As much I enjoy watching all the Mission Impossible films back-to-back, the stunts they pull off are wild crazy.
I was thinking about maybe posting a thread about this since I have been following this story for a while, but it seems like someone has beaten me to it. But I do have some interesting things to share about this story. Believe it or not, the original plan was to actually to sent a train over a real bridge while it was being blown up. Specifically, this one in Southern Poland. But after this went down really well with the locals and many railway enthusiasts (not), that plan was abandoned and the stunt was instead filmed at Darlton Quarry in Stoney Middleton where a length of track leading towards half a bridge towering over the edge of the quarry was erected on the site. The actual train that jumps over the edge is only a prop, but the loco itself looks very much like a BR Britannia Class Locomotive. It first emerged last year on the Great Central Railway where it was there for trialling purposes, as seen in this video of it receiving attention: After that was done, it was shipped out to Norway where filming took place using it and some of the images captured there are spectacular to say the least Now let me turn your attention to this image, which is probably the best look at the prop train being used in the film. So like I said, basically a Britannia, but with different smoke deflects, skirts along the running board and a slight longer tender which also has a diesel engine to power the onboard smoke machines. Also, the name 'Le-Général Rive-Reine' is actually a reference to firstly the 1926 Buster Keaton film, The General (which of course features that famous scene of a train going over a bridge that's being blown up), but also the 1964 film, The Train (which features a spectacular train crash in the fictional French town called Rive-Reine). A few months after filming wrapped up in Norway, the prop would return to the UK, but before going to Stoney Middleton, it was spotted in April earlier this year for filming on the NYMR, with two GBRF Class 66's pushing it from behind. But after this was done, and after a few weeks delay due to a positive COVID test from a member of the film crew, it was sent to Stoney Middleton, put up on the tracks leading towards the cliff, and the rest is history. I know there's already a video at the top of the page, but to end this reply, here's a better version of that video from the original source, which also features a small clip at the beginning showing off the smoke effects that this prop is equipped with: Image Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:_Impossible_7 https://twitter.com/MrTimDunn/status/1327250961920876544/photo/2 https://www.facebook.com/7022833898...-transporting-this-train-to/3374532616006127/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Mission_Impossible/comments/izt5gi/train_stunt/ https://www.marklin-users.net/forum...-and-BR-Standard-Class-7--in-Andalsnes-Norway https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2021/0...ead-to-the-north-yorkshire-moors-railway.html
I thought a real Brit' was used for some filming- otherwise why make a replica that looks like one in disguise?
So following on from the loco that got thrown off the end of the bridge, now a train carriage was hung onto the bridge and then was dropped into the quarry below: