The Railway Children Sequel to start filming at KWVR

[Bessie]

I saw this today on the BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57007117

Classic children's film The Railway Children is to receive a sequel, more than 50 years after the original.
Sheridan Smith will star alongside Jenny Agutter, who is reprising her role as Bobbie Waterbury.
The iconic Keighley & Worth Valley Railway from the original film will also feature.
Shooting on The Railway Children Return will begin on Monday, led by Bafta-winning director Morgan Matthews. The film is due in cinemas on 1 April 2022.

Looks like it will be set in WW II era so no Pacers will be used!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Thought that "The Railway Children" had already been reprised in 2000 with Jenny Agutter as 'Mother' and Michael Kitchen as 'Father'. (To be fair, the BBC web article does mention this in passing, albeit somewhat briefly, possibly because the 2000 production was by an ITV company).

 

[Gloster]

I have not seen the 2000 version. The idea of ‘Bobbie’ being ‘Mother’ is more than I could get my head around.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I have not seen the 2000 version. The idea of ‘Bobbie’ being ‘Mother’ is more than I could get my head around.

Doesn't quite have the charm of the 1970 original, but the 2000 remake is still quite watchable.

Presumably the currently planned sequel has a markedly new plotline, and so is not yet another rehash of the 1970/2000 versions.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Does it really need a sequel? It's not like the 1970 film ended on a cliffhanger. To me it's another lame idea by a lazy film industry trying to capitalise on a popular film from the past because they're running out of origional ideas . It will no doubt lack the charm and innocence of the original.

 

[Gloster]

At the beginning of this year Radio 4 broadcast The Saving of Albert Perks with Bernard Cribbins. It was a monologue about Bobbie returning in the 1930s with a couple of children who have arrived on the Kindertransport. I wonder if this gave someone the idea of a new way to develop the idea/flog the idea to death.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The BBC web article does mention that...

"The sequel will follow a group of children who are evacuated to a Yorkshire village during World War Two, where they encounter a young soldier who, like them, is far from home."...

so it's possible the new film will have an original, if well-worn, plot line.

Wonder also whether Jenny Agutter will only have a cameo role in the new film, or is one of the main leads?

 

[Ashley Hill]

Wonder also whether Jenny Agutter will only have a cameo role in the new film, or is one of the main leads?

I'm not a fan of cameos. It's just a way of attracting viewers to a p-poor film. For example the in the female Ghostbusters two of the origional male cast appeared in minor cameo roles. It did not improve the film.

 

[32475]

I do hope Jenny Agguter will be in it if she can be released from Nonatus House in Poplar. Bernard Cribbins also.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Perhaps we should encourage other sequels to Railway Films.
Murder On The Gatwick Express anyone?

 

[birchesgreen]

Does it really need a sequel? It's not like the 1970 film ended on a cliffhanger. To me it's another lame idea by a lazy film industry trying to capitalise on a popular film from the past because they're running out of origional ideas . It will no doubt lack the charm and innocence of the original.

I'm hoping for a dark edgy reboot where the children are drug fuelled anarcho-terrorists who blow up the railway line. The Neo-Agutter can stop a train with her knickers and then pull out an Uzi.

Well I'd watch it anyway.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I'm hoping for a dark edgy reboot where the children are drug fuelled anarcho-terrorists who blow up the railway line. The Neo-Agutter can stop a train with her knickers and then pull out an Uzi.

Well I'd watch it anyway.

If it's set on modern times, wouldn't she be using a G-string?

 

[Titfield]

I wonder how much "ant-social and dangerous behaviour" the sequel will show?

Theft of coal, playing on or near railway lines, organisation by a school of a sport through a railway tunnel, distraction of crew and passengers by unauthorised signage near a railway line, positively anarchic when compared with the Titfield Thunderbolt.

 

[Gloster]

No chance of having Bernard Cribbins in it: the station would long
have become unmanned.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Thought that "The Railway Children" had already been reprised in 2000 with Jenny Agutter as 'Mother' and Michael Kitchen as 'Father'. (To be fair, the BBC web article does mention this in passing, albeit somewhat briefly, possibly because the 2000 production was by an ITV company).

Yes, I think it was and filmed on the Bluebell line?

 

[24Grange]

Set in the 1960's,fighting to keep the railway open after beeching report ? Would Bobbie be too old by then?

 

[MotCO]

Perhaps we should encourage other sequels to Railway Films.
Murder On The Gatwick Express anyone?

Or Agatha Christie's "The 4.52 from Paddington". Sorry, this train has been cancelled and replaced by a Replacement Bus

 

[Calthrop]

Set in the 1960's,fighting to keep the railway open after beeching report ? Would Bobbie be too old by then?

Book published in 1906 -- seeing its events as taking place roughly then: I figure that in the Beeching era, she'd be in her mid-70s: and indomitable, one has no doubt ! (Beeching was born in 1913; so having him a nasty little lad with whom the Children, as children, were acquainted, would be a problem to make to work.)

 

[Merthyr Imp]

I do hope Jenny Agguter will be in it if she can be released from Nonatus House in Poplar. Bernard Cribbins also.

I see that Bernard Cribbins is 92 now so may not be more than a cameo if he was to be in it.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I see that Bernard Cribbins is 92 now so may not be more than a cameo if he was to be in it.

Unless these two actors were reprising their characters in an appropriate storyline I don't think they should appear in it. New cast,new characters and new title will be the only way it would work for me.
The BBCs Gods Wonderful Railway by Avril Rowland was set in WW2 in its 3rd part of the story. And Southern TVs Flockton Flyer dealt with saving a line from closure. Oops,don't want to give Hollywood any ideas. Titfield 2 Beeching Strikes Back!

 

[Gloster]

Unless these two actors were reprising their characters in an appropriate storyline I don't think they should appear in it. New cast,new characters and new title will be the only way it would work for me.

Which would make it a completely new film, which it probably will be in most ways. But the PR people will latch on to anything for publicity.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Which would make it a completely new film, which it probably will be in most ways. But the PR people will latch on to anything for publicity.

Indeed,but it needs to be an entirely new story. Three children being evacuated to the country to avoid the war is still three children moving to the country which sounds rather familiar. No doubt they'll be billeted with Bobby who will reminisce about her past. It just sounds like a profiteering rehash.
Will Sally Thomsett not be in it,she's looking rather frail these days and Gary Warren (Peter) seems to have vanished!

 

[Journeyman]

I see that Bernard Cribbins is 92 now so may not be more than a cameo if he was to be in it.

He seems to be completely indestructible. He was still taking on quite major roles just a few years ago.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

He seems to be completely indestructible. He was still taking on quite major roles just a few years ago.

He was in a local Christmas Show in 2019.

Or Agatha Christie's "The 4.52 from Paddington". Sorry, this train has been cancelled and replaced by a Replacement Bus

Not even a bus today 8/5 on GWR.

 

[24Grange]

I think Bobbie's brother Peter, would have been of an age to be slaughtered in WW1, sadly. Bobbie and her sister Phyllis may have ended up spinsters, as not enough surviving men of that generation to go around . ( I'm getting maudling )

 

[Calthrop]

I think Bobbie's brother Peter, would have been of an age to be slaughtered in WW1, sadly. Bobbie and her sister Phyllis may have ended up spinsters, as not enough surviving men of that generation to go around . ( I'm getting maudling )

Yes, you are coming across as a bit of a miserable so-and-so -- the worst-possible-case-scenario doesn't always happen; maybe Peter -- thanks to his railway-related expertise gained in the course of doings in the story -- would have been put to work by the Army in their Railway Operating Division: doing stuff in that, and even getting some fun out of it, in relative safety behind the front line; and ultimately coming home whole and unharmed, except for a tendency to bore people to tears about French railways and their funny ways of doing things. Bobbie might well have decided to make the best of the situation, having in mind that there's a great deal else in life besides pairing-off and reproducing; she'd perhaps have become Britain's first super-keen female railway enthusiast -- and, with the tendency of life to come up with what you least expect -- maybe ending up marrying Cecil J. Allen (poor woman ! -- CJA is not a hero to me).

 

[Gloster]

Or Peter could have come back blinded or gassed or missing limbs and prone to nightmares or wandering around at night. The girls could have married and then lost husbands in the trenches, leaving them as ageing women sharing a dark house with their brother. The Railway Children Horror Movie. (But the first two sentences depicts what was the reality for many, not a story.)

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Peter , being a well brought up boy would probably have been a junior Officer and regrettably they were often the most vulnerable , leading the troops to a personal hell. (I can think of several people , now long gone, who lost their brothers in this way in WW1)

Bobbie would have become a sharp minded "business woman" - like Edith Jesse Thompson (see the website of that name) - though ideally not hanged for an affair , - but they often stepped into aspirational and valuable jobs with some flexibility in employment and "suffrage" after WW1 and taking advantage of the brief post war boom and shortage of competing business men of a young age. Poor Phyllis I suspect (seemingly a bit less confident) , would have ended up as a much respected and unmarried local librarian with a house full of cats.

Porter Perks would have , if not called up , been promoted to at least a signalman and possibly a Station Master , enjoying double wages and an 8 hour day.

(I take your point on C J Allan - a less rigerous social aversion to the odd drink might have made him a bit more human !)

 

[Calthrop]

(I take your point on C J Allan - a less rigerous social aversion to the odd drink might have made him a bit more human !)

Mm -- no doubt an excellent person in many ways; but has always struck me as one of those Christians with a tendency to confuse themselves, with the deity they worship. It is -- above all else -- a statement by him concerning World War I, which prompts my dislike of him.

 

[Merthyr Imp]

If I remember right, Cecil J. Allen turned down the invitation to be on the train for Mallard's record run because it took place on a Sunday and he had 'other ideas' on how to spend his time on a Sunday.

He married in 1912 at the age of 26 so could have been the right age for Bobbie if she had got in quick - but I've always assumed she would have got together with the runner who she nursed back to health following his injury in the tunnel. Although it must be well over 50 years since I read the book so could be wrong!