"Real Train" Errors in Movies?

They did in the '50s.

I can't comment on Philadelphia Steam in the 70s (I was born in the 80s), but I am curious about how that soundtrack was chosen! If anything we should have heard a GG1's foghorn, right?

One of my favorite movies is Trading Places. It checks a lot of boxes for me: Eddie Murphy is in there, it's based in Philly (I went to college and grad school in Phiily), the Juice Train makes a cameo (that's my favorite train), we get a basic understanding of futures trading, and it's one of only two times I've ever laughed at a character in blackface (Ire, ire, ire!).

The characters also spend an evening on the northeast corridor and that's where the railfans have a fit. First of all, their train has an Amfleet Baggage car. It looks like they had a vinyl tarp painted in Phase I colors pinned over the windows of a coach. Second, the train has an engine swap or something because it starts out with an E60 and then there's an AEM7 at some point.
Oh, and the compartments!!! I've been riding on the northeast corridor for 20 years and I have never seen such fine coach accommodations! When I was younger, I assumed that was the interior of a viewliner, but now I guess that was just a Hollywood set designed by someone who has never been on an Amtrak train. It was a VERY convincing interior.

I want a "Baltimore Delta Club" amfleet coach now. I should print a decal...

It has been a while since I saw it, but in White Christmas travelling from Florida to Vermont don't they end up riding on the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific?

CNJ Jim, Good Luck with the rotator cuff operation. They take awhile to heal. I have much empathy for you. I had the right done in May of 2000 and the left one done in September of that year. Both were very painful and took time to heal. The good news is they are now pain free and no limitations

In the movie On The Waterfont there is a scene where Karl Malden is talking to Eva Marie Saint   You hear a steam engine in the background and then you see a Hoboken shore GE 44 tonner pass by

In the movie "Ray" (good film, by the way), there's a scene supposedly in the mid-1950's where the train in the background is a stack train. The TTX well cars really stand out in the background.

@Bill N posted:

It has been a while since I saw it, but in White Christmas travelling from Florida to Vermont don't they end up riding on the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific?

The White Christmas gaff gets me every year. Shows them traveling on the Lark pulled by black widow F units and then next shot shortly after is the Super Chief (I think). Later there are a couple scenes at the depot in Vermont that show SP green heavyweight cars.
No doubt the whole movie was filmed in Hollywood.

One thing that irks me in some current movies, are the steam powered trains running in England. They look correct and sound correct, except for having American style, deep-toned chime whistles.  The ones I recall from the past had high-pitched single tone steam whistles.   

Nearly every train action film usually has three common inaccuracies:

(1) additional handrails/walkways/doors along the sides and roof (to allow for fight scenes on and around the train);

(2) impossible starting and stopping speeds... there is no way those trains could stop on a dime like shown in some movies; and

(3) brake issues: handbrakes that are never used or air brakes that never activate when trains are uncoupled... (don't tell me they remembered to set the angle cocks!)

Now, whenever I see planes or boats in movies I never notice any inaccuracies because I am ignorant to them. But train mistakes... they just stand out.

There's a whole pile of such errors in the TVTropes entry "Just Train Wrong", and as a bonus, it includes examples from advertising, anime and manga, comic books/strips, animated and live-action films, literature, live-action TV, video games, Western animation and oddly enough, live action.

---PCJ

My FAVORITE is the Little Rascals going wild with a Santa Fe loco in the yards of one of their episodes.

Anyone remember the TV series Hart to Hart?  Here's the lowdown:

https://www.trainorders.com/di.../read.php?11,3639156

I watched it over 30 years ago and got told to 'put a sock in it', English/English for 'stop rabbiting on' about the mix of Nth Am trains ... Amtrak SDP40Fs, E60, Santa Fe F-unit ....

Jason

There was an episode of the original CSI series where William Peterson's character chases a suspect into a train yard. A very dirty old diesel switcher (maybe an SW-1200? something like that) is pulling several even more decrepit pre-Amtrak passenger cars at about 5 MPH. The suspect climbs into one of the cars, and when we follow Peterson inside, it turns out it's filled with people - it's supposed to be a working passenger train!

In the movie "Hard Times" (set in 1933), Charles Bronson's character arrives in town riding a freight train pulled by some type of Southern Ry. diesel - maybe an RS-1 or NW-3? It's shown early on and a little at the end of this clip I found:

(2) Hard Times Intro - Charles Bronson (1975) - YouTube

I’m sure there are plenty if I thought about it, but in Emperor of the North, I love when the two trains are hurtling towards a head-on, and the engineers are blasting their whistles at each other! I mean, what did they think would be accomplished by that?

Anyway, it’s still the best railroading movie ever.

Guys, let’s face it, the movie producers are targeting general audiences, not rail fans.  They’re in the entertainment business.  If a steam locomotive whistle or an attractive train is what most folks identify with railroads, the producers will use it, whether or not it fits the era depicted by the movie.

If you’re looking for prototypical accuracy in movies, you’ll generally be disappointed.  One possible exception; “The Great Locomotive Chase”.  It’s a fair movie, but I think it accurately depicts railroads of the 1860’s.  That’s probably due to the fact Walt Disney was a rail fan.

John