The Polar Express is really a streamliner

[cnw1995]

I don't know about you, but we get out our copy of Chris Van Allsburg book every Christmas instead of having it around all year round. Well, upon our first reading of the 2006 season, my youngest and I wish to express our opinion that the cars pulled by the venerable Berk are indeed streamlined... ;) Look at the picture of the PE running over the vaulted bridge into the North Pole and see the rear car - Hollywood got it wrong... what do you think?

[chuck]

The locomotive and cars change shape and size throughout the book.  The best guestimate for the loco is a Pennsy style pacific.  The car interiors don't match the exteriors.   The author wasn't terribly concerned about any of this as it isn't central to the story.  I often wondered if the author saw or rode on the Phoebe Snow as the cars coloring looks like a dead ringer!

[darianj]

Hollywood always get things like that wrong.  They know the average viewer is't goig to know the difference.

[CSXect]

The train in the movie is NOT prototypical say it aint so take it back!!!!

[Andrew Falconer]

Chris Van Allsburg lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

The Pere Marquette was the big railroad in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The movie locomotive was based on Pere Marquette 1225.

The book "The Art of The Polar Express" will answer many of your questions.

Buy a copy of "The Art of The Polar Express" at a local bookstore. It is an excellent book.

Andrew

[Birds]

Doug,

I don't know, it sounds like you may be possibly nearing the verge of potentially no longer being able to hear the bell...

They look like "Harriman" roofed (1930's) passenger cars to me.

Chris

[BigJim]

my youngest and I wish to express our opinion that the cars pulled by the venerable Berk are indeed streamlined... ;) Look at the picture of the PE running over the vaulted bridge into the North Pole and see the rear car - Hollywood got it wrong... what do you think?

I see what you are seeing and I understand your logic, but, I will have to disagree with you. With the artist artwork (which by the way I think is great), there is not enough level of detail in the drawings of the outside of the cars to really say if they are streamlined or not.

This is where perception rears its ugly head. The locomotive is definately not streamlined, so why should the cars be? If you have seen the Lionel Polar Express train set before the book, you may tend to automatically think of the drawings as non-streamlined cars.

The clincher for me proving that they are not streamlined cars is the view from the inside of the car as they are serving the hot chocolate. Those are definately not the windows of a streamlined car.

Taking the "perception is everything - reality...nothing!" theme one step further, I wonder how many children or parents will or have seen the movie before reading the book and then thinking that the book had it all wrong?

[cnw1995]

True, Jim, that pesky hot chocolate picture does seem to contradict the others - especially the vaulted ceiling and the windows - hmmm, except the double-pane windows are different too that the ones on the other pages of the book.

And before anyone gets the sense I'm serious about this, let me reassure you I'm not. The author-illustrator is certainly evocative - he has a neat website too. But there's certainly precedent for a non-streamlined engine to pull streamlined or lighter-weight cars.

I've enjoyed the Art of the Polar Express book - but it's full of the movie art (which as we now know is all wrong)

[palallin]

In the streamlined era, many RRs rebuilt heavyweight cars with roof farings to match the roofline and profile of the streamlined cars.  Some even painted "shadow fluting" on the sides to match the stainless siding on their new cars.  The interiors, of course, would still reveal the old monitor roofing (but with a/c vents in place of the cloistory windowws).  Therefore, some or all of the PE cars could be rebuilt heavyweights.

Just suggested as a possible way to reconcile seemingly inconsistent visuals.

 

[BigJim]

The book "The Art of The Polar Express" will answer many of your questions.

Buy a copy of "The Art of The Polar Express" at a local bookstore. It is an excellent book.

Andrew

Andrew,

Thanks for the reminder about this book.

My copy arrived today. For the Polar Express lovers out there, this is an EXCELLENT book and a must have.