Railway romance conjures nostalgia for vanished time

It remains one of the most popular, evocative and enduring films ever made in the UK. Set in and around fictional Milford Junction, it tells the story of two married strangers who meet by chance in a railway station cafe and fall helplessly in love.

- BY SPENCER VIGNES

There is no nudity and their relationship is never consummated, which somehow adds to its charm. Instead we get 86 minutes of middle-class English reserve, cut-glass accents and repressed ardour.

The film is, of course, Brief Encounter starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, made during the bitterly cold early weeks of 1945 and released the same year.

As Brief Encounter turns 80, Britain is also marking the 200th anniversary of the modern railway, with the Stockton and Darlington line - the first of its kind in the world - having opened in 1825.

There are not many films that have tapped into the magic and romance of trains - or rather steam trains - as effectively as Brief Encounter. Small wonder the film has been a constant in the TV schedules for decades, this year perhaps more than any other.

Margaret Barton, at 99 years old the last surviving member of the cast, once said: “There's nothing so poignant as a railway journey, especially people saying goodbye to each other at a station in wartime.

“The film still fascinates people because it evokes the atmosphere of the war so well. There's a lovely shot as the titles go up of that great express running through and the train making that marvellous noise, with all the steam everywhere.”

Based on a Noël Coward play called Still Life, set in England's Home Counties during the late 1930s, the film could not have picked a worse time to go into production. Although the Second World War was in its latter stages, nobody knew that for certain at the time.

Originally, director David Lean wanted to use Watford Junction, around 15 miles from London on the main line to North West England and Glasgow, as the setting for Milford Junction. But the War Office, concerned about the use of arc lights while filming at night and the danger of air raids, said no.