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BBC Great Train Robbers... programme

pistonvalve

pistonvalve

master brummie
Hi All, The railway content was as usual in error!! The loco used in the robbery was a class 40 yet the loco shown last night was a class 37 with the class 40 number! There was no resemblances to the WCML.


The acting was good.


Mike.
 
If I heard right Roy James, the racing driver who drove the getaway car, said he needed the money as motor racing was expensive and he wanted to move up from FORMULA FORD, that would be pretty impossible in 1963 as Formula Ford only started in 1967.
Just one for the Birmingham connection, the railway museum at Tyseley had the actual mail coach from the robbery on display for a long time, not sure if they still have it. I agree on the class 40 though neither that or the 37 used as stand in were known by those class designations in 1963. Preserved 37's are more plentiful than 40's in preservation, I believe that there are only seven 40's none of which are as I can make out in an appropriate livery, as against forty seven 37's several in the period green livery. Think that to the uneducated the two locos especially in the dark would be hard to distinguish without the two side by side, so the production team would have taken an easy option, used artistic licence and hoped that us armchair continuity folks wouldn't notice . I may not be 100% on the train stuff as they are from an era in which I have taken little interest in as they were just well there to see day in day out.
 
Given that the filming was done, as far as I know, on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway in Yorkshire it comes as no surprise that concessions to accuracy had to be made. Regular watchers of Poirot will know that artistic licence is usually taken in historical transport scenes. After all tv programmes are made for most viewers not the few 'in the know' folks. :biggrin:
 
The robbery happened in August... but in the film there was not a tree to be seen with leaves on it & I am sure that there were frozen puddles as well...

Margaret.
 
The mail coach was part of a display at the Engine House, Highley a couple of months ago,very interesting too,I'm not sure if its part of Severn Valley Railway stock though.
 
The E prefix would have notionally indicated the regions roster to which that the item of rolling stock was allocated. But there were a lot of interregional routes that would have trains made up of none passenger coaching stock from all the regions they passed through or connected to. Thus for example a there was a mail train that as I remember ran from Plymouth to York, that would have passed through Western region, Midland region and Eastern region, or earlier GWR, LMS and LNER so could have included stock from all those companies
 
Hi,

Don't know much about the controls in a diesel electric loco, but while they were practising
the 'dead man's handle' was identified. Would the engine have continued when they baled out?

Kind regards

Dave
 
I don't believe it should have, there needs to be a constant downward pressure on the DMH to maintain drive, but I believe that this has not always been the case, this was in the days of two men in the cab, a sort of left over from the driver and fireman on the footplate, rather than the modern one man. It wasn't until single man operation came in that the importance of the dead mans handle became so important as there was no one else to take the controls in the event of the driver becoming incapacitated
 
hi paul ; you are quite correct the dead mand handle only came into force with the introduction of the electric trains and not the steam engingines as the case of the trainrobbery took place that they took over from i used to see old mail train being loaded up at the old back entrance of the rear end of the old new street station in the fiftys if anybody recalls the orinional rear entrane and where the sunday papers was being shipped off and the london papers being unloaded there as well and you could pick up yor sunday mercury on that loading bay at 12 oclock but years later they set up a dispatched one out side there offices at eleven oclock best wishes paul ;; Astonian;
 
Hi All,

As well as the train discrepancy I spotted one in the police officers uniforms. They were all wearing white shirts. It was many years after 1963 that constables and sergeants went into white shirts. Previous to that they wore blue shirts I noticed also that the Met police officers wore blue and white bands on their sleeves indicating that they were on duty. I am fairly certain that this practice finished well before 1963. Nevertheless I enjoyed the program.

Merry Christmas All - Old Boy
 
hi old boy
Yes i noticed that as well but also what they for got to mention that charlie wilson also escaped from the winson green prison
over the wall and into a furtiture van as well but sadly charlie was not as much in the game league as ronnie with in the criminal under
world of gangsters as ronnie ; and sadley charlie eventualy got court as i recal the effort of the local police ; C division of brum ;
they searched properys for a week or more around the local area as i was in and around the area my self and wittness them searching
cellars and houses and shops propert,s in the hope he was still around ; which was silly but may be for t6he reaon the screw a londoner
within the prison services employed by the old H M P SERVICES WAS PAID to get him out across the prison walls in helping him to succeed escape
he him self was apprended and done time behind bars for it and charlie was back in behind bars himself to finish his time
if you do not know the prison of winson green ;or ever seen it ;there used to be a gate where you can enter the cannal water ways and tow pathes
it was there where they openened the big wire gates you can see it goes down a slope and its the outer wall of he prison
in the early hours of the morning they backed down the wide pathe with the furtiture van and the ladder was provided by thenamed screw whom i will not mention as i knew his daughter and friends she was known to us locally as there house and front door and there back garden was the prison wall at there bottom of the garden but as i said he set up the ladder for him and over he went old charlie on the subject of the prison ; today they talk about ths prison as being over crowded
if my memory serves me correctly it was stated around 1962 that the population was over crowded and they was gonna build a new prison ; but it not the case now they extended back into the old mental hospital as it was the orinional prison ; called birmingham prison way back in time and the mentalhospital combined
and thats what they have done the story about there over crowding was published in the mail front pages in that year for any body to read if they have time
to cross check it ; they could have showed us or mentioned charlie within the story line as ronnie ; i thought it was abit of a coincidence ronnie dyin the same day as the film was being shown over the years its been on i wish i had a pound for every time they showed it the only clucks about it being spruced up was useing the title of a coppers tale ; merry christmas to you and the forum members ; Astonian;;;;;Alan;;;
 
Roy James was driving in what was called Formula Junior in 1963. They used modified Ford engines, usually tuned by Cosworth, and ran on racing tyres. He drove a Brabham.
 
Formula Junior used just about every production engine from a saloon car, around 1,000cc, most of them in the UK, however did come from Ford, the Anglia 105E, or the 948 BMC engine from the Morris Minor, FIAT and Auto Union/ DKW, 2 stroke, engines were quite popular on the continent. They really were quite highly tuned in 85 to 100 bhp was usual from the Fords, BMC's and 2 strokes with the 1100 Fiat engines making 120bhp, that would be good for a normally aspirating engine today. Bear in mind there was no Formula 2 then as Formula 1 had taken over as the 1.5 ltr Formula then with NA engines making 175-200bhp, hence formula junior had to fulfil two roles as both an entry level to single seaters and a feeder to F1. So it wouldn't have been the big jump from Formula Junior to F1 as it would be from FF to F1 today
 
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