Sister Boniface Mysteries - where filmed?

[Allen M]

Hi all
Tuesday evening (19 Dec) on Drama TV channel was a film where the sister and various others were stranded on a railway in snow.
Does anyone know on which line and when it was filmed, please? Was it real snow or 'cotton wool'?
It looked reasonably realistic except 1 how did they clime on/off the train and 2 when the coupling broke and the part train left why did it not split the brake pipe and stop the the train?

Regards
Allen

 

[daifly]

"Film crews have been seen at Parkend station and at Norchard." June.

Google is your friend!

 

[Dave F.]

Yes there were quite a few anomalies in railway terms, like; where was the train guard? Did the next signalman not notice the lack of a tail lamp? Did the driver not look back to check the train was complete? I could go on but I lost interest. Another program like Father Brown, same production people I believe.

 

[oldravendale]

Absolutely! Why let reality get in the way of a (not very good) story.

Having been in the business I usually take an interest in the production crews but haven't done so for Sister Boniface or Father Brown, come to that. Life's too short. Anyway, I'm noticing that most of the people I knew are either dead or retired! (Unless you're a Producer, but that's another story).

Also, as far as the snow is concerned it'll be artificial. The real stuff is too unreliable and uncontrollable to be much use to a production crew. There's a fair bit about it from different sources on line.

Brian

 

[40057]

I have not watched any episodes of this one. But the whole premise suggests the railway operating practises may not be the most implausible aspect of the series.

I have been forced to the conclusion that if you know about something, don’t watch entertainment programmes that purport to portray it. It’s too painful. I used to be in local government. The depiction of council decision making tends to be no more correct then the version of ‘railway operation’ described above. Council employees who are also elected to the Council and then voting on decisions that directly affect their job etc. No idea about how the actual process works. I wonder to what extent the inaccuracies in apparently realistic dramas fuel public cynicism and conspiracy theories.

 

[daifly]

Snow in June
Dave

 

[Brian Wainwright]

Everything is dumbed down. Most people don't care a fig.

Same with newspapers. If you have detailed knowledge of some event or issue, you will always find that the newspaper reports are superficial at best, and often grossly distorted.

This dumbing down is why I prefer to read historical fiction, instead of watching the invariably absurd TV and film versions.

 

[simond]

Most people don't care a fig.

I’d be surprised if most people even notice.

 

[Roger Pound]

I've only ever watched one episode - that was enough for me !!!

Roger

 

[Jordan]

Same with newspapers. If you have detailed knowledge of some event or issue, you will always find that the newspaper reports are superficial at best, and often grossly distorted.

It is said that the only 100% accurate information in a newspaper is the date on the front.
Even that's only true for 24 hours...

 

[oldravendale]

I've seen non so far, but Mrs D has asked me to record this series. But then she likes Midsummer Murders. I think my case rests. (She says that, because it's filmed (wrong word - should be recorded) around here she can identify locations. They're a bl**dy nuisance when it comes to creating traffic problems but I expect they are "good for the local economy".)

I have to say that I encourage her. I can sit in my dribbling chair and Photoshop Tim's photos.

Brian

 

[Chris Veitch]

My biggest recent gripe with this (predictably) poor performance by the creative media was Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. The military aspects were pretty convincing to me - although I suspect there were many inconsistent details for the cognoscenti - but the abysmally incongruous BR Mk.1s used in the finale were more than I could bear!

 

[76043]

I noticed the Mk1s in Dunkirk, thought that was very sloppy considering the Bluebell have plenty of appropriate stock.
Tony

 

[oldravendale]

Yes, Chris. I fully understand that. But 99% of the British public wouldn't recognise the inconsistency and 100% of the US/Worldwide audience - well, 99.9%. Chris Nolan is a stickler for authenticity so how this got through I really don't know. Poor work by the researchers I suspect or they didn't care and in fairness Chris Nolan wouldn't know.

For those unaware this is a dribbling chair.



You'll note that the head can slide to one side but still be supported. Dribble then drops on to the shirt and not on to the expensive carpet. To one side is a reviving glass of coloured water.

Brian

 

[JimG]

Talking about sticklers for authenticity, at BBC Bristol we filmed a docu-drama about the search for DNA - "The Race for the Double Helix in the late 1980s. The director was Mick Jackson and he also was a stickler for accuracy. There was a scene in a station shot at one of the preserved railways. Andrew, the cameraman, sort of wound Mick up a bit by saying that when I viewed the rushes I would pick up any mistake that had been made in railway details. So the rushes came in and they looked pretty well spot on - early fifties era, compartment stock and BR standard loco on the front, and I couldn't see anything out of place. But when I got home, I did a quick check on the loco and found out it had been built a year after the date the scene was representing. So I got back at him next day and he wasn't happy.

Jim

 

[Tim Birch]

My biggest recent gripe with this (predictably) poor performance by the creative media was Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. The military aspects were pretty convincing to me - although I suspect there were many inconsistent details for the cognoscenti - but the abysmally incongruous BR Mk.1s used in the finale were more than I could bear!

Another recent war film, '1917' has a soldier seemingly wearing rubber soled boots (not wellington boots) in the foreground of one of the promotional posters.

 

[daifly]

Are we perhaps being a little harsh? As modellers, we still take huge liberties with unrealistic elements in our models and layouts. Whether it is the gauge that's too narrow, the wrong type of couplings, passengers that don't move and everything else that Rule 1 allows. Perhaps film makers have their own version of 'Rule 1' in the certain knowledge that they can fool most of the people most of the time!
Dave

 

[simond]

I do recall (correctly?) that Liz Taylor had a visible filling in Camelot, and if I’m not mistaken, an MGB makes a cameo appearance in Ben Hur.

 

[alastairq]

Are the incontinent consistencies down to cost at the end of the day?
Dunno how much Bluebell would have charged per day?

 

[richard carr]

In Quadraphenia, there is a scene early iont he film in the main characters bedroom I think and out of the window you can see an HST go past in 1960 !