railways in fiction and fantasy

[PannierTanker14]

I’ve got a design of an armoured hover train I’ve been working on in a post apocalyptic story of mine.
One of the two of these mechanical monsters charges around what’s left of America after the 3rd world war. A lot of America’s deserts by this time had expanded across cities which gives a flat enough surface for the train to reach its maximum speed (about 50mph) and have unhindered mobility. 
The story is rather Steampunk, so I’ve based the train off of the Zaamurets armoured railcar of WW1 and WW2. 
The second train was destroyed when it got caught in a catastrophic explosion that took out a fair bit of the Himalayas. 
The engine is permanently coupled to its armoured cars and is built quite like a massive land-sailing dreadnought. I doubt the land trains would even be mechanically possible but they look visually awesome in my opinion  

Edited January 3, 2020 by PannierTanker14
I’m yet to upload an image of the land train

[Kumata]

Going back to the Final Fantasy series of games, there is FFVI's 'Phantom Train' which transports the souls of the dead to the afterlife and is accidentally boarded by the party.

Not only is the locomotive fought as a boss battle, but infamously can be suplexed:

 

And then the Guardian Force summon in FFVIII, Doomtrain:

 

The Final Fantasy series seems to like the idea of 'ghost' trains.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Kumata

[steve1]

As for Carrot casting, how about Laurence Fox? He even has red(dish) hair.

 

steve

[Ben B]

   I've always thought the train scenes in the original novel of "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells, though brief, caught the imagination.  Came to mind again with all the talk of Steampunk by Hornby.  The railways are there in the background as it were in the early parts of the novel, as a representation of 'normality' and the Victorian mastery of the world through technology, and descriptions of signal-lamps flickering in the twilight, the soft clank and rattle of trains in the dark carrying on as normal after the landing of the first cylinder.  A later chapter mentions 'much excitement' as a normally-closed link line between the routes of rival companies at Waterloo in London is opened for the passage of troop-trains and artillery carriers, with waiting passengers cheerfully calling to the soldiers and teasing them 'not to get eaten' by the mysterious Martians.  There's a lovely comparison between the advanced machinery of a Martian tripod under the control of a Martian being, but by comparison how an ironclad warship or locomotive, under the control of a human, would look to a lower animal here on earth.

 

But I think the most memorable bit is the description of the flight of refugees from London after the city falls; trains with people crammed on to every space, even on top of the tender, seen running nose to tail at walking pace later in the chapter "The Exodus from London".  But there's this haunting bit at the start of the chapter;  "After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk Farm -the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through the shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace-..."

 

There is a sort-of nod to this in the (generally mixed quality, in my opinion) American film with Tom Cruise, one of the most haunting bits of visual imagery is when the refugee column, walking on foot to a ferry over the Hudson, stops at a level crossing as the barriers automatically drop.  An intercity train races past, on fire from cab to tail, and everyone just watches in silence lit by the flames until it passes, the barriers lift, and they just keep on walking.  They're so shell-shocked hardly anyone in the crowd reacts at all by this point.

 

In a similar, though later, post-apocalyptic vein there's "Day of the Triffids" by John Windham.  The shonky 60's film has the memorable scene of a steam-hauled train, under the control of blinded loco crew, slamming into the buffers of a London terminus.  But for my money there's the wonderfully mysterious little bit in the book where the narrator is recalling being out for a drive in the deserted countryside some time after the initial disaster, looking for other survivors.  "Once I saw smoke and went to the source to find a small railway train burnt out on the line- I still do not know how that could be, for there was no one near it".  It's just a little moment in the book, but which remains unexplained, and up to the reader to try and work out what has happened, just another little note of disaster in a world which is ending.

 

Finally, this bit in "The Death of Grass", a novel by John Christopher about the collapse of civilisation in Britain following a global crop failure.  The realization that trouble is brewing builds horribly through the early chapters, until the point where the protagonists flee north out of London just as the Government is giving up, and civilisation is starting to come apart at the seams (there's descriptions of official contact being lost with places like Leeds, grinding columns of military vehicles being sent to, and disappearing into, rioting cities, etc).  By this point the protagonists are camping out for the night somewhere near Hawes, beside the railway line (from description it must be the old route from Northallerton to Garsdale, still open at the time the novel was written) as the world is going to hell around them (mysterious flashes on the horizon the night before being interpreted -correctly- as the Government atom-bombing their own cities to spare them having to deal with a starving population).  The main character, John, is relieving his friend Roger who's been keeping look out.

   'Anything to report?'

   'What would there be, but ghosts?'

   'Any ghosts then?'

   'A brief trace of one apparition - the corniest of them all.'  John looked at him.  'The ghost train.  I thought I heard it hooting in the distance, and for about ten minutes afterwards I could have sworn I heard its distant roar.'

   'Could be a train' John said.  'If there are any capable of being manned, and anyone capable of manning one, they might try a night journey.  But I think it's a bit unlikely, taken all around.'

   'I prefer to think of it as a ghost train.  Heavily laden with the substantial ghosts of Dalesmen going to market, or trucks of ghostly coal or insubstantial metal ingots, crossing the Pennines.  I've been thinking - how long do you think railway lines will be recognizable as railway lines?  Twenty years?  Thirty?  And how long will people remember that there were such things, once upon a time?  Shall we tell fairy stories to our great-grandchildren about the metal monsters that ate coal and breathed out smoke?'

   'Go to sleep," John said.  "There'll be time enough to think about your great-grandchildren.'

   'Ghosts,' Roger said.  'I see ghosts all around me tonight.  The ghosts of my remote descendants, painted with woad.'

   I love this passage, as it conveys that moment as the old world the characters knew is slipping irretrievably towards a new, more savage one of survival.

 

[rockershovel]

Seeing Hornby’s “niche interest” “steampunk” trains, I’m reminded of Harry Harrison’s gorgeous portrayal of Juggernaut (apparently an atomic-powered steam engine, running on the broadest of broad gauges) and the Flying Cornishman. 

 

Oh, actually I’m not. Harrison’s golden behemoth bears contemplation..

 

[dud spud]

14 hours ago, Ben B said:

There is a sort-of nod to this in the (generally mixed quality, in my opinion) American film with Tom Cruise,

What's this film titled?

[Ben B]

Quote

What's this film titled?

 

It's just "War of the Worlds", came out in about 2005.  Some good special effects, but the plot is moved to America, and bares only a passing resemblance to the original story.

[dud spud]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

 

It's just "War of the Worlds", came out in about 2005.  Some good special effects, but the plot is moved to America, and bares only a passing resemblance to the original story.

Thank you!

[Kumata]

I also note that despite all these obscure railway mentions the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Ltd - the home of Ivor the Engine - has not been brought up! Too obvious perhaps?

Edited January 10, 2020 by Kumata

[The Johnster]

On 09/01/2020 at 07:29, Ben B said:

 

It's just "War of the Worlds", came out in about 2005.  Some good special effects, but the plot is moved to America, and bares only a passing resemblance to the original story.

It is more related to the Orson Welles radio play version, also transposed to the US.  

[HonestTom]

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 09:00, Ben B said:

   I've always thought the train scenes in the original novel of "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells, though brief, caught the imagination.  Came to mind again with all the talk of Steampunk by Hornby.  The railways are there in the background as it were in the early parts of the novel, as a representation of 'normality' and the Victorian mastery of the world through technology, and descriptions of signal-lamps flickering in the twilight, the soft clank and rattle of trains in the dark carrying on as normal after the landing of the first cylinder.  A later chapter mentions 'much excitement' as a normally-closed link line between the routes of rival companies at Waterloo in London is opened for the passage of troop-trains and artillery carriers, with waiting passengers cheerfully calling to the soldiers and teasing them 'not to get eaten' by the mysterious Martians.  There's a lovely comparison between the advanced machinery of a Martian tripod under the control of a Martian being, but by comparison how an ironclad warship or locomotive, under the control of a human, would look to a lower animal here on earth.

 

But I think the most memorable bit is the description of the flight of refugees from London after the city falls; trains with people crammed on to every space, even on top of the tender, seen running nose to tail at walking pace later in the chapter "The Exodus from London".  But there's this haunting bit at the start of the chapter;  "After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk Farm -the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through the shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace-..."

 

 

What's so wonderful about the War of the Worlds is the realism of it, which is something I don't feel any adaptation has quite captured. All these little details - not just of the railways - that bring it home that these are ordinary people in the real world whose life has been turned completely upside down by this crazy event. A lot of the places Wells describes are still traceable today. The goods yard in Camden mentioned above still partially exists, for instance. And the line through Waterloo must surely be the short-lived line between the SER and LSWR that ran through the concourse, clearly visible in old photos.

 

Speaking of post-apocalyptic London, there's a deleted scene in 28 Days Later where they come across a DLR train that's been turned into an improvised hospital, as well as a bit just before where they follow the tracks to find the protagonists' parents.

[Ben B]

Quote

Speaking of post-apocalyptic London, there's a deleted scene in 28 Days Later where they come across a DLR train that's been turned into an improvised hospital, as well as a bit just before where they follow the tracks to find the protagonists' parents.

 

I've seen that bit on the DVD- the sequel has them travelling on the DLR too.

 

Does anyone remember another post-apocalyptic story, a series from the late-1990's called "The Last Train"?  A bunch of commuters on a train from London to Sheffield miss an apocalyptic meteorite strike by derailing in a tunnel (and sleep through it all with the aid of a canister of cryogenic gas which a Government scientist had hidden in her bag).  It's been repeated a couple of times on the scifi channel, but I've got a -probably bootleg, judging by the quality- DVD of it.  It's not a bad series, and some good railway scenes early on in an overgrown cutting, and the old Manchester Mayfield (before demolition of the platform awnings) doubling for post-apocalypse Sheffield Station.

[Colin]

In one episode of the first series of The Survivors (BBC, late ‘70s/early ‘80s, I forget exactly when) set in a post-apocalyptic England featured the Severn Valley Railway, the 8F was shown running some sort of test train to the next town as an attempt to restore communication between the communities.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Colin

[Pacific231G]

Thinking of apocalyptic trains, one of my favourite films is Le Train whose English language title was "The Last Train". Adapted in 1973  from a novel by Georges Simenon it is based on a real apocalypse. It tells the story of a radio shop owner (Jean-Louis Trignitant) who is on a refugee train escaping across France from his village of Fumel in the Ardennes to La Rochelle ahead of the advancing Germans in 1940. Separated from his wife and child when the train is divided,  he has a brief relationship with a Jewish Czech woman (Romy Schneider) who is fleeing the Germans in the same goods van. The ending, a couple of years after this encounter, is one of the most moving movie scenes I know - and very different from that of the novel. I actually preferred the film to the original novel, inspired in part by Simenon's own role in 1940 organising a recepton centre for fellow Belgians arriving in La Rochelle, though like many of Simenon's stories it cast a keen eye on the range of characters who appeared in it.  The film's portrayals were probably also aided by the experiences of its director Pierre Granier-Deferre who, at the age of 13, had himself been one of the refugees fleeing from the advancing Germans. 

 

Apart from the main plot, a number of visual vignettes seemed to capture the tragedy of the 1940 French debacle - the young soldier writing a letter home in a troop train heading for the front; the man and woman on a motorcycle avoiding the refugee packed roads by riding along a canal towpath; the station master passing the train through and then hearing the sirens starting up; the level crossings left unattended "even the crossing keepers have left their posts!"; the abandoned farmhouse but other fields where horses are still pulling reapers.

 

  The train itself was hauled by 230G353 (for which I have a particular fondness after riding in its cab around part of the old Petite Ceinture line in Paris in 1989)  This engine, kept in service by SNCF for special trains and for filming until 2000 was, from the end of steam until 1981, the only steam loco authorised to operate on SNCF lines,  It is probably best known from the movie version of Murder on the Orient Express. 

 

The railway scenes were filmed, partly on goods only branches, in various locations in east and central France many of them on goods only branches as well as in Fumay (Fumel in the story) and around La Rochelle (before it was electrified) The only obvious anomaly I noticed was a !41R that appeared in the distance in a scene in a shunting yard (Several of these North American built locos delivered to France after its liberation also appeared in the Burt Lancaster film The Train)

Edited January 10, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Ben B]

14 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

(Several of these North American built locos delivered to France after its liberation also appeared in the Burt Lancaster film The Train)

 

Now there's a good film... I know it's only loosely based on the real story, but my word does the film deliver in action!  No miniatures, nothing like that, every crash staged with real trains, and the bombing of the marshalling yard done by really setting off high explosives and blasting apart wagons loaded with real tanks and lorries in an actual Paris goods yard.  I think the only thing faked in that scene was the Armoured locomotive which gets blown apart, which was a prop built around a real chassis for the film because they couldn't acquire a real one.

[railroadbill]

You've reminded me of a good film there, i'll have to find the video I've got. I saw this in the cinema with my father when I was a schoolboy. Some very memorable shots, the spitfire diving towards the tunnel, one shot from the nose of a bomber, flying low over a ruined landscape and of course the trains.

One thing mentioned in the film was that coins were used to sabotage locos by the resistance by putting them in lubricators etc to block the oil flow. Also it was in black and white which gave a real newsreel feel to the film.

[The Lurker]

On ‎10‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 15:40, HonestTom said:

 

. And the line through Waterloo must surely be the short-lived line between the SER and LSWR that ran through the concourse, clearly visible in old photos.

 

.

You can still see the bridge that took the line into Waterloo Junction (now Waterloo East) from the train going to Charing Cross.

[The Lurker]

On ‎10‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 15:45, Ben B said:

 

I've seen that bit on the DVD- the sequel has them travelling on the DLR too.

 

Does anyone remember another post-apocalyptic story, a series from the late-1990's called "The Last Train"?  A bunch of commuters on a train from London to Sheffield miss an apocalyptic meteorite strike by derailing in a tunnel (and sleep through it all with the aid of a canister of cryogenic gas which a Government scientist had hidden in her bag).  It's been repeated a couple of times on the scifi channel, but I've got a -probably bootleg, judging by the quality- DVD of it.  It's not a bad series, and some good railway scenes early on in an overgrown cutting, and the old Manchester Mayfield (before demolition of the platform awnings) doubling for post-apocalypse Sheffield Station.

yes I remember watching at least the first one of that series. Although I had completely forgotten the title, I recognised the scenario - the cryogenesis bit seemed a bit far fetched. I seem to recall one of the survivors was a criminal and they found the skeletons of his best mate and girlfriend.....

[Colin]

Is that the series where one of the characters finds a Mercedes van which has lain concealed for around 50 years(!), it starts on the first attempt and they all drive off in it?

Almost as daft as Woody Allen's "The Sleeper" (similar scenario but the vehicle is an old VW Beetle).

[sir douglas]

i was just reminded of this by Corbs' newest video

 

[Corbs]

N a n i ? !

[Ben B]

Quote

Is that the series where one of the characters finds a Mercedes van which has lain concealed for around 50 years(!), it starts on the first attempt and they all drive off in it?

 

Yeah- I think when they're driving about Sheffield in it, trying to find a way out of the city, the line is something like "This is a Mercedes, it'll keep going to the end of the world!" and another character just looks around at the ruins around them, and comments deadpan "we've had that." or something similar

 

   Ragnorok-Proofing I think the trope is called, where machines keep going way after they're meant to have packed in.  Anyone seen the film "Doomsday" from about ten years ago?  A fully-functional Bentley stored in an underground bunker, which starts straight away with no rust, no rotting of tyres, no degradation of petrol, and ends up in a chase with lots of (also running perfectly) customised cars, lorries and a bus across the Scottish highlands (which look like South Africa.  Because it was cheaper to film there, so Scotland looks a lot more sunny and sandy). 

   The film starts as a semi-serious 'virus breaks out in Scotland, Scotland gets sealed off behind a rebuilt Hadrians Wall', then descends into/embaces its silliness with homages to Mad Max and Escape from New York (both of those had trains in as well, thinking about it).  If you can turn off your brain, I find "Doomsday" an enjoyably silly film.  There is a train connection too, when the characters end up escaping the cannibal-haunted ruins of Glasgow on a steam locomotive from out of the bowels of Queen Street Station... 

...also filmed in South Africa with a massive old South African loco (I suppose it looks vaguely 9F-like).  Never mind how the survivors in post-abandonment, twenty-years-hence Scotland found and maintained a steam loco or the tracks into Glasgow, nor how they snuck into a cannibal-controlled city in it without the three hundred-or-so nutters who violently control the place hearing it arrive.  Like most things in the film, I suspect it's in there because the director just loved the visual imagery of it...

[HonestTom]

14 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Yeah- I think when they're driving about Sheffield in it, trying to find a way out of the city, the line is something like "This is a Mercedes, it'll keep going to the end of the world!" and another character just looks around at the ruins around them, and comments deadpan "we've had that." or something similar

 

   Ragnorok-Proofing I think the trope is called, where machines keep going way after they're meant to have packed in.  Anyone seen the film "Doomsday" from about ten years ago?  A fully-functional Bentley stored in an underground bunker, which starts straight away with no rust, no rotting of tyres, no degradation of petrol, and ends up in a chase with lots of (also running perfectly) customised cars, lorries and a bus across the Scottish highlands (which look like South Africa.  Because it was cheaper to film there, so Scotland looks a lot more sunny and sandy). 

   The film starts as a semi-serious 'virus breaks out in Scotland, Scotland gets sealed off behind a rebuilt Hadrians Wall', then descends into/embaces its silliness with homages to Mad Max and Escape from New York (both of those had trains in as well, thinking about it).  If you can turn off your brain, I find "Doomsday" an enjoyably silly film.  There is a train connection too, when the characters end up escaping the cannibal-haunted ruins of Glasgow on a steam locomotive from out of the bowels of Queen Street Station... 

...also filmed in South Africa with a massive old South African loco (I suppose it looks vaguely 9F-like).  Never mind how the survivors in post-abandonment, twenty-years-hence Scotland found and maintained a steam loco or the tracks into Glasgow, nor how they snuck into a cannibal-controlled city in it without the three hundred-or-so nutters who violently control the place hearing it arrive.  Like most things in the film, I suspect it's in there because the director just loved the visual imagery of it...

 

Maybe it was a repatriated product of the North British works?

[eldomtom2]

Discovered a shot of 3822's appearance in the infamous Cats:

 

Rather a comedown from Breakthru!

On 22/01/2020 at 22:23, Ben B said:

...also filmed in South Africa with a massive old South African loco (I suppose it looks vaguely 9F-like).

Didn't something similar happen with a drama about Winston Churchill, but in reverse?

[Ben B]

19 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Didn't something similar happen with a drama about Winston Churchill, but in reverse?

 

"Young Winston"; David Shepherds 9F with smoke deflectors off, a few odds and ends bolted on, running along the old Longmoor Military Line.  There's some brilliant behind the scenes stuff about the barely-managed-chaos of the shoot in some of his books.  There was also the Boer War armoured train ambush, which was an up-armoured GWR tank loco on a colliery line in South Wales

 

That pic from "Cats"... Gods, I'd heard about the railway scene, and the obvious CGI of it on some podcasts reviewing the film.  I think it's meant to be crossing a set of points, but the loco appears to be straddling the running lines, which also appear to be of different gauges!  Most people I've heard from who've been to see it describe the film as a so-bad-it's-good, glorious mess of a film