'It was a lot of fun': Remembering time when Freddie Mercury and Queen took over the Nene Valley Railway

Rock legends Queen and their iconic lead singer Freddie Mercury spent two days filming the music video for 'Breakthru' at Nene Valley Railway in the early summer of 1989 (image: Getty)

In the early summer of 1989, rock royalty descended upon Nene Valley Railway (NVR) in the shape of Freddie Mercury and Queen.

The rock supergroup spent two days in the area, riding the rails and recording the now famous music video for their top ten hit, ‘Breakthru’.

The video features the quartet belting out their rock anthem on a steam engine called ‘The Miracle Express’ as it thunders along a picturesque train line.

That locomotive was actually an ex-Great Western Railway steam engine, number 3822, and the picturesque line was the western fringe of the NVR.

Mike Warrington was the NVR’s general manager at the time. Remembering the band as a “lovely lot,” he told the Peterborough Telegraph what the NVR provided for the video.

“We had a large engine on loan to us from Didcot – a heavy freight engine – which is the engine you see in it [the video]. And there was a flat wagon they dressed as a bandstand.”

The bridge used in the famous sequence where The Miracle Express breaks through a ‘stone’ (polystyrene) wall was actually Mill Lane road bridge at Castor.

The video shoot for 'Breakthru' was a closely guarded secret. However, word soon got out and fans flocked to see Freddie and the gang at Ferry Meadows, and to take sneaky pics by the tracks (image: Peterborough Images Archives)

Mike remembers how the driver of the locomotive – at the video producer’s request – hit that wall at a “rather excessive speed.”

This resulted in parts of the polystyrene wall ending up down by the river bridge, half-a-mile away. “They had to pick it all up again afterwards,” Mike notes dryly.

Mike, who is now retired, recalls how important discretion was at the time.

“The fact that Queen were with us, staying at the Haycock and coming down to the railway each day was kept as closely guarded secret as possible,” he says.

Almost inevitably though, someone let the secret out and word soon spread that Freddie and the gang were in town.

Mike recalled that, as a result, “the level crossing at Ferry Meadows was ringed with fans watching the train go across” in no time at all.Like Mike, guitar legend Brian May has equally fond memories of his time at NVR.

“We had a great day on the Miracle Express,” he said at the release of The Miracle Collector’s Edition last year. “It was a lot of fun.”