Question about Lionel's Polar Express berkshire

Yes, but it still doesn't quite replicate the locomotive in the movie. If you watch the movie, you will clearly see that the locomotive does not have number boards, heat box in front of stack, green class lights, and the headlight does not stick out, it's receded into the boiler. So, if that's the way it looks in the movie, why not make a replica model?

Cost.

 

The trainset model also has an NYC tender, not an NKP tender.

 

Nor do the coaches have the same window arrangement as the cars in the movie and the end of the observation is also incorrect.

 

In reality, the movie wasn't faithful to the book, which had a 4-6-2 illustrated.

 

Rusty

Yes, that is true, but I'm glad they went with a Berkshire instead, but yeah, good point.

Remember that the book's origin has ties to the "real" 1225 Berkshire. The movie artists of course took liberties in their design of the engine depicted.

 

I see this as no big deal. I love the original scale 1225 just the way it is as you can run the PE tender or the Pere Marquette. As far as the starter set, I don't think the average buyer gives a darn about prototypical design of the engine to the movie depiction. There just happy to see the Polar Express on the tender and engine number 1225.

 I agree with passenger train collector. I suppose it all depends on how you want to look at it. Either its fantasy based on reality,or should reality be based on fantasy?

 

 

The Pere Marquette 1225 berkshire predates the book by 44 years and predates the movie another 10 years on top of that.

 

Technically, the movie and book were not faithful to the "original", after all, the train sounds on the movie came directly from the real PM 1225, so one would could say the movie got the "image" wrong.

 

I'll take the real one over the movie any day!

 

 

 

Sounds to me like you are complaining

Regarding the appearance of the headlight in the movie, the fireman was definitely sitting on top of the headlight in the scene where they were on the front end of the locomotive replacing a burned out bulb while underway.  Not sure how that could be done if the headlight were recessed.

 

Now, that being said.  The movie is an animated childrens movie based off the illustrations in a childrens book.  You will also notice that the train is rarely the same length in different scenes as well as many other things that change throughout the film like that.  The movie berkshire based off of PM 1225, is probably what Lionel modeled their toy to resemble.

The "know it all kid" also says the locomotive was built by BALDWIN!

 

Rusty

Correction made, I  coulda swore he said berkshire. At any rate he DID say it was a 2-8-4.

He he said both Berkshire and Baldwin, just watched the other day.  Personally, I like the real thing than the movie.  Movies screw up the facts a lot, nothing new or surprising.

I like this thread because of all the pictures and cool info but come on guys it's a toy train set.

You mean a toy train set, based on an animated Christmas movie. I'm just glad Lionel made the set. As it is one of my wifes favorite Christmas movies, it increased her interest level. I have the transformer set and the new RC set, they are as close to prototypical as my Rudolph set, but I like em!

 I woke up this morning and realized, after my flip comment, 1225 is Christmas. Clearly the real Polar Express should have had number boards. Shame on Warner Bros, not Lionel. This link should help.

http://www.moviemistakes.com/film4612/corrections

When speaking of errors on the train not one person has mentioned that the name on the coaches is in the wrong location. The name Polar Express did not go over the windows on the coaches but below the windows.

After hoping for years they would make a scale set, that was a huge part of us not purchasing one. Yes we all know it is a toy ($$?), but why place the name above the windows when below is correct? If they do another set maybe they'll fix the error.

I am just happy they made the scale cars to go with the scale 125 Berkshire. Yes, it would have been nice to have the correct placement of the Polar Express on the side of the coaches, but I can live with the way it is.

 

Not one visitor to the layout (and there have been many) has pointed out this inconsistency to the depiction in the movie.

I have to honestly say this is a new one on me.  Debating the scale fidelity of a toy based on a fictitious train in an animated film/children's book...

 

I feel exactly the same.  In the past two years, tens of thousands of people have seen my scale PE running on the Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railers' setups at Greenberg shows and our setup at Kennywood (local amusement park) for their Holiday Lights event, and I have fielded hundreds of questions and received hundreds of complements, and no one ever commented on the placement of the name on the passenger cars.  I suspect that the name placement has to do more with production methods than with aesthetic choice.

 

The questions I usually get are:

Who made that?

Why is that bigger than mine?

How much does it cost?  (I never give a direct answer to this type of question)

Where can I get one?

When was it made?

 

In any case, it is always a big hit with the public and especially kids, since they recognize it immediately.

 

Andy