Train of Events

Train of Events (1949)

A train disaster is told in four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it.

Date of release
1949-01-18
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (13)
Runtime
1h 28m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
Sidney Cole, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: £145K

Train of Events is a 1949 British portmanteau film made by Ealing Studios, directed by Sidney Cole, Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden and starring Jack Warner, Peter Finch and Valerie Hobson. The film premiered on 18 August 1949 at the Gaumont Haymarket in London. In the film, as a train is heading for a crash into a stalled petrol tanker at a level crossing, four different stories are told in flashback.

Production

Jack Warner was permanently injured while making this film. He had insisted on learning how a steam engine is driven to get his posture right, but slipped on a patch of oil and fell into a locomotive turntable pit and injured his back. As a result, he had a slight limp which remained with him ever afterwards and became noticeably worse as he aged.

A quirk of the film is that one of the digits on the smokebox number plate of a locomotive featured in one of the early scenes is painted out (presumably to avoid worrying passengers who might fear that it really would be involved in an accident), but is still clearly readable because the numbers themselves were made from raised metal.

The locomotives used in the film included two LMS Class 3F "Jinty" 0-6-0Ts Nos. 47327 and 47675, and LMS Royal Scot Class No. 46126 Royal Army Service Corps, though at the time this film was being made, it was in its rebuilt condition from 1943. One of these engines 47327 survives and is based on the Midland Railway in Butterley.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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