Great Train Robbery TV drama films in unspoiled Yorkshire to get back to the 60s

The uncoupled train coaches at Cheddington Station after the Great Train Robbery (Getty)

A “faithful” retelling of the Great Train Robbery will be shot up-north after the BBC said the urban sprawl of modern development made it impossible to recreate the story in its original setting.

The new TV drama, starring Jim Broadbent as gang-buster Tommy Butler, is being filmed in the unspoiled countryside and townships of Yorkshire.

It is 50 years since the Glasgow to London Royal Mail train was ambushed in Buckinghamshire by two London gangs. They hid out 27 miles away at the isolated Leatherslade Farm to count the sackloads of bank notes.

But the hideout, nicknamed “the Robbers’ Roost”, was demolished in the 1990s and the show’s producers said nothing nearby can match the isolation of original.

Yorkshire is therefore the “most cost-effective and realistic alternative”, according to a BBC spokesman.