War of the Worlds - Oh dear...

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Well, coming from the learned parishioner who uncovered that other early Twentieth Century disaster, the Wroxham Zombie Apocalypse of 1909, I think we can be confident in your assessment.

 

I agree, Frost was clearly hinting that he knew more than he's said.  His involvement is mentioned at the end of this, otherwise dull, post on the post-invasion reconstruction of much of Central London: Here.  

 

Then, there is this Equally Dull Post that attempts to explain why the Martians invaded England. 

 

Sir, you are too kind!

 

Much of interest is, of course, concealed in Dull Postings which are of necessity Dull to conceal Troubling Information from the easily excited General Public.

 

 

Now I shall have to recover my copy of Mr J Wayne's audio transcription for further study...

 

[didcot]

Had the Martians landed in Essex one assumes that they would have fled before being exposed to Botox & fake tan!!!! 

[beast66606]

41 minutes ago, didcot said:

Had the Martians landed in Essex one assumes that they would have fled before being exposed to Botox & fake tan!!!! 

 

Or gone under cover in white stilletoes and danced around hand bags to inflitrate the humans.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, didcot said:

Had the Martians landed in Essex one assumes that they would have fled before being exposed to Botox & fake tan!!!! 

 

The Botox and fake tan may well have prolonged their miserable, envious lives!

 

Narrow escape there.....

 

[Steamport Southport]

4 hours ago, APOLLO said:

"THEY" (The film producers) wrecked a perfectly serviceable Black 5, 44781, in the making of The Virgin Soldiers back in 1968 - indeed this loco was historic as it was one of the pair involved in hauling the last BR steam hauled train, the fifteen guinea special. More info in this and last month's Steam magazine. She was wrecked and cut up on site.

 

 

Brit15

 

It wasn't wrecked. It was pushed over on it's side and was already preserved.

 

However the costs of hiring a crane and moving it was prohibitive so was scrapped. At the time it was just seen as a bog standard Black Five and there was still dozens of them at Carnforth.

 

Most of the myths are dispelled here.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/features/virgin_soldiers/index.shtml

 

 

 

Jason

[APOLLO]

Nethertheless they wrote off a perfectly railworthy Black 5, bog standard or not. the bar stewards.

 

Brit15

[tomparryharry]

On 21/11/2019 at 08:25, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

That only happened when they had eaten a piece of halibut fit for Jehovah!

 

Mike.

 

Yes, he's a very naughty boy!

[Steamport Southport]

20 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Nethertheless they wrote off a perfectly railworthy Black 5, bog standard or not. the bar stewards.

 

Brit15

 

Not as drastic as 42325 in The Password Is Courage. Still rumoured to be partially buried under concrete at what is now Scratchwood Services on the M1.

 

 

 

Jason

[HonestTom]

Well, the comic book adaptation in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had an LNWR Precedent crossing Barnes Bridge, so you might say that set the, er, precedent for inaccurate trains. Interestingly, I recall the original novel actually specified the railway companies the trains were using.

 

I have mixed views on the whole question of accurate trains in movies. It's great when it happens, but so often it's just not practical on a reasonable budget, especially if it's just for a quick establishing shot. The one that really bugged me was Savage Messiah, set in Victorian England, filmed on the Bluebell Railway, and the engine they used was... the USA tank. I just can't believe that on a railway with a huge collection of pre-Grouping engines, they managed to pick about the least accurate one possible.

 

The biggest howler for me was in the generally awful From Hell, which featured a CGI establishing shot of an East End street. Crossing the viaduct was a Terrier - okay, yep, that's not an awful choice for the setting - hauling a train of Hornby 4-wheel coaches.

Edited November 22, 2019 by HonestTom

[Steamport Southport]

But if they do a little bit of research or even asked somebody who knows, they could easily avoid such negative feedback. They wouldn't do the same with a car or aeroplane. I've even seen car enthusiasts pointing out the car has the wrong licence plate or tax disc colour for that year....

 

How many locomotives from the era are there running about? Dozens of them in virtually every livery you can think of. Plenty of carriages as well. There really isn't an excuse for getting basic things wrong.

 

 

 

Jason

Edited November 22, 2019 by Steamport Southport

[Compound2632]

I suspect the various producers are running a private competition to see whose production can trigger the longest RMWeb thread.

[James Harrison]

It could be worse.  What was that BBC drama a few years ago with the anarchists sponsored by the Russians set in the early 1900s?  The train on that was, as I recall, a BR black B1 hauling blood and custard Mk1s. 

 

I'm more interested in how the BBC have managed to take a novel which is action-packed from the start (and which it should be remembered had audiences panicked and running for the hills in a 1937 or 38 adaptation) and turn it into a severely plantigrade endurance slog.  That first episode I feel I deserve a medal for sitting through it...

 

Other points; are they trying to shoe-horn bits of other Wells novels and 'notes and errata' into it?  It feels like somebody on the staff is trying to 'show their working' in it.  The whole 'main character has left his wife and has a mistress' is famously akin to Wells' own personal arrangements and the scenes of people trying to live in a ruined wasteland are evocative of a later Wells novel, "The War in the Air" of 1907, which concludes with a scene 40 years after the main story of people in rags attending a service in a roofless church, all organised civilisation having pretty much died on its feet.  

[Torper]

On 20/11/2019 at 17:36, pete_mcfarlane said:

At this rate HMS Thunderchild will be represented by a Type 45.......

 

....captained by an extremely efficient woman surrounded by a load of utterly incompetent bumbling men.

 

As to the railway inaccuracies, the one that bugs me most is the "express to London" invariably running along a single track line.

 

DT

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, James Harrison said:

Other points; are they trying to shoe-horn bits of other Wells novels and 'notes and errata' into it?  It feels like somebody on the staff is trying to 'show their working' in it.  The whole 'main character has left his wife and has a mistress' is famously akin to Wells' own personal arrangements and the scenes of people trying to live in a ruined wasteland are evocative of a later Wells novel, "The War in the Air" of 1907, which concludes with a scene 40 years after the main story of people in rags attending a service in a roofless church, all organised civilisation having pretty much died on its feet.  

 

So long as it doesn't segue into "The Shape Of Things To Come", which, come to think of it, had a Moon Gun at the end...

[brack]

On 21/11/2019 at 18:18, APOLLO said:

Nethertheless they wrote off a perfectly railworthy Black 5, bog standard or not. the bar stewards.

 

Brit15

No shortage of them though, and no tears about this one getting cut up really - I think 18 is more than sufficient representation for the type in preservation, theyre basically scratty gwr 460s with extra dirt and wiggly bits that suck up preservation resources which might have been employed elsewhere on more diverse types.

 

I'd trade a dozen of the survivors for Ben Alder (cut up the year before after 14 years of storage for preservation). Now that would've been handy for putting in period films.

[Compound2632]

Now all this has got me re-reading the book and I've already hit my first railway curiosity, at the end of the first chapter. As the narrator and his wife walk home in the dark of late evening the railway station is in the distance:

 

"My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky."

 

Now, yellow wasn't adopted for distant signals until the 20s; one expects only red or green lights. Was there something unusual about LSWR signalling in the Chertsey area?

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

"My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky."

 

What was the caution aspect?  If it was clear glass, then the uncoloured oil lamps probably would appear to be yellow.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

What was the caution aspect?  If it was clear glass, then the uncoloured oil lamps probably would appear to be yellow.

 

Usually, the only distinction between a stop signal and a distant signal was the fishtail of the latter. The rest was down to route knowledge:

 

 

 

[Hroth]

Going by my logic above, then perhaps they could see some signal backlights which though "white", ie uncoloured, would be oil lamp flame yellow.

[Compound2632]

Just now, Hroth said:

Going by my logic above, then perhaps they could see some signal backlights which though "white", ie uncoloured, would be oil lamp flame yellow.

 

Of course. Obvious now you say it. 

[beast66606]

28 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Going by my logic above, then perhaps they could see some signal backlights which though "white", ie uncoloured, would be oil lamp flame yellow.

 

More likely the Coligny Welch indicators which were used by the LSWR

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, brack said:

No shortage of them though, and no tears about this one getting cut up really - I think 18 is more than sufficient representation for the type in preservation, theyre basically scratty gwr 460s with extra dirt and wiggly bits that suck up preservation resources which might have been employed elsewhere on more diverse types.

 

I'd trade a dozen of the survivors for Ben Alder (cut up the year before after 14 years of storage for preservation). Now that would've been handy for putting in period films.

 

But when Ben Alder went only one Black Five was scheduled for being saved - 45000.

 

It was only fate and hard work by a few individuals that the majority of the non Barry ones survived. It was either Black Fives, 8Fs, a few Ivatts and some Standards. That was all that was left.

 

Worth remembering until the Midland 4F was sold by Woodhams you weren't allowed to sell locomotives that had been sold for scrap. So anything that was in scrapyards was unobtainable.

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

I must pick up a copy of the book. Not read it since I was a teenager in the 1980s and I think that was because the teacher realised none of us were interested in things like Austen and Dickens.

 

ISTR it wasn't really that long so there must be a lot of padding to make three hour long episodes.

 

 

 

Jason

 

[James Harrison]

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

So long as it doesn't segue into "The Shape Of Things To Come", which, come to think of it, had a Moon Gun at the end...

 

It's been years since I read that; I seem to recall though that the Moon Gun wasn't in the book, but something added into the 1936 film?  I suppose it could segue in, if they take the view that after the Martians comes a political vacuum?  Or- possibly- WotW finishes with showing a Mr Cavor fooling around with Martian tech in a government laboratory somewhere.  And- in the first version of 'The Sleeper Awakes', an un-named character ponders what sort of world the sleeper will wake in.  "So much has changed- not to mention the Martians", he says...

 

Going off-piste here I know but hey the BBC started it.

[F-UnitMad]

8 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

ISTR it wasn't really that long so there must be a lot of padding to make three hour long episodes.

From what little of it I've seen on YouTube, it's probably padded out by all the super-slow-motion  "action" scenes. I think I can safely give this adaptation a miss.

 

Two things stood out for me from the novel. Firstly, the description of the evening after the first cylinder landed - in a world before radio, TV, cars and aeroplanes, even the towns were quiet places; the only real noise is from the shunting at the railway station.

Secondly, I did find it slightly preposterous that only one naval ship stood between the tripods and the End of Civilisation, at a time when Britain had the largest Navy in the world. but maybe I'm missing something.

Edited November 23, 2019 by F-UnitMad