Mike Beckett

I was slightly involved in this… from planning, contracts and operations, and yes, driving 458. Which is more fun than you’d think. We did discuss the realism with them early on, but we know not to fight it - comedy comes before absolute technical accuracy in a field most people don’t care about. Whitehead NIR was used as they needed an old style footbridge at a station, and that is the last one on the network. Waterside didn’t have two platforms either, so… so what, it was funny. The possibility of using the actual Waterside station was lost when filming stalled due to Covid. Even then there was only one platform. There were technical details about the train that weren’t quite right for the era (newer style DDA-type door controls etc., and some insufferable bores have complained) and clearly the 450s didn’t have tables or a buffet, but the overall look was perfect, much closer than a bog standard ex-Enterprise Mark 2 or a Park Royal or something, and after all the 450 were unfortunate regulars on the line for many years. Another point is that they would never, ever get the degree of flexibility on the mainline that they need for that level of filming, especially with today’s increased public trains 7 days a week. There were some compromises needed during filming (you’ll note the train wasn’t going that fast - 7mph was perfect and it worked well on screen the way it was framed) and we had to keep going back down the line as all filming had to be the same direction or it would look wrong, which was something we pointed out in advance. That was fun, I got a good bit of thrash and parp on those moves, pity nobody was around to capture them. There really is a balance to be struck between total technical accuracy to please the small number of train nerds like us in this world and the needs of the filming where it just needs it to be good enough. They were never going to get decent footage of a 450 on the Derry Line, and needed an iconic view, so a CAF at Downhill it was then. Wobbly camcorder footage of a 450 back in the day (even mine) was never going to meld well into the modern production. The biggest crime of all was the dubbed PARP sounds, how dare they. Don’t they know I am the master! There was a lot of very hard work from the small team at DCDR, and it is probably the most complex filming project we’ve ever had, and I can’t think of one equal or greater since perhaps the First Great Train Robbery back in the 1970s, and was very welcome income during our covid closure. Also we asked them to leave various NIR branding items on 458, whilst not quite prototypical they don’t harm the look. Fra the trolley fella was fairly realistic, to be fair…

Mean old nasty ITG. Such bad men. There's a reasonably nice photo of one of the locos in the present day in Sri Lanka on our website, here: https://www.irishtractiongroup.com/formerlocos

Quite. The ITG are not building a museum but are supportive of Jackie's efforts, he has faced many hurdles and does not get much support from any quarter, least of Internet and social media commentators, and souvenir hunters who trespass and break bits off our locos to take home or sell. As to the success or otherwise of his venture, I don't know. If someone else has a railway or a secure storage site that they can provide and pay for, we would be delighted to hear from you.