Birkhill - one of the historic train stations on the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway - took centre stage in Victorian costume drama TV series The Secret Agent.
The traditional waiting room and platform of the pretty countryside train station, as well as one of the line’s steam locomotives and vintage carriages, featured as 19th century London settings in the second episode of the series which concluded at the weekend.
National tourism organisation VisitScotland says the new three-part adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s political novel will help showcase the outstanding heritage railway line and promote its Bo’ness, Birkhill and Manuel stations, Kinneil Halt and museum.
The Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway offers visitors the chance to board a vintage steam or diesel-hauled train – on which at weekends they can enjoy an on-board afternoon tea – as well as explore Scotland’s largest railway museum.
Directed by Charles McDougall and produced by World Productions for the BBC, The Secret Agent stars Toby Jones, as Verloc, whose seedy Soho shop hides his role as an agent of the Russian Embassy, spying on a group of London anarchists. Furious that Britain tolerates violent extremists, the Russians want Verloc to provoke a bomb outrage that will trigger a government crackdown. Caught between the Russians and the British police, Verloc drags his unsuspecting family into a tragic terror plot.
In addition to Birkhill Station, a number of locations in Glasgow - including Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, The Botanic Gardens and The City Chambers - and settings in Edinburgh’s historic New Town also appear in the period drama.
Amanda Kilburn, business development director of The Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway, said: “The rich heritage of our historic stations and wonderful trains have secured them starring roles in a wide variety of films and TV programmes through the years and it’s not the first time they have doubled as London settings.
"We’re delighted to be centre stage once again in ‘The Secret Agent’ and hope it will encourage more visitors to step back in time and come along to experience the joys of vintage train travel.”
Other recent films and TV programmes in which The Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway has featured as a location are:
* BBC Rillington Place (filmed May 2016, release date to be announced)
* BBC The Secret Agent (2016)
* Tommy’s Honour (2016)
* Outlander (2015)
* BBCs Stonemouth (2015)
* Channel 4’s comedy drama ‘Not Safe for Work’ (2015)
* BBC Quintinshill docu-drama (2015)
* CBeebies Mr Bloom: Here and There (2014)
* The Railway Man (2013) - starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman
* CBeebies Woolly and Tig (2012)
* The Angels’ Share (2012)
* Cloud Atlas (2012) – starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry
* BBC Case Histories (2011)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here