LNER Class A4 - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

A4s have appeared numerous times in popular culture, both during and after preservation. The class's first film appearance was 2509 Silver Link in the Will Hay film Oh! Mr. Porter, in which Hay accidentally ruins its naming ceremony. Post war, 60017 Silver Fox features heavily in the 1954 British Transport Film Elizabethan Express, which follows the revival of non-stop London to Edinburgh runs and features footage of the water trough and corridor tender in use. A few years later, the 1959 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps features colour photography of 60010 Dominion of Canada amongst others in their post-war British Railways Brunswick green livery. This scene was subsequently parodied in the 1961 film Carry on Regardless.

In The Railway Series books by the Rev. W Awdry, the 4468 Mallard is alluded to in the book Gordon the High Speed Engine by Christopher Awdry as one of Gordon's "Doncaster cousins" who did 126 miles an hour. Mallard appears as a character in the later book Thomas and the Great Railway Show. A painting of 22 Mallard by Paul Gribble appears on the cover of the 1993 Blur album Modern Life is Rubbish.

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