by Mark Found

Sometimes it seems that all I write about is how fantastic the shoot was, what great people we met, what great fun it was driving the train etc. etc. Just occasionally we have the sort of days that just seem to go from bad to worse. Want to hear about one of those? Alright then, read on.

Filming is fine, absolutely fine, when, for instance, you're shooting on a preserved railway. Then you've got quite a degree of control and, although engines and trains are inclined to not listen to you, the people associated with them generally do and try and help. You want to make their railway look good, and they want you to make it look good. Even Stevens, as they say.

The big problems start when you want to film on a "real" railway. Suddenly, and quite understandably, there are other factors to take into consideration. Health and safety, for example, timetables and the keeping to thereof, and, the filmcrews' worst nightmare - the general public.

For some reason, which I don't fully understand, a few people feel that filming is something that they can take part in - be it pulling faces, shouting, honking the horn or asking if they can be in it. Let me assure you, that nobody has ever started a career on the box by doing any of those things, all it means is that yours truly, and the crew, have to start all over again. I sometimes wonder, if the shoe was on the other foot, what a builder would say if I walked over his newly laid concrete, yelling and shouting?

I guess it's a part of life, and when all said and done, not a big thing. We, in television, barely give it a second thought and just do it again. But today, the day of the Metroland story seemed to stumble from one awful moment to another.

It was hot, for a start, really hot, and, because we were going to be travelling on the underground, we had to carry all the gear around with us, and , trust me, it's heavy. There was an argument with the director over the first piece to camera, and we subsequently arrived late at the LT museum - where we only had a limited time to film.

We were also informed by London Transports' PR department that we could only film on the Metropolitan Line between ten o'clock and half past three, and that every time we wanted to film at a station we had to go to the stationmasters office and have a safety talk. All understandable, but a real pain in the butt for a film crew. It was rapidly becoming apparent that, logistically, we weren't going to have a lot of time to film the actual subject of the piece.

Still, thank heavens for Oliver Green and the London Transport Museum. In hindsight it would have been nice to do a piece about that, but then hindsight's a wonderful thing when you look back on it.

Oliver is a natural in front of the camera, and he really knows his stuff (I guess as head of the collection it's understandable).

The whole subject of Metroland is fascinating - I'd never realised that the Metropolitan Railway itself had built all the houses. I'd always assumed that they'd built the railway and the houses followed later on, as was normal practice.

The fact is that a whole swathe of North London and even further out was created by a railway company, and I still find it astounding. A good example of how far they extended is that when Mark and I went to film the end pieces for the shows we filmed at Quainton. In Buckinghamshire. Beyond Aylesbury - and even that was just a station on a Metropolitan Line that went out even further than that, to Brill, for example.

Worth your while, if you're interested in Metroland, paying the LT museum a visit, it's got some blinding displays

And the rest of our day? Hot and bothered sums it up, but the visit to the Metropolitan and Jubilee line control centre which Tracey from London Underground managed to wangle for us was really interesting and salvaged our piece, which, if you notice, only features one tiny bit actually on a train!

Many , many thanks to Louise Johnson and Oliver Green at the museum, and Tracey O'Brien from the L.U. press office.

Trainspotting.links (will open in a new window)

www.ltmuseum.co.uk
an excellent site, very comprehensive and well put together.
www.londonrailways.net
an enthusiasts website and very very good. Incredibly detailed, well written and good quality photographs. The links page is one of the best I've seen.
www.metroland.org
not quite sure about this site. Beautifully presented - by someone with a very strange sense of humour. Well worth a look, and go to the metro humour page.
www.thetube.com
the official site, and looks like it. Good, but put together by someone doing a job and not for love
clive's underground lines
an enthusiasts' site, and very, very good. Used it a lot for reference.

Books

I've got a copy of "London's Underground" by John Glover and published by Ian Allen, and I think it's excellent - worth keeping an eye out for it and so is "Underground To Everywhere" by Stephen Halliday published by Sutton. If tunnels are your thing check out "London Under London" by Richard Trench and Ellis Hillman, published by John Murray.