Film and tv railway errors

[andyram]

 I bet we have all sat and watched films or television programmes which have featured railway scenes and shaken our heads at some obvious errors. You know the sort...dreadful continuity errors, or those clear errors where the locomotive is totally the wrong era or area for the setting of the story. Here are a couple to get you going:

 

Television

Heartbeat - The use of the "Southern" liveried loco number 825 on a show which was forever set in the 1960's.

 

Top Gear - The caravan trains see a number of continuity errors. Quorn is passed twice and Swithland is passed after Quorn with the trains supposedly travelling towards Loughborough.

 

Films

Enigma - A war time film featuring a B.R liveried 04 number 63601. Clearly too late for the time the film was set. Not forgetting the fact that the engine is seen arriving "wrong line" into Quorn and Woodhouse station, then crossing Swithland Viaduct before arriving at Loughbrough Central from direction of the loco shed.

[jcm@gwr]

Television

Heartbeat - The use of the "Southern" liveried loco number 825 on a show which was forever set in the 1960's.

 

 

Not to mention the fact it was the wrong end of the country!

 

Jeff

[andyram]

Very true, as was Repton when it featured in an episode of the same show.

[phil-b259]

Very true, as was Repton when it featured in an episode of the same show.

Yes but Repton was in British Railways livery so in terms of era it was right (even if not geographically correct) unlike the Maunsell liveried 828

 

Given the nature of TV and film audiences it is iintealistic to expect accuracy in terms of type of locos, etc especially when there is quite a lot of competition between Heritage railways for the money a filming job brings. The Bluebell have done quite well out of Downton Abbey for example which means Horstead Keynes has doubled for both the local station, a London Terminus as well as the station where they get off at to go to their Scottish house.

 

As regards trains passing stations in the wrong order etc, unless you know the line concerned (and most viewers won't) it makes no difference to the end product. In fact I often despair with the apawling lack of geographical knowledge in people these days. Only recently I had to enlighten several of my collegues how to get to Welwyn Garden City from Crawley as they had no idea.

[PatB]

I get irrationally annoyed when, amongst any other silliness which I'm prepared to turn a blind eye to, a continuously braked train becomes divided and the brakes don't come on. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows was the latest offender IIRC, although my annoyance was probably compounded by the rest of the film being so mediocre and unimaginative. I'll discount the Lone Ranger 'cos I enjoyed the rest of the rather cartoonish action so much.

[Sasquatch]

On the other hand I get really exited when they get it right.  We were watching something the other night set in the 60s where the conversation took place on board a train. A nice clean wood veneered second corridor mk1. It must have been boring as that is the only bit we can remember! 

[PatB]

On the other hand I get really exited when they get it right.  We were watching something the other night set in the 60s where the conversation took place on board a train. A nice clean wood veneered second corridor mk1. It must have been boring as that is the only bit we can remember! 

 

Yeah, but given that 99% of the preserved carriage fleet consists of various flavours of Mk1 anything set in the 60s has a good chance of getting it close to right simply by default .

 

Another one which made me wince a bit was the use of a first generation DMU in the drama/thriller/police procedural 5 Days, set nearly a decade after the last 101 was withdrawn.

[Edwin_m]

I get irrationally annoyed when, amongst any other silliness which I'm prepared to turn a blind eye to, a continuously braked train becomes divided and the brakes don't come on. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows was the latest offender IIRC, although my annoyance was probably compounded by the rest of the film being so mediocre and unimaginative. I'll discount the Lone Ranger 'cos I enjoyed the rest of the rather cartoonish action so much.

Seems to be an unofficial requirement for any Hollywood-type film where a train plays a significant part.  The latest James Bond being the most recent of many. 

[bike2steam]

What you need to remember is that tv/films are only there to satisfy the majority, who wouldn't know or give a damn if the train on screen is correct.

Edited November 4, 2013 by bike2steam

[darrel]

In the bond film from Russia with love there is a bit when they are traveling from Istanbul and you see lots of mk1 coaches and from memory a black 5 all with British railways lion and crest logos

Then there is mission impossible with a TGV going through the channel tunnel with no overhead wires. 

[Merfyn Jones]

Not railway, but a connection.  The currently showing 'The Tunnel'.  A body is found halfway through the Channel in the service tunnel. The correct looking double ended service car was used in the film, very good I thought, then the British police arrived in their police car, half way to France !  Dud they then have to reverse over 10 miles/kilometres to get out again ?

Merf.

[Merfyn Jones]

In the bond film from Russia with love there is a bit when they are traveling from Istanbul and you see lots of mk1 coaches and from memory a black 5 all with British railways lion and crest logos

Then there is mission impossible with a TGV going through the channel tunnel with no overhead wires. 

 

Is that the one where the absence of O H wires was to enable the helicopter to follow it ?

[Jon Fitness]

Anyone notice the Harry Potter one. The ford Anglia flying over the viaduct and Hogwarts Express catches it up and they see it looming in the rear view mirror. Olton hall suddenly swaps smokebox doors with a K3 or something similar..

JF

[Happy Hippo]

In the bond film from Russia with love there is a bit when they are traveling from Istanbul and you see lots of mk1 coaches and from memory a black 5 all with British railways lion and crest logos

Then there is mission impossible with a TGV going through the channel tunnel with no overhead wires. 

Yes but the reason they removed the ohle in MI was so they could fly the helicopter into the tunnel behind the train.

 

Richard

[Fat Controller]

Not railway, but a connection.  The currently showing 'The Tunnel'.  A body is found halfway through the Channel in the service tunnel. The correct looking double ended service car was used in the film, very good I thought, then the British police arrived in their police car, half way to France !  Dud they then have to reverse over 10 miles/kilometres to get out again ?

Merf.

They'd run through to the other side, stock up at Carrefour, then head back again..

There are 'ordinary' vehicles used in the Service Tunnel; originally a mixture of electric and diesel Peugeot 205s were used to take technical staff to and fro (subsequently replaced, but I can't remember what with), short-wheelbase 'Ladog' vehicles. It is possible to turn a 205 around, if you've got a convenient Cross-Passage Door entrance- not sure if it would be possible to do the same with a larger vehicle. On a busy works-night, there can be more than fifty vehicles in the Service Tunnel; only a small proportion will be purpose-built.

[Bon Accord]

Anyone remember "The Train" starring Burt Lancaster? Very impressive, and much attention made to accuracy (within reason!), and it seemed like the stars did a fair amount of their own driving and firing.

[kevinlms]

An unusual set of 'errors' was presented to the audience on the Australian 'Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries' TV series, where the Queenscliff railway was featured as being in the late 1920s.

 

The main error being that this line was originally 5'3' gauge. After closure, it was re-opened as a 3'6" line with ex-Queensland Railways & Tasmanian Railways stock. So instead of a broad gauge train of Victorian Railways, the viewer was presented with trains from far flung places. Still it IS difficult to reproduce a broad gauge train service there, now!

 

http://bellarinerailway.com.au/queenscliff-station

 

[Worsdell forever]

Not railway related but Heartbeat was mentioned. A few years ago I was watching an episode with my dad, it was a shot inside a house, 'that wasn't like that in the '60s' 'how can you tell?' I asked. 'I made that doorway through into the living room in the late '70s!'.

So spotting rail related errors is nothing...

[SM42]

I remember another Heartbeat episode where they needed to stop a train. A quick shout to the signalman and the lower quadrant signal fell from the horizontal to a nice off position.

 

Strangley it worked.

 

Perhaps the driver thought it so unusual to get a green that he'd better stop to report this irregular aspect.

 

Andy

[bluebottle]

An unusual set of 'errors' was presented to the audience on the Australian 'Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries' TV series, where the Queenscliff railway was featured as being in the late 1920s.

 

The main error being that this line was originally 5'3' gauge. After closure, it was re-opened as a 3'6" line with ex-Queensland Railways & Tasmanian Railways stock. So instead of a broad gauge train of Victorian Railways, the viewer was presented with trains from far flung places. Still it IS difficult to reproduce a broad gauge train service there, now!

 

http://bellarinerailway.com.au/queenscliff-station

 

Considering that I turn a blind eye to the fact that my 4mm to 1ft trains run on track a scale 7” under gauge, I feel disinclined to be hypercritical of the work of film and television companies ...

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I've given up worrying.....

[cromptonnut]

I like the one in the Great St Trinians Train Robbery

 

 

 

Watch sequence from about 7m in on that sequence - the teachers on the Wickham trolley head into the tunnel, the gronk heading into the other end of the tunnel leading some wagons, followed by the Wickham trolley heading out of the tunnel and the shunter mysteriously having ended up at the other end of the wagons.

 

Of course, there are a number of other reasons to watch the proper old St Trinians films...

[clecklewyke]

I can accept the use of the wrong type of train or location for a programme because there are only a few options available to the film-makers but what I cannot accept are the kind of continuity errors in Michael Portillo's series about British train journeys. 

 

He gets into train type A, you then get an aerial shot of train type B and finally he gets out of train type C.

 

Surely even the most brain - dead viewer could notice this. It is as though he gets into a blue Ford, there is an aerial view of a silver Renault and then he steps out of a yellow Citroen.

 

Ian

[alibuchan]

In an earlier episode of downtown abbey they get on a correct LNER train for the 1920's. But in the background you have an 08 shunter in the yard and the loco shed has also got modern scaffolding around it.

 

Alistair

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

In the movie Super 8, a train wreck is a major plot element. Now call me old fashioned, but once a wrecked train stops moving it doesn't move again of its own accord. Except in 'Super 8' where some of it has hit (or at least got very close to) the leading character's car, but then helpfully removed itself when said characters wish to drive away in said car. (Spoiler Alert: but then again the alien whatsit moves huge chunks of stuff around with no physical evidence of their passage, unless of course it is observed happening, in which case whatever is being moved then dramatically demolishes whatever may be in its path. But it's very alien, so that's all right then. Terrible movie, although worth watching once for Elle Fanning acting the socks off everyone else in the production; and most other productions come to that.)