Trainspotting was so formative for so many, and where you first planted the seeds for trains as constant iconography in your work: it’s a source of magic in Millions, an escape in Slumdog Millionaire, and now a train represents a pivotal moment of life in 28 Years Later. Where does this fascination come from?
Danny Boyle: It’s just so British! America is the land of the car, but Britain is trains, really. There’s a very famous historical review called the Beeching Report. They closed a lot of the railways because they didn’t make economic sense, but because the whole country was tiny little villages connected by railways, they’re regretting that now. The scene in the train in 28 Years Later is really important, the fact it happens in a train. They wanted me to have this dodgy little tram train, and I said, “We’ve got to have a proper train.” We started to look into finding old trains, because, of course, these are trains that existed 28 years ago. Most of the big trains now are less than 28 years old, so, of course, they wouldn’t live in our universe, which stopped 28 years ago.
So we found these guys who are proper trainspotters, and they buy up old stock from the railways. When they decommission trains, these guys buy them for 100 quid for a 200-ton train, because they have no value at all. In fact, they cost money to store. These guys buy them up, and sell them to people who have crazy ideas—like they want to open a restaurant in the cart. Up in Scotland, there’s a train used as a restaurant near the Harry Potter aqueduct railway.
One of the governors of an area in Mexico promised the people in his manifesto, “More trains. There will be more trains if you vote for me.” The people voted for him, and then he had to produce trains. Now, you can’t just order trains and they appear overnight. You have to join a five-year waiting list. Most of them are made in Italy now. And so what they do is they contact these guys who look after these old trains in Britain, say, “Have you got any of these railway carriages available? Could you do them up for us?” And they say, “Sure!“ They cost like $20,000 each, so they make huge amounts of money, and then they ship them to Mexico, and the politician goes, “Look, there are the trains I promised you!”
Anyway, we’re obsessed with trains. And why? I don’t know. We are a bit of a communal society, we like moving together rather than in individual cars. I think that’s part of it.
