Planet Replica in Victoria

My good lady is currently watching Victoria on ITV, Planet has just been shown, running in the countryside (so not at the MoSI)

Would anyone happen to know where it was filmed?

Thanks in adavnce

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that it was filmed on the GCR, but might be wrong.

 

GCR Mountsorrel branch.

 

It was very good to see a period locomotive and period costumes but the scene was perhaps a little contrived to say the least as, in reality, the Queen's first rail journey was on 13 June 1842, when Queen Victoria left Windsor Castle to undertake her first train journey. This was from Windsor to Slough courtesy (of course!) of the GWR and the Company had only 2 days' notice of her request. The locomotive, "Phlegethon" was new and driven by Sir Daniel Gooch, accompanied by Brunel. The train then carried on to Paddington. After her journey, Queen Victoria wrote that "we are quite charmed by it." As the current dramatization indicates, Prince Albert was a keen supporter of the new revolutionary method of transport and had taken his first railway journey on 14 November 1839 when he travelled from Slough to Paddington on the Great Western Railway, and had taken several more journeys since then.

 

I thought it was an excellent scene in the drama. Probably about as historically accurate as one could hope for given the budget and physical constraints of arranging something like that. At least I wasn't shouting at the telly that they 'didn't have mk 1's back then' unlike many historical dramas.

 

Indeed, an excellent bit of positive 'spin' for railways!

Andy

 

Correct. Filmed over two days early in May 2016 on the Mountsorrel Railway (http://heritage-centre.co.uk/).
Planet was stored over-night in the yet-to-be-opened Railway Museum .
Fascinating to watch the filming with so little space for the film crew in the carriages; one take tight on Albert, repeat take tight on Peel, wide angle shot etc..
Impressed how they changed the colour of the rape fields from yellow to more of a barley colour.

 

It was good to see Planet 'stretching its legs' rather than cooped-up at MOSI.

Andy

 

Thanks all for the info

 

Yes, thanks from me too, I was glad to learn where it had been filmed.

I suppose they did the best they could, getting the working Planet replica, but I was a bit fed up with the notion that the very idea of a railway was an alarming novelty in Staffordshire in 1840. By then a working railway, which opened in 1837, ran through Stafford. In 1838 there were through carriages from Euston as far as Preston, Lancashire, 200+ miles away.

This was when the GWR was only a bit over 22 miles long, all the way to Taplow.

Harry Jack.

 

There may have been working railways that early but there were many landowners reluctant to allow railways access to their land right through the 19th century. The classic example was the "good burghers" of Northampton who thought this "lunacy" was not for them and forced the nascent WCML to divert through Brinklow thus depriving the town of the long term benefits which later generations missed out on. So the programme was right IMHO to note the adversity that some railway companies faced in promulgating their routes.

Of course these things were in the past and the current dissension by landowners regarding the routeing of HS2 through parts of Cheshire and STAFFORDSHIRE have no relevance the history of landowners' rights and railway companies accesses - do they ?

 

There was also Queen Adelaide, the widow of William IV, who made a long railway trip in 1839. On 15th October of that year she travelled from Euston to Rugby in a specially refurbished London & Birmingham Railway mail carriage.

This carriage sounds like the one now preserved in the NRM, but (probably by mistake, I think) the date "1842" has become attached to it. Queen Adelaide made other railway trips, notably one from Euston to Burton-on-Trent and back, in September and November 1840. Journey time, including stops, 4 hours 30 minutes in each direction.

Harry Jack.