Railways "Howlers" in Literature

[Andy Kirkham]

I recently read On Chesil Beach by ian McEwan. Trains are not a major feature (as you may discern from the review http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/mar/25/fiction.ianmcewan) but they are mentioned a couple of times; and while it seems that the author may have done a certain amount of research about railways, he seems to have relied on maps rather than timetables. Thus on one occasion the hero Edward takes a direct service from Henley-on-Thames to Oxford (I don't think there was any such service), and later there is the recollection of a tragic accident at Princes Risborough station involving - wait for it - a through service from Marylebone to Watlington.

 

Can anyone contribute any other "impossible journeys" from literature?

 

 

[cary hill]

"On Chesil Beach" was also "sloppy fiction" when it comes to musical factual accuracy. A Rock Music "trainspotter" noted in his review of the book that main characters were able to listen to recordings by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles in Summer of 1961. Apparently that passage has been removed in subsequent reprints, so perhaps his timetabling errors could also be corrected.

 

Doesn't say much for the people nominating Booker Prize shortlists.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

OTOH, it is fiction. The applicable standard is 'anything goes'.

[Edwin_m]

Rule 1 applies.  It's my book, I'll write what I like. 

[Tony Davis]

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

 

Or is that Journalism?

[108]

Trinity by Leon Uris has one major plot failure. One of the main characters smuggles guns for the rebels in the tender of his locomotive. Ok so far. But he's on the trip from London to Cork via the train ferry. I think Leon missed the change of gauge. Oops

[pete_mcfarlane]

In 'The Woman in Black' Kipps (the unfortunate solicitor) travels to Eel House by getting the train from King's Cross and changing at Crewe.

[PatB]

In 'The Woman in Black' Kipps (the unfortunate solicitor) travels to Eel House by getting the train from King's Cross and changing at Crewe.

 

Weekend engineering work?  

[Colin]

I think one of the worst I read was a WW2 story where the escaping heroes (or maybe they were spies, I don't remember) hijack a complete German express train, (Bavarian Pacific and coaches), drive it all the way to Calais and somehow ship it back to England and THEN drive it up to London.

And I used to think "Von Ryan's Express" was far-fetched!

[Nedrahn]

Impossible journeys in literature. Hmmm...

 

Barrow-in-Furness to Tidmouth, with a stop at Crovan's Gate for a trip up the Skarloey Railway. Thomas registers a complaint that you didn't take a ride on his branch line instead.

 

I'll get my coat.

[ForestPines]

I'm not sure you could call it literature, but I recall reading a Jeffrey Archer novel set in the 1960s, with an Underground train that stopped at Embankment station. Oops.

[RJS1977]

Definitely not literature, but for impossible journeys, try figuring out the railway geography of the old radio series "Parsley Sidings"!

[MJI]

TTTE is probably among the more accurate railways in literature.

[Colin]

One of the worst howlers had to be the LT&S "Misery Line" line timetable c.1975, a complete work of utter fantasy!

[Poggy1165]

I have just been reading a book where World War 1 era characters catch the LMS sleeper train to Glasgow; from where they got a direct connection to Thurso. But the best bit was that their plans included changing at Crianlarich on the way back in order to visit Oban. I can only think that in this alternate world the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway had been extended to Inverness and a through train service introduced.

 

Really, there is fiction - and there is shocking bad research. The LMS thing is particularly unforgivable. 

[D9020 Nimbus]

There was an article in Backtrack several years ago investigating the accuracy of the train journeys described in Dorothy L Sayers' The Five Red Herrings. It turned out that the journeys were substantially accurate; there were some mistakes, but these were relatively minor and there were plausible explanations for them.

[Fat Controller]

I have just been reading a book where World War 1 era characters catch the LMS sleeper train to Glasgow; from where they got a direct connection to Thurso. But the best bit was that their plans included changing at Crianlarich on the way back in order to visit Oban. I can only think that in this alternate world the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway had been extended to Inverness and a through train service introduced.

 

Really, there is fiction - and there is shocking bad research. The LMS thing is particularly unforgivable. 

If you were doing this, then you would probably have changed trains at Perth and taken the Callender and Oban via Crianlarich, wouldn't you?

[Ohmisterporter]

TTTE is probably among the more accurate railways in literature.

 

Written by someone who had a passion for the subject, although we want to discourage trains refusing to come out of tunnels because it is raining. I recall a Wilbur Smith book about African mercenaries in which people were escaping from the bad guys by train. Unfortunately, a shot from an artillery piece severed the coupling between the "water buggy" and the train without damage to any wagons. How good a shot was that? First time I had heard the term "water buggy" for a tender. Not sure if that is a common South African term, but I have not come across it before or since.

[The Lurker]

I seem to recall reading the Robert Harris book on Bletchley Park - "Enigma" and thinking that the attempted escape by the spy was wrong enough for me to notice; its many years since I read the book but I seem to recall thinking the route was all wrong - which as the spy was intercepted on the train (IIRC) was a bit of a shame

[sammyboy]

Why wouldn't a London underground train stop at Embankment? When I last looked at a tube map, there was defiantly a station there with platforms on the District, Circle, Bakerloo & Northern lines.

 

Sam

[petethemole]

Because in the 1960s it was called Charing Cross and what is now Charing Cross (underground) was Trafalgar Square.

 

Pete

[Welly]

One thriller I read, the author's name escapes me but the plot was unpleasant, had the protagonist take the "Cornish Riveria" out of Waterloo!

[MarkSG]

Probably the most famous railway-related howler in fiction, of course, is platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross in the Harry Potter novels. It can't be where JK Rowling describes it as being, because in reality platforms 9 and 10 are part of the suburban station and have no brick piers between them.

[Poggy1165]

I think the Harry Potter thing is meant tongue-in-cheek. After all, the lad goes off to a school to learn how to cast spells. This is fantasy, not fiction as such, and so not really a howler.

 

Literary howlers are down to poor research by the author, when writing a book which is meant to represent a episode of reality. For example, if I wrote that Manchester City played their home matches at Anfield that would be bad research. If I said that they had a subsidiary team that went out dragon-slaying, or they were controlled by aliens, that would be fantasy. 

 

By the way, literary howlers are easy to do, even the best writers slip up sometimes. No one is an absolute expert in every aspect of human life. It's just that some things (who owned the West Coast mainline in 1918) are much easier to research than others. (Like which engine hauled the 10-00am to Glasgow.)

[Poggy1165]

If you were doing this, then you would probably have changed trains at Perth and taken the Callender and Oban via Crianlarich, wouldn't you?

 

I thought the C&O diverged at Dunblane, and that trains ran thence either to Callender or Oban. If I was planning to travel from King's Cross to York, it's unlikely I should remark on the need to change trains at Grantham, and still less likely that I would actually do so. I can quite see the need to change at Perth (or Dunblane) but not at Crianlarich.