I thought at first this was one of the McCloud River engines. But close examination of especially the smoke on the engine, among other details, seems wrong
Methinks that itâs Artificial Untelligence, or, at the very least, poor CGI.
AI & CGI
An error occurred: Body seems unclear, is it a complete sentence? No it is DEFECTIVE forum software.
That message annoys the frell out of me. After all, sometimes I just want to make a short comment.
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I thought I might usefully add a link to what must be the worst example of AI illustration that I have seen. This purports to be a documentary on the work of Andre Chapelon, who many of the members of this forum will be familiar. As far as I can tell, the actual script being read is factually correct, if a little biased towards Chapelonâs work compared to other contemporary locomotives. The illustrations are so bad as to be laughable, and sadly might appear possible to beginners or others unfamiliar with the subject. The illustrations are of remarkable pictorial quality but show completely impossible locomotives, drawings and other scenes.
I am basically lost for words.
There are literally hundreds of excellent photographs of Chapelonâs work and quite a few of the man himself. Why invent false illustrations when real ones are available?
On the subject of the text, while this is in my view biased towards Chapelonâs work, it doesnât. deserve such ridiculous illustrationsâŚ
As far as I can tell, this âdocumentaryâ doesnât clearly mention the 240A and 240P conversions which by the late 1940s were completely worn out, and were replaced by modernised PLM designs (141P, 241P) and by the USA built 141R. While 242A1 did exist, it was a one off and given that the 240Ps basically had worn themselves out by the time it was complete, there was little incentive to see if this one unit had any staying powerâŚ
Hereâs the link, if you want to see some minutes of completely artificial illustrationâŚ
[The 1930s Locomotive Too Advanced For 1980s Technology](YouTube
v=gXX7ap4FVWM)
Peter
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Yeah, these kinds of videos absolutely suck. I honestly agreeâwhy bother coming up with fake, useless slop (to use the current Internet slang, something I rarely do) when you could just source a few real images⌠By the way, the link you posted was broken, but I think that I fixed it.
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When ever i am U toobing it if i come across a video that starts off like that where they pound out the script in captions at you, as an artificially created voice drones on. And some still picture is in the background with a fake loop of photo degradation running on top of it to give the illusion of old movie footage. I immediately tune out because i know whats coming. Glitzest up garbage that was created to entertain but not actually inform. That being said i have to admit i didnât watch much of that video.
Are you all still talking about the Amazon video that I put up? Canât tell.
I think that we all got distracted by AI junk videos in general. Ohâhey look a SQUIRREL!!! 
Laziness. Pure and simple laziness.
One that bothers me a lot is where the History Channel is doing something about American railroads or railroaders, and like every train they show is stock footage of a clearly European train. Well, or they show A.I. of an âAmericanâ train with sprung buffers on the cars and two-axle freight cars.
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Yeh, not just A I, Iâve seen TV ads showing American trains withEuropean buffers, very annoying, I blame Thomas the train for that since that seems to be about the only Railroad influence around anymore.
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A lot of the products being advertised with European rail scenes are also being sold in Europe. Advertisers will change the sound track as necessary for the market the ad is being displayed in.
Thanks for fixing the linkâŚ
Peter
The history channel? More like the reality-tv / fake history channel! (apologies for the rant in advance!) History hasnât been itâs focus since Pawn Stars / American Pickers / Ancient Aliens came on the scene around 2006. Then, when Curse of Oak Island and Secret of Skinwalker Ranch came on the scene, the channel was truly dead and buried. I long for the good old days, when the History channel meant ACTUAL History was being shownâŚ
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That is annoying, I thought it was just me, but I guess not!
I had to give up with the two sets of subtitles disagreeing repeatedly how to misspell âChapelonâ. And rendering the British rhotic pronunciation of âPortaâ as âPorterââŚ
Someone went to great effort to stick a wacky name on a 2-6-0⌠then repeatedly showed more 2-6-0s as Pacifics.
And the efficient 4-8-0s were built as Pacifics.
Itâs sheer garbage that anything Chapelon (or Porta) specified was beyond shop understanding in the mid-'80s â what had been âlostâ was the specialized knowledge to produce large components like cast engine beds, specialized parts like custom firebrick, and various thermodynamic-enhancing auxiliaries cost-effectively. Wardale made the case reasonably well that piston valves could be made (and set) to be as effective or better than poppet valves for contemporary âdiesel equivalenceâ, although he was somewhat painfully shot down over prospective contributions to the ACE 3000 project. What really killed the '80s steam revival was the Iran-Iraq war, which created a glut of oil at $15 a barrel and gave sweet revenge to the previously-frozen Yankees (âlet 'em all freeze and boilâŚâ)
I have to wonder why he did not discuss the technical design of the ACE locomotive in more detail, including Portaâs contributions to the design. In particular the decision to build a 3000hp-equivalent locomotive as a compound Withuhn conjugated duplex â which would incidentally have required Chapelonâs modulated IP injection to work properly â vs. a precisely-valved long-compression equivalent might have been interesting.
One thing he said is certain: cutting up 242 A1 was a sacrilege â and, really, an unnecessary one. It did not require removal of an inconvenient truth to prove the superiority of electric over steam traction in France, particularly as nuclear-powered 186mph trains became a priority. On the other hand, I consider an organized effort to replicate (and perhaps further âimproveâ) 242 A1 to be âjob 1â after 5550 is done and tested.
Youâre welcome!
Yeah, things like this are truly a dung heap.