the deed would have quickly been identified by railway staff. Doyle’s knowledge of railways lets him down this time.
 
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Taunton

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I think The Lost Special was lost between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss when it was turned into a disused line (“two kilometres, or rather more than one mile in length” (sic)) that ran to a disused colliery and had been reconnected for the purpose. It has to be said that for a number of reasons it would have been clear much earlier than written in the story that something was up and the site of the deed would have quickly been identified by railway staff. Doyle’s knowledge of railways lets him down this time.
(Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle was a serial railway enthusiast, and constantly mixed up various railway points deliberately, especially which London terminus served which point.
 

Calthrop

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I think The Lost Special was lost between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss when it was turned into a disused line (“two kilometres, or rather more than one mile in length” (sic)) that ran to a disused colliery and had been reconnected for the purpose. It has to be said that for a number of reasons it would have been clear much earlier than written in the story that something was up and the site of the deed would have quickly been identified by railway staff. Doyle’s knowledge of railways lets him down this time.

Could it have been that he was aware that things would have been thus; but chose to ignore / suppress it, for the sake of the story's plot? Akin to Tolkien's alleged rejoinder to the question, re the opportunity to get rid of the Ring by flying it to Mount Doom by eagle: "That wouldn't make much of a story, would it?"
 
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pitdiver

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There is a radio series just started on Radio4 Extra called "Change at Oglethorpe" starring Peter Davison and Michael Williams which is based in the Leeds area. This was originally broadcast in 1995.
 

Calthrop

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India again -- in this novel, not "as was", but "as might have been". The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling, specialist in alternative-ish history, and global cataclysms. In the "universe" of this book, a combination of natural, largely meteorological, catastrophes in 1878 -- "comets and stuff" -- has rapidly and drastically altered the climate. The more northerly parts of the Northern Hemisphere quickly became too cold for human habitation: those nations which could, relocated as much as is possible, to their empires in warmer climes further south. The centre of such British activity, came to be British India; where the novel is essentially set. A different place in many respects, from how it has been in "our time-line" -- one aspect, is the achieving of a higher degree of equality and good relations in India, between "white" and "brown" folk.

The author has the effects of the catastrophes, greatly slowing down technological progress. Although the novel's action is set in the year 2025: such air travel as happens, is by airship -- aeroplanes as we know them, have not so far been practical. Road motor transport exists, but is far from widespread; most mechanical land transport is on rail, and handled by steam locomotives. (I don't think Stirling is a railfan as such; he just found this situation appropriate for the "universe" which he was creating.) The chief rail-centered episode occurs early in the book: a couple of the principal characters are travelling by rail from Peshawar to Rawalpindi and ultimately way on into Kashmir (some lines exist in this milieu, which never have done in our time-line). Selective quoting from this part of the book: "... the Indian Railways' [a little earlier, there has been mention of an entity called the Imperial Indian Railways] broad standard gauge of five-foot-six made for comfortable rolling stock." One might extrapolate (no mention in the book, of such minutiae), that in this "universe", India's metre-gauge system never came to be: that system was, in our time-line, only in its infancy as at the late 1870s.

The book continues: "The local to Rawalpindi [and points east] was no Trans-India Express: it chuffed along at a stately forty miles an hour, trailing black coal smoke. It was pulled by a Babur-class 4-6-2 built to a design standardised in the days when Edward was King-Emperor, Lord Salisbury was prime minister, and the twentieth century was young. Thousands of them worked everywhere from Australia to the Cape and even beyond ..." There's no mention of what the gauge situation might have been in Australia and South Africa, as opposed to India; as observed, the author is basically not a rail nerd ! "This train also stopped at every small town along the way, those growing more frequent as they moved out of the Northwest Frontier Province and into the richer, more densely settled Punjab."

Further rail-and-steam material much later in the narrative -- our intrepid heroes hitch a ride, in perilous and exciting circumstances, on a freight train heading for Bombay. "[the main hero] calculated angles. The freight wasn't a fast train; still toy-tiny at this distance, but it looked like a Danavas-class 4-8-2, a standard heavy hauler. That meant forty miles an hour or so, on a straightaway and flat ground." A couple of paragraphs later: "It was a freight all right, mostly flatcars loaded with huge Himalayan cypress logs a yard through and thirty feet long ... Other flatcars carried cotton in five-hundred-pound bales, stacked square and too high to climb, and a few boxcars toward the rear might have anything; most probably grain in sacks." (Mr. Stirling is from, and resident in, North America; hence the American rail terms.)

This is a novel which I would whole-heartedly recommend: altogether excellently written, set in a fascinatingly strange and exotic milieu, crafted and described with meticulous care -- splendid character-portrayal, and plentiful and suspenseful derring-do (and a fair leavening of wry humour). I would reckon the situation of virtually universal everyday steam working, continents-wide, in the early 21st century -- as just the icing on the cake !
 
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james60059

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An episode on London's Burning back in the early/mid-1990's when Blue Watch responded to a fire on a train at Shadbrook Station. I believe this was actually Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway
 

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Doyle’s knowledge of railways lets him down this time.

Putting aside the intentional 'misdirection' that Watson occasionally included to protect the innocent (or not always entirely innocent) party, I have read one or two pieces where ACD said words to the effect that he was never one to let detail stand in the way of a good story line.
 

Calthrop

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At last! Someone else who feels that way.

As per my previous post re this author: I reckon that he has some good ideas (thought that the Swann Saga was at least potentially, a marvellous one) -- got a good deal of pleasure out of that, and some from his novels of south-London suburbia; but in my view, his use of the written language is often embarrassingly crass and "glurgy" in various ways. One thing which especially bugged me -- particularly in "Swann" -- is Delderfield's seeming enthusiasm for the fiction-narrative device which was in vogue among a considerable number of writers a fair few decades ago -- "elegant variation". There was a school of thought according to which it was dull / monotonous / annoying to the reader to -- in telling of a character's doings -- keep naming the character by name; they went instead, for alternative references latching on to some trait / traits of the character. Thus, instead of keeping on writing "George Stephenson"; they'd resort to stuff like "the Northumbrian engineer and railway pioneer", or "the designer of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway". For my money, this nonsense isn't "elegant"; just goofy, and distracting and maddening. For the love of all that's holy -- authors, don't do it ! Just use, as often as necessary, the bod's actual name -- Christian and / or sur- / and / or both.
 
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Gloster

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At last! Someone else who feels that way.

I did pick up a Delderfield novel once, but didn’t get far with it. It ended up being thrown in the rubbish sack, something I have never done before or since and would normally regard as a crime punishable by a life sentence in the deepest dungeon. (In my defence I will say that this was in the last day or so before quitting my flat and moving abroad: finding the time to dispose of it decently was not possible. However, I could have just left it in the flat, but maybe I did not want the new owners to think that that was my preferred reading.)
 

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As per my previous post re this author: I reckon that he has some good ideas (thought that the Swann Saga was at least potentially, a marvellous one) -- got a good deal of pleasure out of that, and some from his novels of south-London suburbia; but in my view, his use of the written language is often embarrassingly crass and "glurgy" in various ways. One thing which especially bugged me -- particularly in "Swann" -- is Delderfield's seeming enthusiasm for the fiction-narrative device which was in vogue among a considerable number of writers a fair few decades ago -- "elegant variation". There was a school of thought according to which it was dull / monotonous / annoying to the reader to -- in telling of a character's doings -- keep naming the character by name; they went instead, for alternative references latching on to some trait / traits of the character. Thus, instead of keeping on writing "George Stephenson"; they'd resort to stuff like "the Northumbrian engineer and railway pioneer", or "the designer of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway". For my money, this nonsense isn't "elegant"; just goofy, and distracting and maddening. For the love of all that's holy -- authors, don't do it ! Just use, as often as necessary, the bod's actual name -- Christian and / or sur- / and-or both.
I was a voracious early reader, and before the age of ten had devoured my mother's collection of Delderfield, Mazo de la Roche, Ethel M Dell, Georgette Heyer, also a post-trial Penguin Lady Chat which was kept in a drawer (!). It's a wonder I wasn't harmed for life. I can still remember the thrill of my first Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea).
 

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I seem to remember a 1970s television adaptation of Delderfield's novel "To Serve Them All My Days"....about a long-serving teacher in a boys' public school somewhere in the South of England. IIRC, it was incredibly dreary and boring and I gave up after the first episode.
 

Calthrop

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BLOODY quoting mechanism on these Forums !! If one is a fool about "things computer" to the extent that I am -- the slightest error in procedure, can cause seemingly un-get-out-of-able chaos to ensue. I'm reduced to "quoting" by actually typing out, the above posts.

@contrex says: "I was a voracious early reader, and before the age of ten had devoured my mother's collection of Delderfield, Mazo de la Roche, Ethel M Dell, Georgette Heyer, also a post-trial Penguin Lady Chat which was kept in a drawer (!) It's a wonder I wasn't harmed for life. I can still remember the thrill of my first Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea)".

That strikes me as a decidedly catholic (small "c") selection ! I've derived some enjoyment from Georgette Heyer (read only a few, out of her for-sure large output) -- found them quite lively yarns. I can be rather severely adversely critical of really, pretty trivial "blemishes" on authors' writings -- after having relished Heyer's racy Regency-era dialogue in her books; I came upon an allegation (not sure even, whether it's true) that she made up herself, a lot of the books' slang and informal lingo from that era, rather than go to the bother of researching it -- that cast something of a blight over her, for me. And; a thing which some authors do (my impression, in times past rather than nowadays): for characters' surnames, they borrow -- usually fairly obscure -- place-names; Heyer is one such. Not the worst sin which an author can commit; but I find it annoying, and feel it to be lazy on the authors' part. I suspect that up to about mid-20th-century, authors engaging in this practice used for it, "random roving" among rail passenger timetables, thus "harvesting" relatively-little-known station names. I recall one Heyer novel with, as bit-part characters, a pair of menials called Challow, and Fimber. Clearly, I reckon, a result of such "station-mining": on the GW main line west of Didcot; and part of Sledmere & Fimber on the Malton to Driffield branch; respectively.


@D6130 says: "I seem to remember a 1970s television adaptation of Delderfield's novel 'To Serve Them All My Days' ... about a long-serving teacher in a boys' public school somewhere in the South of England. IIRC, it was incredibly dreary and boring and I gave up after the first episode."

Mention made of this, in Post #37 of this thread -- rail scenes shot at Staverton, on the Dart Valley Railway. Have, myself, neither seen TV version, nor read the book -- from your account, it seems that I've missed nothing ! At my fairly advanced age, I feel that I've had all the reckoning with Delderfield, that I want -- not looking at reading or re-reading, any more by him.
 

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...And; a thing which some authors do (my impression, in times past rather than nowadays): for characters' surnames, they borrow -- usually fairly obscure -- place-names; Heyer is one such. Not the worst sin which an author can commit; but I find it annoying, and feel it to be lazy on the authors' part. I suspect that up to about mid-20th-century, authors engaging in this practice used for it, "random roving" among rail passenger timetables, thus "harvesting" relatively-little-known station names...

One of her detective stories (Duplicate Death, I think) is absolutely riddled with people named after places, mostly in the North-East, although there was, if I remember, a Colonel Cartmel.

Off at a tangent, the book is a late example of the way that so many authors presumed that their readers fully understood the rules of bridge. There have been plenty of times when some important clue or red herring turns on some detail of a bridge game. This, so I believe, comes from the assumed or intended readership of such books in the twenties and thirties. But it is not much help to those of us who never got beyond Snap.
 

Calthrop

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One of her detective stories (Duplicate Death, I think) is absolutely riddled with people named after places, mostly in the North-East, although there was, if I remember, a Colonel Cartmel.

Off at a tangent, the book is a late example of the way that so many authors presumed that their readers fully understood the rules of bridge. There have been plenty of times when some important clue or red herring turns on some detail of a bridge game. This, so I believe, comes from the assumed or intended readership of such books in the twenties and thirties. But it is not much help to those of us who never got beyond Snap.

That's me, too -- my loathing, and incomprehension, of "the 52-page hymn book" is boundless. (Moral judgements not involved -- card games, hearts-diamonds-spades-clubs type, just bore me to tears.) Mercifully, I've never encountered such bridge-centered " 'tec" stories -- will in future, be wary !

"Tangenting" further, from your "red herring" figure of speech: I've had some liking for Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. One such, The Five Red Herrings, seems to be regarded with great contempt by many otherwise-fans of the lady's detective works -- seemingly, because of the solution to the mystery's hanging on a thing extremely far-fetched and abstruse (cards not involved -- if I remember rightly, it's something to do with artists' paint-mixing?). This probably brands me as no proper detective-mystery fan -- but I loved the book: largely because of its setting in a beautiful and deeply rural part of these islands -- south-west Scotland; and, allied to this, the book's giving something of a part to the Dumfries -- Stranraer rail line and its charmingly, if exasperatingly, leisurely operating procedures.
 

Gloster

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"Tangenting" further, from your "red herring" figure of speech: I've had some liking for Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. One such, The Five Red Herrings, seems to be regarded with great contempt by many otherwise-fans of the lady's detective works -- seemingly, because of the solution to the mystery's hanging on a thing extremely far-fetched and abstruse (cards not involved -- if I remember rightly, it's something to do with artists' paint-mixing?). This probably brands me as no proper detective-mystery fan -- but I loved the book: largely because of its setting in a beautiful and deeply rural part of these islands -- south-west Scotland; and, allied to this, the book's giving something of a part to the Dumfries -- Stranraer rail line and its charmingly, if exasperatingly, leisurely operating procedures.

I find Five Red Herrings to be one of Sayers’s most enjoyable books, probably due to its mixture of location, railways and writing style. (It also includes a reference to Freeman Wills Crofts’ Sir John Magill’s Last Journey, which is certainly in my top ten detective novels and probably in the top three.) Sayers’ book does include a slight element similar to the assumption that readers will know the rules of bridge. In Five Red Herrings, when the body is found, something makes Wimsey suspicious. Sayers doesn’t say what it is, but interpolates a comment on the lines of, ‘the intelligent reader will see what is missing’. Not everybody is sufficiently knowledgeable about or proficient in the relevant area.
 

contrex

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And; a thing which some authors do (my impression, in times past rather than nowadays): for characters' surnames, they borrow -- usually fairly obscure -- place-names... I suspect that up to about mid-20th-century...
I have a feeling it might have been to safeguard themselves from even a remote chance of legal action from aggrieved people who happened to share a surname with a character; certainly it seemed to happen a lot. Aldous Huxley had a crooked 'Lord Aldehyde'. I'd go for the Southern myself. Joe Birkbeck, private investigator. Inspector Bromley, his nemesis and occasional ally, Mary Cray, his girlfriend, Motspur Parke, a crooked lawyer, etc etc.

I've always like the surnames Dickens created.

I didn't make clear that my first Hemingway was not part of my mother's collection.
 

Calthrop

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I find Five Red Herrings to be one of Sayers’s most enjoyable books, probably due to its mixture of location, railways and writing style. (It also includes a reference to Freeman Wills Crofts’ Sir John Magill’s Last Journey, which is certainly in my top ten detective novels and probably in the top three.) Sayers’ book does include a slight element similar to the assumption that readers will know the rules of bridge. In Five Red Herrings, when the body is found, something makes Wimsey suspicious. Sayers doesn’t say what it is, but interpolates a comment on the lines of, ‘the intelligent reader will see what is missing’. Not everybody is sufficiently knowledgeable about or proficient in the relevant area.

I really must -- "if the Lord spares me", as they say in Lewis -- get better acquainted with Freeman Wills Crofts. Not least because in his "day job" he held, if I recall rightly, high office on the LMS's Northern Counties Committee (Ireland) division; and I love anything to do with Ireland ("all parts and sorts"). I read, a very long time ago, one short story by him; all I remember about it is that it was set somewhere in Britain, round about the middle of World War II: central characters, a main-line loco driver and fireman -- the driver felt unhappy that wartime stringencies meant that cleaning, especially of locomotives, had to go by the board -- they were permanently outwardly filthy. Driver was more unhappy with Hitler over this, than about any of said gent's more obvious misdeeds -- well, "where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also".

I remember the "the intelligent reader .. " bit; as said previously, I think to do with paints ... it told me nothing, at the time of reading; but I tend to enjoy mystery stories just for the generality of them -- usually have little or no idea "whodunnit". Another "plus" for me about TFRH is (pet peeve of mine re Sayers, coming up): it does not involve the -- to me intensely annoying -- love of Wimsey's life, the wretched woes-bedevilled whiny biddy Harriet. I think TFRH is chronologically before she shows up. Call me callous / insensitive / an overgrown "gurls and luv stuff are soppy" schoolboy -- but I have no use for that woman, in a to me, otherwise splendid series of mystery stories. Have seen it suggested that Sayers was becoming tired of Wimsey, and wished to get shot of him: was too tender-hearted to try what Doyle tried (unsuccessfully) to do with Holmes, and kill him off -- so she decided instead, to marry him off. If so -- as with Doyle and his hero, but in a different way -- the thing backfired: the woman features protractedly in the last half-a-dozen or so Wimsey books; the last couple infested, for my taste, with highly off-putting lovey-dovey goo and glurge.
 
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Calthrop

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I have a feeling it might have been to safeguard themselves from even a remote chance of legal action from aggrieved people who happened to share a surname with a character; certainly it seemed to happen a lot. Aldous Huxley had a crooked 'Lord Aldehyde'. I'd go for the Southern myself. Joe Birkbeck, private investigator. Inspector Bromley, his nemesis and occasional ally, Mary Cray, his girlfriend, Motspur Parke, a crooked lawyer, etc etc.

One sees the authors' point, I suppose; if they were cautious souls. Bolder types presumably said "full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes !" -- and called their characters, whatever came into their heads.

I've always like the surnames Dickens created.

From him, I do treasure Lord Alfred Verisopht; and Simon Tappertit.

I didn't make clear that my first Hemingway was not part of my mother's collection.

Hemingway rather "too highbrow for my blood", I fear -- I'm no intellectual in this department. Have read "a couple or three" by him -- found OK, but not life-changing.
 

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I'm currently re-reading (40 years after I first read them) all the novels of George Gissing that I can get my hands on, and have been noticing his occasional railway references. Royal Oak station crops up in more than one novel, including a reference to a character taking a train from Royal Oak to Chelsea which puzzled me at first until I recalled the one-time spur from the Hammersmith and City to the West London line; and The Odd Women has a pleasant short passage about a ride on the Ravenglass and Eskdale in its early days (c. 1880s); two of the characters are on holiday at Seascale and make an excursion which involves a long hike back from Boot.
 

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I haven't looked this up to check the details, but at the beginning of the Arthur Ransome children's story 'Swallowdale' there's a brief description of the 'Swallows' arriving by train at the lake ahead of their latest adventure.

As the lake in the 'Swallows & Amazons' stories is a composite of Lake Windermere and Coniston Water the branch line they travel on can't be said to be either the Windermere or Coniston lines so must be fictional.
Bit slow to pick this post up! I moved from the Revd Audrey's railway books onto the Arthur Ransome "Swallows and Amazons" books as my reading skills developed. While the lake, as you say, is a composite of Windermere and Coniston, it is clear that the branch line they travel on to 'Rio' is closely based on the Windermere branch. In particular in "Pigeon Post" the drawing of "Letting fly" (where Roger and his sister release a homing pigeon at the "Strickland Junction" station before travelling on the branch) can clearly be identified as a mirror-image of Oxenholme station on the WCML.

So I don't think this is strictly in accord with the definition of being a 'fictional' railway, I am sorry to say!
 

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Bit slow to pick this post up! I moved from the Revd Audrey's railway books onto the Arthur Ransome "Swallows and Amazons" books as my reading skills developed. While the lake, as you say, is a composite of Windermere and Coniston, it is clear that the branch line they travel on to 'Rio' is closely based on the Windermere branch. In particular in "Pigeon Post" the drawing of "Letting fly" (where Roger and his sister release a homing pigeon at the "Strickland Junction" station before travelling on the branch) can clearly be identified as a mirror-image of Oxenholme station on the WCML.

So I don't think this is strictly in accord with the definition of being a 'fictional' railway, I am sorry to say!
As long as the railway is fictional or that the train service itself is fictional (ie. fictional operator or a service not operated in real life by the stock used in film) then it might just about meet the definition.
 

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Any monorail from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation universe. None of them are named iirc, except for the Pacific Atlantic Monorail from the Thunderbirds episode Brink of Disaster. Thunderbirds also features the Anderbad Express, though that's a named train rather than a line. There's also a direct line from Paris to Monaco in an episode of Captain Scarlet, which is later used in the episode to catch out the 2 Mysteron agents. A monorail in Japan also plays as a setting for the first multi-episode story arc in the 2015 Thunderbirds reboot.
As are video games on the off chance anyone can come up with them. The first example I can think of is the Brown Streak Railroad system in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Black Mesa Transit System from the Half-Life series. There are also maps with trains, including several in TF2 and the Black Ops 2 map Express.
An episode on London's Burning back in the early/mid-1990's when Blue Watch responded to a fire on a train at Shadbrook Station. I believe this was actually Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway
You bring up London's Burning, yet you forgot the eponymous Blackwall tube station. There's also an episode where a Geiger Counter is left on the top of a nuclear container that's also dripping standing water off the roof, and the train crew think it's leaking. There's also an episode with a train crash.
 

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Honourable mention to Weatherfield North Metrolink stop, with its two ticket offices!


Weatherfield_North.jpg
 

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Any monorail from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation universe. None of them are named iirc, except for the Pacific Atlantic Monorail from the Thunderbirds episode Brink of Disaster. Thunderbirds also features the Anderbad Express, though that's a named train rather than a line. There's also a direct line from Paris to Monaco in an episode of Captain Scarlet, which is later used in the episode to catch out the 2 Mysteron agents. A monorail in Japan also plays as a setting for the first multi-episode story arc in the 2015 Thunderbirds reboot.
There is a jet propelled monorail featured at the final episode of the Amazon alternative history series - The Man In the High Castle.

The resistance blow the track supports and there is a spectacular crash leading to the death of Reichsmarshall John Smith.

This is a clip from YouTube - it is quite well done,.

 

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There is a jet propelled monorail featured at the final episode of the Amazon alternative history series - The Man In the High Castle.

The resistance blow the track supports and there is a spectacular crash leading to the death of Reichsmarshall John Smith.

This is a clip from YouTube - it is quite well done,.

Damn it I’m not that far through the series yet!!!

(Jokes of course, it’s my own fault for taking my time, look forward to getting to this part)
 

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Damn it I’m not that far through the series yet!!!

(Jokes of course, it’s my own fault for taking my time, look forward to getting to this part)
Sorry to spoil it.

Some scenes throughout the series were set in Berlin which had been rebuilt as Albert Speer's Germania.

Shame they didn't feature the German Broad Gauge proposals.

Bought a very interesting book on the Breitspurbahn at the Welshpool and Llanfair a few years ago.

At 9ft 10in would have made Brunel's attempt look rather narrow gauge.
 

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I seem to remember a 1970s television adaptation of Delderfield's novel "To Serve Them All My Days"....about a long-serving teacher in a boys' public school somewhere in the South of England. IIRC, it was incredibly dreary and boring and I gave up after the first episode.

Yes scenes were filmed on the Dart Valley Railway at Staverton which also appeared in the other Delderfield adaptation "A Horseman Riding By".

You really should not have given up on "To Serve them All My Days" it really is a fantastic series. I had only left school a couple of years earlier in 78 and could relate some of the teachers, in particular the unpleasant head, to teachers I had encountered.

Of related interest when Powlett-Jones returns home to Wales some scenes where filmed around Blaenavon and what is now the Big Pit Museum adjacent to the Pontypool and Blaenafon Railway can be seen. He also meets his first wife around the now disuses Birnbeck Pier at Weston Super Mare. - Its a great series for West Country / Wales location spotting but the acting and story is spot on. It is also partially autobiographical and was based on Delderfield's own experience at West Buckland School in Devon, though the actual school used for the series was Milton Abbey School in Dorset.
 

Calthrop

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I think it was that John Boot was a journalist who was the darling of the glitterati and so when they need to send a hack to Africa, proprietor Lord Copper says, “Send Boot!” However, the only Boot the editor (or whatever) can think of is the compiler of the nature notes: so off he goes. (I hope this isn’t a spoiler as it I think it all appears early on.)
If I recall correctly, Lord Copper is both a ruthless, borderline-psychotic tyrant; and a moron -- his employees simultaneously despise him, and go in terror of him. The boldest comment that his second-in-command dares to make in response to his pronouncements, is "Up to a point, Lord Copper" -- code for "you imbecile, you are talking utter rubbish". (I keep thinking more and more, that Scoop merits revisiting !)

I have lately, indeed got from Amazon an inexpensive second-hand copy of Waugh's Scoop. My reaction has been: really, not thrilled -- either by the novel in general; or its rail content, whether re quantity, or mickey-taking quality. Maybe there's something in me, which makes me incapable of appreciating authors / works raved over by most of the literary cognoscenti. Scoop this time round struck me as somewhat feebly whimsical, rather than the fierce and mordant satire as which many acclaim it. I read it faithfully, up to not quite a quarter of the way through; thoroughly un-enthralled, did thenceforth a "skipping" job in search of the bits about the railway of the fictional land of Ishmaelia (supposedly drawing on the author's experiences while covering Italy's conquest of Ethiopia).

Actually the book's "Ishmaelia" is -- while occupying the geographical place which Ethiopia does -- in character, not a lot like what one understands Ethiopia to be: it "feels" from the text, a good deal more like Liberia, which one learns Waugh also visited and despised. And, really nothing "juicy" re comical and / or with horrific consequences, incompetence in the working of Ishmaelia's railway -- which is indeed, clearly a fictionalisation of the metre-gauge "Franco-Ethiopian" Djibouti to Addis Ababa line. Few scenes of the book, have to do with the railway -- basically it appears, just as the means by which the assorted journalist characters get from the coast to the capital. The author labels Mr. Boot's such journey, as "of constant annoyance" -- with the train "crawling ... for three days ... up from the fierce heat of the coast into the bleak and sodden highlands" -- well, O.K., it's a narrow-gauge line, so it's slow; and it serves a climatically unpleasant part of the world ...

At one stage of the journey the luggage van gets, in error, detached from the train: our heroes are inconvenienced for a while, by being without their gear. A few days later, the van shows up in the capital and they get their stuff back. The vehicle arrives, attached to a special train conveying -- as well as locals -- another bunch of foreign news-media people, sent to Ishmaelia to cover the country's ongoing war (it eventuates that in turn, the van carrying their luggage has been uncoupled and left behind, somewhere down the line). Fair enough -- not efficiency in the more-advanced-parts-of-First-World league; but to me, feeble stuff compared to what I'd been expecting.

Overall, found Scoop less enjoyable than when I read it as a kid, many decades back -- and I was lukewarm about it then. I suppose this Waugh johnny's stuff must have something to it; for so many learned literary and artistic types to go as bananas about it, the way they do -- but going by this offering of his, I have trouble seeing why.
 

JGurney

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can you name any examples of fictional railway lines, stations or services in any form of media, be that books,
There are the fictitious Sussex stations of Dunhambury and Pottlewhistle Halt, based roughly on the real Lewes and Southease, from Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings series.
 
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