Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

Tut tut, we will have nun of that talk on here. She doesn't take her underwear off in public in Call the Midwife. Everything is covered up. Now if she was dressed like her character in Logan's Run I could understand the driver being easily distracted, ahem.
It was the driver of the chopper that fell ill at the controls and passed out.

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

Never saw Logan's Run, but have fond memories of Walkabout!
Pat

 

Knew it wouldn’t be long before that one came about!

 

Re the call the midwife episode. Which coaches were used please. It looks like at least one was damaged for the filming, so was a scrap coach brought in, or was one of the MHRs own MK1s smashed up?

 

Many years ago when I was a volunteer on the Nene Valley Railway an episode of 'London's Burning' was filmed there. This involved a (staged) train crash and volunteers cleared up the mess the following weekend. A crane was used to lift the wrecked carriages, but the PW gang helped in the general clear up. One thing that I remember was finding lots of empty 'Kensington Gore' bottles in the ballast!

 

Does anybody know the actual date that 73104 and 73139 were moved by rail, from the Meon Loop down to Alresford? They later left the railway by road.

 

Yes one Mk1 was "modified" with large shhets of jagged metal. This was a scrap vehicle anyway, bogies recycled though! Other coaches had "holes" painted/vinyled on the sides I believe. There are pics around but not for public sonsumption till after part 2!

 

Thank you for that.

 

Spent yesterday morning with the PW gang. We started bright and early and the yard at M4M was frosty as the sun rose; after loading a couple of sleepers to go up to Wanders for replacement work, Wickham 1 departed towards Alton, whilst Wickham 2 set of for Alresford. Three or four trees down and a few branches in the way courtesy of Eunice, soon chainsawed and manhandled out of the way. There was a larger tree down near the playing fields outside Alton, a few decent logs for the pile at PW Towers. One of the ornate station lamps at Ropley had not survived the wind, and there was a good deal of sawing and bag filling on the platform at M4M as one of the tall conifers had decided to re-model the station lighting and some of the topiary. By this time very wet and windy! However the Mid Hants seemd to have survived the storm well!

 

With both parts of the call the midwife train crash now having been broadcast, it should be safe for me to add some observations regarding the rolling stock used. Comparing the footage with my collection of photos of MHR rolling stock taken when I last visited the line back in 2018, it would seem that the following vehicles appear in the episodes. Starting with the obvious - Class 20s 8059 (post crash scenes) and 8188 (up to the crash), Class 08 08288 plus a tanker wagon and at least one "palvan" (the goods train being stunted). I managed to identify two MK1s used for the interior shots for before the passenger train crashes. Most of the interior scenes were made in TSO 4224 (there are two TSOs on the MHR with trojan moquette, and the other one (3769) has narrower seats and twin pane glass partitions). The coach that Nurse Corrigan visits the lavatory in, must be BSK 34947 (the only early build BSK with varnished wood on all the interior panelling on the line). Studying the post crash scenes, the interior shots look like they were done TSO 4224 (with the tables unscrewed and then strewn around, plus various bits of "wreckage" piled up around the saloons). The smashed up coach seen in the external scenes was a MK1 SK (judging by the layout of the roof vents). There are two SKs on the MHR. 25591 is in some kind of role as a static workshop or similar, so it wouldn't be that one, which means it must have been 24808 that was used. I had hoped that 24808 had been brought to the line for restoration (an SK in the operational fleet would have been nice!), but as Hampshire Unit has stated that a scrap coach was involved the filming, it would appear that 24808 was moved to the line to donate its bogies and then be scrapped (and for use in a train crash scene in a TV show!).

Another observation I made, was that the train crash part of the storyline seemed to have been partly based on a real life train crash that happened at Wembley in 1984. The driver of a passenger train was taken ill at the controls, the train went past a signal at danger and then sideswiped a freight train that was changing lines.

 

Does 59 still have its TPWS fitted? If so can I just say how dissatisfied I am that it’s been in shot of something I’ve not seen, and how totally unacceptable and unauthentic it is of the BBC to show something like this.
Disgusted of Cambridge

 

This is from the goods shed at Alresford- my house is to the left of the third coach behind the 20. Notice the replica Palvan doors too! The two HA's were painted/vinyled as Oild tankers, one at Ropley, one at Alresford.

 

The Call the Midwife Twitter account has released this behind the scenes picture from Alresford:

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

That light was blinking bright, lit up the house and garden a treat!

 

The latest YouTube video has be made available to watch. Great to see what’s been happening at Ropley over the last few months.

 

Seeing no one else has commented about it yet...

8F 48305 is visiting for the Spring Steam Gala over 29th April-2nd May from the GCR

 

Gets my vote. From memory a 8F hasn’t visited before.

 

Following on from the tweeted Call the Midwife picture earlier, here is a shot showing the size of the lighting rig! Apologies for slightly iffy quality I was hand holding with a long telephoto

 

Should be facing London too, which will be good for photographing....

 

Why do I feel a sudden need to listen to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds after seeing that?