I just saw a real doozie yesterday. It was a movie called "Con express". It had to be one of the all time flops for a movie involving trains. For starters the locomotive on the DVD cover is that of a SD60 that was used in testing at the DOT center in Pueblo.
I didn't know if I was going to laugh or cry when I saw the so called secret military train. The military train consisted of two green heavyweight 6 axle passenger cars from the 1920's or 1930's. They had a silver cattle car wedged between the passenger cars and this is where the 10 or so military men with their machine guns was guarding the train. The train was being pulled by a ancient Trainmaster locomotive on jointed rail in the middle of the country. This train of course was supposed to be modern, as we cut back and forth from the dispatching center which is tracking the train..
Now here is where it really gets weird. Terrorist hijack the train, and the train goes from a locomotive pulling three cars, to just 4 locomotives. Not only is it 4 totally different locomotives including a old F unit, but it is the 4 locomotives from the movie Runaway train! So we get men fighting on the passenger cars, but when we see the train rolling through the country side it is just 4 locomotives. Numerous shots from Runaway train are shown including the famous destruction of the caboose.
I have seen a lot of movies but this is first for me. Using some other movies footage for your own movie is very strange. You would think blending Runaway train with Con express would be somewhat interesting. But I thought it was just plain stupid.
Thomas 9011 I just saw a real doozie yesterday. It was a movie called "Con express". It had to be one of the all time flops for a movie involving trains. For starters the locomotive on the DVD cover is that of a SD60 that was used in testing at the DOT center in Pueblo. I didn't know if I was going to laugh or cry when I saw the so called secret military train. The military train consisted of two green heavyweight 6 axle passenger cars from the 1920's or 1930's. They had a silver cattle car wedged between the passenger cars and this is where the 10 or so military men with their machine guns was guarding the train. The train was being pulled by a ancient Trainmaster locomotive on jointed rail in the middle of the country. This train of course was supposed to be modern, as we cut back and forth from the dispatching center which is tracking the train.. Now here is where it really gets weird. Terrorist hijack the train, and the train goes from a locomotive pulling three cars, to just 4 locomotives. Not only is it 4 totally different locomotives including a old F unit, but it is the 4 locomotives from the movie Runaway train! So we get men fighting on the passenger cars, but when we see the train rolling through the country side it is just 4 locomotives. Numerous shots from Runaway train are shown including the famous destruction of the caboose. I have seen a lot of movies but this is first for me. Using some other movies footage for your own movie is very strange. You would think blending Runaway train with Con express would be somewhat interesting. But I thought it was just plain stupid.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
K4s_PRRMy favorite bloopers are in "Unstoppable". The first is the engineer jumping from car to car at 60 MPH+, he must be superman. Number two is the "dead man" control not stopping the engine. Number three is when the engineer chasing the locomotive can't make the front steps why didn't he try for the rear ones.
We have seen numerous railroad bloopers and just cringe at them. When I was gainfully employer before retirement in the oil industry I saw many stupid errors where Hollywood tried to hype up an oil field incident. Most of these were so far from reality that I refuse to watch an oil field based movie. John Wayne in Hellfighters was one of the worst and caused me to stop watching oil disaster films. I still watch the railroad movies even with their 'warts' because I like trains.
A few years back, NCIS, based in the Washington DC area went to a low income housing area looking for a suspect. In the back ground was a commuter train all the way from LA!
Howard
Not TV, not even a movie per se:
The posters for "Unstoppable" claimed the runaway train was a million tons. That's a helluva train!
This is a topic that is ripe (rife?) with possibilities! Some of the most offensive movies from a train standpoint include "Pearl Harbor" a switcher steaming along on an alleged mainline consist on Long Island with mountains in the background (shades of the Q three-track publicity shots with the Rockies in the background....) and "Flyboys" (IIRC) where a decidedly European steamer is wearing the UPRR herald.
It never ends of course. The trailer for the new "Lone Ranger" shows Tonto uncoupling a train in the old west which has tightlocks. "Skyfall" includes a wreck on the Tube where the cars must be made of unobtainium - crash through a hole blasted in the trackbed/wall into a subterranean chamber and there's not a speck of damage to the cars.
Entropy is always on the increase! Art
I remember a "Laverne and Shirley" episode where they were on a train crossing Canada. In one shot the train was being pulled by Soutern Pacific diesels. The second shot they were Santa Fe.
Ray Groves
I would like to thank the makers of Unstoppable for solving a mystery that has bugged me for a long time. Why doesn't my diesel powered push-pull commuter do the same speed in each direction during my commute? Because diesels can't go fast in reverse! I am truly amazed that trains run as well as they do, since it seems to take about 20 minutes and about 5 spins on a turntable to get each one ready for service.
pajrr I would like to thank the makers of Unstoppable for solving a mystery that has bugged me for a long time. Why doesn't my diesel powered push-pull commuter do the same speed in each direction during my commute? Because diesels can't go fast in reverse! I am truly amazed that trains run as well as they do, since it seems to take about 20 minutes and about 5 spins on a turntable to get each one ready for service.
Diesels are capable of the same velocity in either direction.
Rainman. Dustin Hoffman gets on an Amfleet I car in LAUPT to ride back to Cincinnati. (Obviously a San Diegan train set)
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I was being sarcastic
Remember the program about the SP crashing into Duffy Street at bottom of the Cajon? It was so hokey. The producer joined this forum and told us about his budget and that the RR would not let him on the property. He had just the one engine and a helocopter. Considering the constraints, he did OK.
erikem Early 1960's perhaps? JFK was assassinated November 1963. Kind of a shock to realize that the start of Conrail was less than a decade and a half after that event. - Erik
Early 1960's perhaps? JFK was assassinated November 1963.
Kind of a shock to realize that the start of Conrail was less than a decade and a half after that event.
- Erik
I haven't watched the movie in more than a few years, but as I recall, the Conrail scene was when Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison was interviewing a witness on the top of a building across Dealy Plaza from the Texas School Book Depository. This would have been a few years after the assaasination. I'm thinking 1968, but it could have been 1966. (Doubtful the real Jim Garrison interviewed anyone on top of a building though.)
Actually the movie "Hellfighters" is based on the life of the legendarey Pual "Red" Adair, the greatest of the oil well fire fighters.
One movie blooper that actually had me puzzled for a bit was in "The Rebel Set", about a armored car heist planned to occur during a lay-over in Chicago on a cross-country train journey (it starred Edward Platt, who went on to play the Chief in "Get Smart"). Putting aside the cross-country passenger train journey part (they had booked rooms in a sleeper car - maybe it was a thru service), the robbers leave Los Angeles on the SP, stop over at Chicago to commit the robbery, and then get back on the train to proceed to Newark (big station sign close-up)...but since the final chase scene in the 'Newark' train yard shows the yard filled with Southern Pacific locomotives (Switchers, Cab units, GPs, etc) and SP passenger stock, I originally thought they went to Newark, California via Chicago (which made absolutely no sense to me...but then again, I saw it via MST3K). Only on a re-viewing years later (on MST3k again), did I realize the robbers were going from LA to NY (Newark) via Chicago, and the dang producers were too cheap and lazy to get it right.
hontell A few years back, NCIS, based in the Washington DC area went to a low income housing area looking for a suspect. In the back ground was a commuter train all the way from LA!
NCIS also had one where the suspect they were chasing was running thru a railyard. A diesel switcher comes by slowly pulling a beat up old heavyweight coach, which looks like it's on it's way to a railroad museum for restoration, and the bad guy jumps in. The NCIS guys follow him inside, and it's filled with people and a conductor - it's apparently supposed to be an Amtrak passenger train.
I had planned to mention White Christmas, but I see I've been beaten to it.
train.dude@comcast.netI remember a "Laverne and Shirley" episode where they were on a train crossing Canada. In one shot the train was being pulled by Soutern Pacific diesels. The second shot they were Santa Fe.
It's even more of a joke than your post is leading on. :)
Here's a posting of mine that I made about it at a thread about railroads in tv shows at the Railroad.net forums.
"There is a two part episode of Laverne & Shirley from season 5 that is horrible from a railfan perspective. It's titled Murder on the Moosejaw Express and was first aired in early 1980.It's set in the early 1960's and they're riding a train from Milwaukee up North into Canada. The stock shots they used to bridge various scenes during it range from views of Amtrak F40PH's and SDP40F's to Southern Pacific E units, Union Pacific E units, and Santa Fe F units in other shots. I think there is even a shot with hood units at the front of their train at least once. The train they're aboard is never the same from one shot to another.Whoever was responsible for that on the editing room floor didn't put any care into it at all. It's bad enough that they'd think a line like the Southern Pacific had a passenger train serving Milwaukee North into Canada, but somewhat excusable since the public was forgetting and becoming more ignorant about railroads by the day at that point and I'm sure they weren't about to expend any money or significant effort with unimportant connecting segments between scenes. But it doesn't take much thinking to at least have some consistency from scene to scene even if the shots they used couldn't of possibly happened in real life."
Petticoat Junction from the 1960's mostly did justice to railroading. But some oddities there were the singe person crew in the later seasons (Despite being a hand fired steamer), Floyd often being back in the combine underway even when there were two of them in the earlier seasons, and the locomotive's wheel arrangement is misidentified in a later episode as a 4-4-0 where as it really was a 4-6-0 (And oddly enough, the character that states it was trying to impress the engineer with her knowledge about railroading and his locomotive).
One thing to always keep in mind is that any resemblance between movies/television and reality is strictly coincidental. That being said, some of these so-called bloopers are a result of budget and schedule limitations on location shooting.
When my wife and I are watching television, we both enjoy the quirks that turn up based on budget and schedule restraints and don't let them detract from enjoying the show. She assumes that I know where the location shots involving trains were taken (a fairly safe bet) and will ask when something unfamiliar turns up.
[quote user="NP Eddie"]
My name is Ed Burns and a retired NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Minneapolis.
"Trains" made a comment that a TV Show (many years ago) showed people traveling from New York to Boston on the Southern Pacific (with SP cars).
My favorite was an old Andy Griffith show that had Barney Fife getting off Union Pacific cars in Mayberry, North Carolina! Quite a feat.
A "Gunsmoke" episode shows Matt Dillon on a BN steam train. I believe was filled in South Dakota.
Thought this might be a good post to add to.
I am an ATCS host in Anoka.
[/quote"]
As noted by NP Eddie:
Just a couple of nights ago I watched an oder movie in which the stars boarded and proceeded to ride to California. The en-route photos of the train were SP diesel pulled passenger trains in 'Daylight color scheme'. Particularly since they were East of the Mississippi River.
P.S. N P Eddie, since you are new here, one of the Christmas stories that gets told around here is the story ( From NP days) of " THE STORY of SHEP"
linked @ http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/184033/2331177.aspx#2331177
Sometimes the funniest bloopers almost look good. In the Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones "Fugitive" the wrecked ex-Southern GP30s don't have any traction motors.
I C RiderOn one episode of the Big Banng Theory they were supposed to be on a coach of the Coast Starlight(?) But it seemed like a cafe car on a commuter.
And a lot of the nitpicking in this thread is starting to sound like the comments of Sheldon Cooper, PhD in that episode.
rcdrye Sometimes the funniest bloopers almost look good. In the Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones "Fugitive" the wrecked ex-Southern GP30s don't have any traction motors.
I'll be honest. I'm a railfan and I didn't know that. I knew the train was pushed behind by actual GSMR motors and that the "Illinois Central" derailment is still there. Like the post above me, that's going a little Sheldon Cooper on some of us! I've always liked that they used a slug between the two motors, but I expect 99% of non railfans never have wondered what it was and the other 1% probably never noticed.
Yes sir! and on track 49!
So this thread is apparently alive. Got a couple:
Watch "Atomic Train" on YouTube if you have a few hours to waste. Or just look it up on IMDb or Wikipedia. So many faults. So many.
Not to even start on the plot, which is worth a thread of its own. Nuke material secretly loaded on normal boxcar is somewhere near Denver pulled by a pair of BC Rail cowls. Leak develops in brake system. This train defies all laws of Westinghouse and promptly loses all brakes. All five crew in loco or caboose (in 1999) can't fix it, so train plows down a mountain towards Denver.
Bonus! Movie poster features C-Liners instead of cowls.
More (or less) about braking in..
Fireproof:
Firemen rush to push a car off the tracks in Georgia as the local barrels towards them at 10 mph. The engineer has no time to react as he only sees them from what appears to be a good quarter mile. At least it's not as bad as...
We Are Marshall:
Football coach in 1970 sits on shed contemplating and notices a UP SD70M leading an NS engine and derives a metaphor.
The dangers of dead threads brought back to life, one's words from years ago, like a grade school permanent record, can come back to haunt one.
VSMITH WROTE THE FOLLOWING POST AT TUE, NOV 20 2012 9:16 AM:
vsmith A modern P42 Genesis pulling an Amtrak train is supposedly 1970 Maine in "Dark Shadows"
A modern P42 Genesis pulling an Amtrak train is supposedly 1970 Maine in "Dark Shadows"
If you have no problem believing in the vampire I think you should be willing also to accept Genesis locomotives in 1970.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
Of course Amtrak didn't actually start operations until May 1, 1971. Guess vampires can also warp the space/time continuum.
Here's some-
In the Al Pacino movie, "Carlito's Way," they got to GCT to take the Silver Meteor to Florida.
Notice the outside of the "Orient Express" in "From Russia With Love." It's several different British trains, such as a Southern commuter train with doors all down the sides of the coaches.
In "American Splendor" which was set in the late 60s, there's a modern Amtrak Genesis locomotive.
I recall the TV show, "Banacek" with George Peppard which was set in Boston. There was a scene where a rare racing car is stolen off a moving train where the car is taken, the flatcar it was on was removed and dumped in a lake without anyone knowing it happened and everything is Santa Fe equipment.
dmoore74 Of course Amtrak didn't actually start operations until May 1, 1971. Guess vampires can also warp the space/time continuum.
They're the undead, not subject to the same rules as puny mortals.
I got caught in my own blooper watching "The Butler". They're sending their son off to college from DC, enter something that's obviously not Washington Union Station, I mention it to my wife, who gives her regular "It's a movie, nobody cares". Much to my embarrasment it turns out to to be a bus station anyway.
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