The preservation of the Talyllyn Railway by volunteers was the inspiration for the 1953 film "The Titfield Thunderbolt", an Ealing Studios comedy about a group of villagers attempting to run a service on a disused branch line after closure. T. E. B. Clarke, the script writer for the film, had heard about the preservation of the Talyllyn and spent a day on the railway in 1951, and some of the early incidents in preservation were incorporated into the film. In the book "Railway Adventure" Tom Rolt recalled that he had hoped the film might be produced on the Talyllyn, but it was eventually filmed on the recently closed Camerton branch of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway branch line along the Cam Brook valley in Somerset.