Railways "Howlers" in Literature

[MarkSG]

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.

 

 

JK Rowling has admitted that it was an error, though, and that she intended it to be a correct location. She's said in an interview that she got Kings Cross and Euston mixed up when thinking about it.

 

If you read the books, that's actually a consistent theme - the non-magical (real world) locations are described accurately. That's because Rowling wanted to give the impression that the magical world really does exist in this world, it's just that we muggles aren't aware of it.

[ForestPines]

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.

I suspect the author looked solely at a map which postdated the closure of the Dunblane-Crianlarich section of the C&O.

[Poggy1165]

JK Rowling has admitted that it was an error, though, and that she intended it to be a correct location. She's said in an interview that she got Kings Cross and Euston mixed up when thinking about it.

 

If you read the books, that's actually a consistent theme - the non-magical (real world) locations are described accurately. That's because Rowling wanted to give the impression that the magical world really does exist in this world, it's just that we muggles aren't aware of it.

 

So there was a platform 9 3/4 at Euston? I always knew the LNWR were a funny lot, but I didn't think they were that funny.

[BlackRat]

Some one will be trying to tell me next there's no such thing as Hobbits!!!!!!

[colin penfold]

Some one will be trying to tell me next there's no such thing as Hobbits!!!!!!

of course they exist! I am descended from hobbits, hence my strange feet which could only otherwise be explained by years pounding the beat.

[Chimer]

Perhaps not strictly "literature", but the New Year's Day Sherlock on BBC had a tube train diverting up a forgotten branchline, dropping the last vehicle (with rear driver's cab) off in a forgotten station, regaining the proper route and completing the journey to the depot only 5 minutes late, without anyone noticing there was something missing .......... the shunting and run-round necessary intrigued me most .......

[Vanders]

Perhaps not strictly "literature", but the New Year's Day Sherlock on BBC had a tube train diverting up a forgotten branchline, dropping the last vehicle (with rear driver's cab) off in a forgotten station, regaining the proper route and completing the journey to the depot only 5 minutes late, without anyone noticing there was something missing .......... the shunting and run-round necessary intrigued me most .......

I did wonder how the driver managed to get the route changed without anyone else noticing. Or why the lights were turned on for a very tidy platform on an apparently half-finished station. Or why the track was even there and in a fit state to run a train along. Or...

[paul-dereham]

In the recent TV programme, The Great Train Robbery, on the police board describing the incident the loco was identified as a Class 40, but surely in 1963 it would have been an English Electric Type 4 as the class 40 designation didn't come in until the introduction of TOPS in the next decade. I won't mention the high intensity lights fitted to the loco!

[5050]

In the recent TV programme, The Great Train Robbery, on the police board describing the incident the loco was identified as a Class 40, but surely in 1963 it would have been an English Electric Type 4 as the class 40 designation didn't come in until the introduction of TOPS in the next decade. I won't mention the high intensity lights fitted to the loco!

It was also a Cl37 - and where did it go when they abandoned it in 'Euston sidings'?

[Edthefolkie]

There seems to be a bit of a howler in an Edwardian tear-jerker called "Success" by R B Cunningham-Grahame, which I found in a railway anthology years ago.

 

An old Scottish gent living in London is extremely close to death, and desperately wants to go home to Moffat before it's too late. So he travels up with his wife from Euston, but gradually gets worse as the story goes on. Harrow, Stafford, and Lancaster  are mentioned - OK so far. But then:

 

"They stopped at Penrith, which the old castle walls make even meaner, in the cold morning light, than other stations look. Little Salkeld and Armathwaite, Cotehill and Scotby all rushed past, and the train, slackening, stopped with a jerk upon the platform at Carlisle".

 

Unusual route for a North Western train, via the Settle and Carlisle.  

[Londontram]

There seems to be a bit of a howler in an Edwardian tear-jerker called "Success" by R B Cunningham-Grahame, which I found in a railway anthology years ago.

 

An old Scottish gent living in London is extremely close to death, and desperately wants to go home to Moffat before it's too late. So he travels up with his wife from Euston, but gradually gets worse as the story goes on. Harrow, Stafford, and Lancaster  are mentioned - OK so far. But then:

 

"They stopped at Penrith, which the old castle walls make even meaner, in the cold morning light, than other stations look. Little Salkeld and Armathwaite, Cotehill and Scotby all rushed past, and the train, slackening, stopped with a jerk upon the platform at Carlisle".

 

Unusual route for a North Western train, via the Settle and Carlisle.  

Thanks you spoiled it now I was just about to start reading that 

[trisonic]

This is fantasy, not fiction as such, and so not really a howler.

 

Must remember that!

 

Best, Pete.

[trisonic]

I seem to recall in one of Elizabeth George's early novels she sent Insp. Lindley and his "dumpy" Sgt., to Edinburgh via an Express from Paddington. Does living in the 'States excuse her? Don't think so...

 

Best, Pete.

[landscapes]

Hi

 

How about the James bond film " From Russia with Love" , I was watching it last weekend, in the latter part of the film they board a train in I believe Istanbul.

 

In the series of shots that follow along the journey there is a vast mixture of different European and British steam locomotives and rolling stock including BR green southern coaches.

 

Still good stuff all the same.

 

Regards

 

David 

[andyman7]

In the series of shots that follow along the journey there is a vast mixture of different European and British steam locomotives and rolling stock including BR green southern coaches.

 

 

If you watch the film you'll see that the ground semaphores have a green horizontal stripe. That's all you need to know that they're not BR SR coaches, they are maroon ones! The maroon/red colour was rendered as green in post production. 

[Waverley47708]

Always thought Train Spotting was a misleading title!  The film also left me a bit disappointed. 

 

 

Waverley47708

[Pacific231G]

Hi

 

How about the James bond film " From Russia with Love" , I was watching it last weekend, in the latter part of the film they board a train in I believe Istanbul.

 

In the series of shots that follow along the journey there is a vast mixture of different European and British steam locomotives and rolling stock including BR green southern coaches.

 

Still good stuff all the same.

 

Regards

 

David 

The departure was indeed shot at the real Sirkeci station in Istanbul that sadly closed last year following the opening of the Marmara tunnel. It was about the only film portrayal of the Orient Express's departure from Istanbul that actually used the real location. 

 

AFAIK the railway scenes (along with most of the movie) were all shot fairly close to Istanbul with Sirkeci re-dressed to act as Belgrade and Zagreb. The steam locos were all Turkish apart from the couple of completely out of place library shots of British trains (I'd always thought they were Southern so interesting that they weren't) that were presumably added during the editing to fill a gap in the sequence.

The real Orient Express (not the tourist trains) would have had several changes of locomotive as it always used motive power supplied by the countries it ran through. Also, because it wasn't so much a single train as a small network of services, the composition changed throughout its journey. With all the romantic fantasy surrounding the Orient Express From Russia with Love was probably its most authentic porttrayal. 

 

Sikeci itself cries out to be modelled. It was a very small but rather magnificent terminus with just one main line platform with a bay, though there were also three suburban platforms. Despite that it had the Orient Express and various other international expresses, a wagon ferry connecting it to Turkey's Asian network and its approach tracks running beneath the walls of the Topkapi palace.

[MarkSG]

Always thought Train Spotting was a misleading title!  The film also left me a bit disappointed. 

 

 

Waverley47708

 

Although it does feature a rare film appearance of Corrour station!

[Waverley47708]

Although it does feature a rare film appearance of Corrour station!

True but I think it is one of those Sprintery things rather than a proper train   .

 

Waverley47708

[PhilJ W]

Someone on another forum has pointed out that in one of the 'Mission Impossible' series they had a helicopter chasing a train through the Channel Tunnel!

What powers the train in 'Avalanche Express'? it is apparently a diesel locomotive but where the 'oily bits' should be is an open compartment occupied by the 'baddies'.

[highpeak]

In "The Adventure of the Priory School" Holmes and Watson begin their journey north from Euston. The location of Holderness Hall and the school appears to be somewhere west of Chesterfield, possibly around Baslow (there is a mention of "the Chesterfield high road"). He would have been better off taking the Midland, although there was a 10:30am departure from Euston that had a through carriage for Buxton via either Nuneaton or Rugby. This would still have left the pair with an arduous journey from Ashbourne or Tissington.

 

The television version at any rate was filmed at Chatsworth and Haddon Hall as I recall, so I would have thought it elementary to have started from St. Pancras.

[andyman7]

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

It's the last few pages that really go wrong -  Bletchley was/is of course on the WCML; however the protagonists board a northbound main line train which stops as Northampton. OK, you say, it's wartime, maybe it's taking the Northampton loop. But then the action requires that the train is switched off the main line and on to a branch to....Rugby. At this point you have to accept that whatever research went into the book, it didn't include any basic understanding of the services through Bletchley.   

[trisonic]

Were not passenger trains routed off the mainlines whenever possible during the War? Freight had priority, always.

 

I remember my Mother telling me that she went on a very circuitous route from London to Stirling - she was working on a vital project too....

 

Best, Pete.

[Londontram]

In "The Adventure of the Priory School" Holmes and Watson begin their journey north from Euston. The location of Holderness Hall and the school appears to be somewhere west of Chesterfield, possibly around Baslow (there is a mention of "the Chesterfield high road"). He would have been better off taking the Midland, although there was a 10:30am departure from Euston that had a through carriage for Buxton via either Nuneaton or Rugby. This would still have left the pair with an arduous journey from Ashbourne or Tissington

 Perhaps they should have taken one of those new fangled 1900c transport aids with them - a Bradshaw 

[runs as required]

The departure was indeed shot at the real Sirkeci station in Istanbul .....The real Orient Express (not the tourist trains) would have had several changes of locomotive as it always used motive power supplied by the countries it ran through. Also, because it wasn't so much a single train as a small network of services, the composition changed throughout its journey. With all the romantic fantasy surrounding the Orient Express From Russia with Love was probably its most authentic porttrayal. 

We saw the film (at the Odeon, Dingle L'pool 8 - just over the old Overhead Railway terminal) just after we'd spent our honeymoon on the (Simplon) Orient Express.

 

I must say they improved the train service no end for the film - someone got murdered (in Sofia?) in the 3 minutes it took in the film for the engine to be changed!

By contrast our experience of Sofia was a 10 hour wait until our 3 car OE could be fly shunted onto the back of the next local train on down the line. Rather than swelter in the train we went off to check out the centre of town on a trolley bus .

By then the loos had long stopped flushing and the restaurant car only got attached in the middle of the night for a couple of hours. On the outward journey to Istanbul we arrived a day and a half late. Back via Munich was only about 17 hours late.

 

That Sean Connery pale blue suit would have looked a bit lived in on our journey!

But I still have the Liliput P8, Wagons Lits and Fleischmann dining car  SWMBO bought for me a few years later as a momento.

 

davehig