Film and tv railway errors

[Pacific231G]

37 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I know that. What I was trying to get at was that the film makers saw "Liverpool" on the stern and thought LNWR stock footage would be ok.

 

Do you think they thought it through that far? British train was probably as far as they went.

 

The one that always impressed me in terms of somebody doing their best to get things right was The Train. The railway scenes were mostly shot around Acquigny and Louviers south of Rouen in SNCF's West Region but someone thought to bring in a bunch of ex Est 230Bs, appropriate for the part of France where the action was supposedly taking place, that had presumably just been withdrawn. Labiche (Burt Lancaster) did finally stop the art train by knocking out the keys on a section of bullhead track which might have been quite hard to do on the Eastern region where all the track was Vignoles (flat bottom) whereas a lot of the former Etat was laid with "double champignon" but that's really quibbling. The 0-6-0 that got deliberately wrecked  at "Rive-Reine" (Acquigny) was local. It was an ex Etat CF de l'Ouest 030C (3-030C 757)  from a remarkably long lived class of locos introduced in 1867 that lasted until the mid 1960s.  

[Hroth]

49 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Do you think they thought it through that far? British train was probably as far as they went.

 

If it were an American production, we'd have been lucky if there were any British trains! However it was a UK production (Rank) and they went as far as roughly the right period, if not the right location!

 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

If it were an American production, we'd have been lucky if there were any British trains! However it was a UK production (Rank) and they went as far as roughly the right period, if not the right location!

 

You're quite right. I was thinking of the film Titanic, mentioned in other posts, and not the 1958 film.  Funnily enough A Night to Remember was the first feature film I ever saw. It was shown from a 16mm print by my primary school in the scout hut round the corner that we used as a school canteen (the food was truly awful, cooked in the kitchen of another larger school and delivered in large metal containers, ugh! )

[John M Upton]

From a thankfully now long forgotten Pierce Brosnan pre Bond straight to DVD effort called Death Train:

Not quite as bad as the (unintentionally) hilarious Cassandra Crossing but not far off...

Edited October 2, 2022 by John M Upton

[Ozexpatriate]

On 30/09/2022 at 06:22, Hroth said:

If it were an American production, we'd have been lucky if there were any British trains!

I thought I mentioned Saving Mr. Banks in this thread but a quick search did not find it. There is plenty of suitable preserved Queensland stock they could have used, but what they used was thoroughly American prototypes.

 

Helen Goff (aka P.L. Travers) grew up in Queensland and there is a scene where she travels by train. 

 

According to IMDB, they used the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo, CA. 

 

There can't be many people who would have noticed (or cared) that it is definitively not Queensland Railways stock.

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[melmerby]

On 28/09/2022 at 20:55, JohnR said:

I had to switch off the new BBC1 drama "Inside Man" on Monday night, when a tube train arrived in the Cotswolds in the first 5 minutes.  

Didn't bother me one bit.

It looked quite like a rural end of one of the tube lines that was formerly a mainline company station, so I accepted it.

[JohnR]

8 hours ago, melmerby said:

Didn't bother me one bit.

It looked quite like a rural end of one of the tube lines that was formerly a mainline company station, so I accepted it.

 

Bit of a long drive for David Tenant to pick her up from the station then. 

[melmerby]

26 minutes ago, JohnR said:

 

Bit of a long drive for David Tenant to pick her up from the station then. 

You are overthinking it.

 

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

Didn't bother me one bit.

It looked quite like a rural end of one of the tube lines that was formerly a mainline company station, so I accepted it.

Quite so but it was never a tube line as such, it would be more correct to describe it as an Underground station. It could be on the Metropolitan line which started out as the Metropolitan Railway had main line aspirations. The Metropolitan Railway once stretched out into Rural Buckinghamshire as far as Verney Junction. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/v/verney_junction/ With a very rural branch to Brill.

 https://underground-history.co.uk/brill.php  The line has always been operated by surface stock (which is of similar profile to main line stock) and was built as a steam railway. It is currently operated by S class EMU's. The term 'tube stock' should only apply to the low profile stock used in the deep tube lines under central London.

[62613]

12 hours ago, John M Upton said:

From a thankfully now long forgotten Pierce Brosnan pre Bond straight to DVD effort called Death Train:

Not quite as bad as the (unintentionally) hilarious Cassandra Crossing but not far off...

Donny?

[John M Upton]

53 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Donny?

 

Maybe but that is a NSE DMU, possibly a 108 leading and something multi doored (117?) as the other half.  Whatever and wherever it is, it is a LONG way from Munich that is for certain...

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Quite so but it was never a tube line as such, it would be more correct to describe it as an Underground station.

Most people refer to the whole system as "The Tube"

Even Tfl's map is called a "tube" map:

standard-tube-map(2).pdf

 

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Phil JW said :

Quite so but it was never a tube line as such, it would be more correct to describe it as an Underground station.

 

Most people refer to the whole system as "The Tube"

Even Tfl's map is called a "tube" map:

standard-tube-map(2).pdf 505.49 kB · 0 downloads

 

Indeed: although tube originally referred only to the deep level lines. The usage may have originated from a newspaper article describing the first deep level line from King William Street to Stockwel thus "through the tube under the River Thames" though it had earlier been used to describe the G.P.O.'s earlier pneumatic system between Euston Station and Eversholt Street post office.

Almost from the start, the Central London Railway (now the Central Line) was referred to by the public as the "tupenny tube" for its flat fare of 2d, and the company referred to itself as the "Central London (Tube) Railway" in its publicity from 1905.

At that time, the sub-surface lines, particularly the Metropolitan, were more like conventional railways that happened to go underground for part of their length than a totally separate urban system so there was a fairly clear distinction. The wider usage of "The Tube" may well have come when these lines came to share more of their character with the deep level "tube" lines, particularly when they came under the same administration. It's ironic that much of the system doesn't run in tubes  and over half of the entire London Underground system, including a lot of the "tube" lines, isn't underground at all with some of it, like the Hammersmith and City Line beyond Westbourne Park and the Picadilly and District Lines from Hamemrsmith to Acton Town are actually above the streets.

By indicating it with a double line rather than a solid coloured line, the current "tube" map appears to consider the Elizabeth Line, which runs through London a long way under the ground, as part of the Overground though that's a bit uncertain.  

 

Despite their involvement in the London Underground railways, the Americans didn't adopt the term underground at home, apprently because it had been used for the escape lines used to get fleeing slaves to the "free" states in the north. Why that was a reason to adopt the term subway instead  in New York etc. probably says quite a lot about the United States but not why Glasgow adopted the same term for its entirely underground railway.

Much of the the rest of the world, starting wiith Paris, adopted the name of the Metropolitan Railway as the generic term for such railways  but that clearly couldn't happen in London because it was one of several competing companies operating ralways beneath the streets.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Pacific231G

[john new]

A BBC website news blooper seen today - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-63109000

 

Network South East train and third rail operating in the Yorkshire area, or would be if the stock image picture chosen represented what was mentioned as the type of train the new device is being fitted to!  We know why it happens  but it doesn't help.

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by john new

[andyram]

In many cases, some of the errors in film and tv work is due to using or doctoring what is available to the film crews. We have to accept that some fictional tv pieces have to make do with what is available. However, there is no excuse for mistakes in news items or factual documentaries. I recently spotted a clear and unforgivable error in an episode of the Yesterday TV program "Train Truckers". Having covered the transportation of the "Sir Nigel Gresley" from Crewe to Bridgnorth for the steam gala, the program included a small section on the gala. It highlighted some of the other locomotives running including the J94 and Saint. Then it referred to 43106 or "Mickey Mouse" only to support the commentary with shots of the Standard, clearly displaying the number 75069!

[melmerby]

This morning BBC news is reporting that carriages carrying cement have derailed at Petteril Bridge Junction in Carlisle.☹️

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-63325259

Edited October 20, 2022 by melmerby

[HonestTom]

On 28/09/2022 at 14:09, Kickstart said:

 

I noticed it at the port where they are bording a train.

Mind you, set in 1918 and Steve Rogers escapes in a Fokker Eindecker

 

Terrible for such a historic film  😉

 

All the best

 

Katy

I'm inclined to be lenient towards Wonder Woman because it feels like they did make some effort to get it right. The characters are going to France in 1918, so they have a SECR locomotive, the station is disguised to look SECR and there are pre-Grouping coaches (it's hard to make them out in photos, but it looks like at least some of them are SECR). Unless you're going to create a train and station in CGI, which I suspect will become the norm eventually, this is as close as you can reasonably get to an accurate train in what is ultimately a fairly minor scene. A lot of movies would have just got anything steam-powered attached to a rake of Mk 1s.

Edited October 20, 2022 by HonestTom

[fulton]

A couple of months ago I was held up in Calais for four hours following the Eurotunnel shuttle breakdown in the tunnel, when checking the BBC report they said the stranded passengers had been picked up by a freight train, photo was obviously inside another shuttle. News reports should be correct, some subjects I an quiet knowledgeable about and I see so many factual errors, I wonder how much I am being misinformed on subjects I know little of.

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

This morning BBC news is reporting that carriages carrying cement have derailed at Petteril Bridge Junction in Carlisle.☹️

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-63325259

 

Possibly the BBC minion decided that they were "carriages" because they were on bogies...

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, fulton said:

A couple of months ago I was held up in Calais for four hours following the Eurotunnel shuttle breakdown in the tunnel, when checking the BBC report they said the stranded passengers had been picked up by a freight train, photo was obviously inside another shuttle. News reports should be correct, some subjects I an quiet knowledgeable about and I see so many factual errors, I wonder how much I am being misinformed on subjects I know little of.

 

As the shuttle only carries cars, albeit with people inside them, not passengers per se, isn't it a freight train?

 

Mike.

[Kickstart]

5 hours ago, HonestTom said:

there are pre-Grouping coaches (it's hard to make them out in photos, but it looks like at least some of them are SECR).

 

I noticed "Southern" text on one shot at the station.

 

But I am slightly tongue in cheek about it. If it had been accurate I suspect Wonder Woman would have appeared in historical records of the era ;-)

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, Kickstart said:

I noticed "Southern" text on one shot at the station.

(From memory) in the scene arriving at the docks, the coaches they use are plainly marked SOUTHERN and appear to be Maunsell green.

 

For the London departure scene, an internet movie location says this:

Quote

Although it's one of London's busiest rail stations, two of King's Cross's platforms had to be closed for two days as vintage railcars were transported from the Bluebell Railway in Sheffield Park in East Sussex, about 40 miles south of London.

 

There's a bit of both in an extended scene - it's hard to catch the right frame and easier to see playing the video:

 

SOUTHERN:

 

SE&C:

[phil-b259]

15 hours ago, HonestTom said:

I'm inclined to be lenient towards Wonder Woman because it feels like they did make some effort to get it right. The characters are going to France in 1918, so they have a SECR locomotive, the station is disguised to look SECR and there are pre-Grouping coaches (it's hard to make them out in photos, but it looks like at least some of them are SECR). Unless you're going to create a train and station in CGI, which I suspect will become the norm eventually, this is as close as you can reasonably get to an accurate train in what is ultimately a fairly minor scene. A lot of movies would have just got anything steam-powered attached to a rake of Mk 1s.

 

10 hours ago, Kickstart said:

 

I noticed "Southern" text on one shot at the station.

 

But I am slightly tongue in cheek about it. If it had been accurate I suspect Wonder Woman would have appeared in historical records of the era ;-)

 

All the best

 

Katy

 

2 Southern railway built open 3rds each of a different design, a Southern Railway brake Composite, SECR loco no. 592, ex SECR (just - built 1921) Compartment 3rd, ex LBSCR Compartment 1st, eSECR 4 wheel compartment + wheelchair accessible saloon, LBSCR Compartment 1st and LCDR Brake 3rd.

 

All from the Bluebell Railway.

 

There is some footage of it at Kings Cross on you tube - note that for filming the Southern corridor stock was in platform 0 and the rest in platform 1. that meant the weathering applied by the film company was applied to opposite sides for each 'set'

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIibCFLjEJY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du_AO_u6BCQ