Bond-themed ‘Skyfall’ train makes maiden journey in U.K.
Posted February 16, 2013 2:21 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Skyfall train 91007 departed with a loud signal-horn on its maiden journey from London to Edinburgh on Saturday.
Journalists and East Coast train staff were joined on board by actress Naomie Harris, Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli as well as Skyfall writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
The latest 007 adventure has is the commercially most successful film in the Bond series and in its honour the East Coast train line, which operates between London and Edinburgh, has renamed one of its trains to Skyfall.
“I never expected when we did the movie that you know this juggernaut of a film would keep going to the extent, actually we’d have a train that goes from London to Edinburgh you know bears our name. It is extraordinary,” Harris told Reuters ahead of the train’s departure.
The British actress plays an MI6 field agent alongside Bond actor Daniel Craig. Her character is later identified as Eve Moneypenny, who to fans of the franchise is known as secretary to M, Bond’s boss. One of the film’s opening sequences shows Harris accidentally wounding Bond, who tries to fight off his opponent on the roof of a train.
Marking the popular franchise’s 50th anniversary, producer Michael G. Wilson thinks the naming of the Skyfall train was a fitting tribute.
“Trains really work well in films”, he explained. “From Russia with Love 50 years ago — great train sequence on the Orient Express — then Octopussy, and then of course Bond met Vesper, the woman he fell in love with on a train in Casino Royale. And Skyfall, a great opening sequence, so it’s a natural for Bond.”
The scene where Bond tries to fight Patrice, a French mercenary, who has stolen an important computer hard drive, is one of the most action packed and memorable sequences in Skyfall.
Although the end, co-writer Purvis admits, may have been a little bit over the top.
“To have the back of the train ripped off was perhaps a bit extreme,” he said.
All 11 carriages have been decorated with Skyfall artwork, and while Saturday’s maiden journey mainly carried journalists and talent, in future it will run as a permanent service to East Coast train customers.
