This all happened long before many of the members of this site were born.
We were making a film for LT and wanted to show how small the original C&SLR platforms were and just how much they had been extended. To give the scene more impact, we decided to have the presenter standing at the point that would have been the end of the old headwall with the original platform behind him. After explaining how small the original railway was, he would walk forward (with the camera pulling back) describing how the running tunnels had been enlarged and the platforms had been extended. As he reached the present day headwall, he peered into the tunnel, with the camera still pulling away from him, and delivered the last line explaining that the distance he had walked was the length that the platform had been extended.
In order to achieve this shot, we used a p-way trolley onto which we squeezed a cameraman, heavy-duty tripod, sound equipment, lighting gear and the director. Gaffer tape (a very strong adhesive tape with fabric strengthening) was wound round the wheels of the trolley to reduce the noise and vibration. Propulsion was provided by a production assistant walking in the suicide pit and pushing the trolley. The presenter had to walk at a speed that would allow him to deliver that last line at the right moment and the assistant had to keep the trolley exactly the same distance ahead of him to make the shot look right. As the trolley reached the tunnel entrance, the assistant let go and dived down into pit before he got into camera shot. The trolley then rolled down the tunnel until the director shouted 'Cut', whereupon two rather heavy gentlemen used physical force to stop it.
That was the theory, and it worked the first few times, except for the presenter overtaking the trolley or the trolley going just a bit too fast and loosing the presenter.
At this point I must repeat that this was a very long time ago and the words 'health' and 'safety' had not crept into our vocabulary. I would also add that we had night-time track possession and a very experienced film crew to whom this was just a matter of course.
On about the ninth take, the timing was just about right, but about halfway down the platform there was a noticeable rush of air from the tunnel and rumbling sound. Someone on the trolley whispered "There's a train coming". Someone else said, "It's OK. We've got possession and the current's off".
As the trolley entered the tunnel, the noise became deafening and the whole station was shaking. At that point someone screamed, "It's a ******* battery loco!"
The view that the camera would have seen as the trolley reached the end of the station was of a presenter with his hair blowing wildly while a lookout (who had been sitting on a bench playing the part of a passenger) quickly pulled out his traffic circular and flicked through it.
A little way into the tunnel, the director was first to abandon the trolley and run towards the station, followed by the lighting guy and cameraman (I told you that they were a very experienced crew). Shortly afterwards, the two gorillas leapt over the trolley in the style of a pair of Olympic athletes and set out in the same direction.
As the first person reached the station, the production assistant popped his head out of the pit to see what was going on. Making full use of its new-found freedom, the trolley trundled off towards the next station as a battery loco thundered through on the
other platform - the air having been forced forward by the loco through a cross-passage and down our tunnel towards us.
That is what the camera would have seen and we all wanted to look at the shot, but the cameraman reminded us that we had a job to do and promised that we would all get a copy later.
Several years later, It'll Be Alright On The Night decided that they would like to run it on one of their shows and the cameraman finally admitted that, as he abandoned the trolley, he had unplugged his battery belt from the camera rather than pressing the release button - something that we had not noticed at the time. You will all therefore have to be satisfied with a description of the event and a photograph of the p-way trolley, taken as we were setting things up.
Just in case you were wondering what happened to the trolley, it was later recovered having come to a standstill at a dip in the track.
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