Page 8 - RD_2015_12

Top: The restored interior of the cinema
carriage.
Above: The exterior mimics an LNER
passenger coach. Images: Lance Adlam.

The possibilities for a cinema in a carriage suggested simple bench A secondary screen position has
railway carriage are obvious: board up seating. The carriage retained a toilet in been wired approximately two-thirds of
the windows, convert an end the end compartment. the way back up the ramp of the coach,
compartment into a projection room, When operated by the British should there be too many tall people in
place the screen at the other end of the Transport Film Unit from 1949 the front! A ‘minicom’ loop has been
carriage, re-arrange the seats and the coach was coupled to a generator unit installed to assist hearing-impaired
interior becomes a mini-cinema, narrow housed in a former brake van. visitors, and provision has been made
to be sure, but not so different in The restoration committee wanted for supplementary speakers to be fitted
proportions to some of the early picture the coach to be restored to externally into the ceiling to boost sound quality.
theatres on solid foundations. look like an original LNWR Sleeping A pull-down screen will allow for
Here are some stories about trains Saloon car, while retaining the interior the projection of slides, overhead
and their role as proxy cinemas. as a cinema coach. The two periods to projection or ‘Powerpoint’
Buckinghamshire Railway Centre be represented were somewhat presentations, or they can be shown on
(UK) has a restored cinema carriage at incompatible after the alterations in the plasma screen.
their Rewley Road station platform. 1936, so a number of re-design An adjustable spotlight will
This carriage is in the third phase of a compromises had to be made. highlight a lectern when the rest of the
long life. Originally a 1907-built The compartment side has been lights are turned off.
LNWR passenger coach, it was reconstructed as originally built. The The coach has been fitted out with
converted into a mobile cinema in corridor side has had the doors that 27 padded lecture-style tip-up seats and
1936, and used in that capacity for were cut into the side removed, and desks, carpeted floor, and indirect
more than ten years. The content of the they have been re-sited so that they lighting.
film programs were educational and have a minimal impact on the The window patterns have been
instructional films, presumably for both appearance. restored on the outside of the coach.
railway staff and the public. The cinema area now has a level Many of them are ‘dummy’ windows,
The carriage was in a bad way section at the front to allow for painted to suggest that the internal
before restoration, but the early changes wheelchair access. The projection room blinds been lowered. The coach has
to make it a cinema were obvious. The has been refurbished to allow the been repainted in LNWR colours and
cinema carriage had been given a projection of films in the original will be used primarily for educational
ramped floor with its highest point in manner. A plasma or LCD flat screen purposes and commercial lettings.
the projection room. Seven rows of linked to a computer to play DVDs is to
heater elements across the width of the be installed.

8 2005 CINEMARECORD