RAIL bosses refused to allow the Caledonian Sleeper to be filmed for a hit TV series because it depicted a train being hacked by cyber crooks.
Producers tried to convince Serco, running the service at the time, that BBC thriller Nightsleeper would make the cross-Border train service as famous as The Orient Express.
But documents show how senior staff were concerned about the train being linked to a crime even if it was fictional and refused permission to film exterior shots.
Ahead of the production, starring Alexandra Roach, James Cosmo and Joe Cole, the producers said: “We understand Serco and the Caledonian Sleeper team are nervous about a drama depicting an attack on the train by a hacker or hackers and so need to think carefully about co-operating.
“But this will feel like fiction and we are aiming to make the train itself feel aspirational, romantic and desirable.
“We enjoyed Caledonian Sleeper’s own promotional video and took inspiration from that and, after all, it didn’t do the Orient Express any harm to be linked with fictional crime.”
Nightsleeper was a tense drama about an overnight train between Glasgow and London that is digitally hijacked.
The train in the series is called the Heart of Britain but its route is identical to the Caledonian Sleeper’s 13-hour Glasgow to London service.
The concerns were revealed in private briefings released under Freedom of Information laws to the Sunday Mail.
Euston Films asked bosses “to facilitate us a train so we can film our exteriors of the train” requesting “a six-carriage train for two nights at Glasgow Central and two nights at Motherwell with one contingency day”.
But two weeks later, Sleeper representatives wrote back, saying: “We are not in a position to be able to assist in the ways which you require. We physically don’t have the capacity in our fleet or in our team to support at this time.”
Serco later lost its contract when the rail service was nationalised.
Filmmakers did shoot scenes at Glasgow Central and other stations but the Nightsleeper’s train exterior was created using CGI.
Caledonian Sleeper managing director Kathryn Darbandi said: “Before the production of Nightsleeper commenced, we welcomed the production company on board to see the Caledonian Sleeper for themselves and to get a feel for the layout and sizing of an operational sleeper train after which the team built their own set for filming.”
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