Without even knowing I would guess the answer is probably yes. I could write a book about railroad inaccuracies in movies.
Last night I was watching Mississippi Burning, the story of the 3 slain civil rights workers in 1964. It is set in the northwest corner of Mississippi. Twice during the movie, there was the unmistakable sound of a steam locomotive whistle in the background. I know that no major carriers were still operating steam in 1964. Were any shortlines still operating steam locos in that area back then or is this just another case of a director not knowing/caring about railroad accuracy.
Later in the movie there was a chase scene in which the FBI agents were stopped at a crossing by a freight train and it was a diesel. I just caught a glimpse of it but it was a low front hood diesel but I couldn’t tell which kind so I don’t know if it was one that would have been running in 1964. I believe the movie came out in 1988 so I’m sure they just used what was running back then.
Answer: Probably. The Mississippian Ry. in NE Mississippi kept steam at a late date, but I doubt they continued steam as late as 1964. I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I don’t know of any in NW Mississippi.
In 1964 the common low hood diesels would have been some GP 20’s, GP 30’s, and GP 35’s. There were also some low hood Alco’s and maybe some very early GE’s. The confounding factor would have been that Southern and Norfolk and Western went out of their way to continue ordering high hoods back then.
Manufacturing plants also used big steam-type whistles to signify shift changes and alert for emergency situations. Now, if they were showing F units, or a GP30 going by and there was a steam whistle…
I thought about that but these happened in two different locations, one a rural setting. It seemed to be the warning whistle of a steam locomotive approaching a grade crossing.
In regards to Foley; AKA sound effects, directors will say they are telling a story not making a documentary. If it adds to the story who cares if it represents reality.
Hence the sound of squeeling tires on a dirt road or the cry of a majestic eagle- -eagles don’t screech, their call is a warble or something similar to a seagull. That familiar eagle sound is actually the cry of a falcon if I remember correctly.
But hey why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
In reference to Mississippi Burning, the railroad effects are hardly the only things that the writers/producer/director got wrong. A friend of mine was in Mississippi as a civil rights volunteer at the time. Her comments, published as an afterward to her memoir, Freedom Summer (the 1990 University of Virginia reprint,) are scathing!
The movie was obviously base on the murders of Mickey Schwerner, James, Chaney, and Andrew Goodman but the names of all the principles were changed so one would expect quite a bit of artistic license and that there would be many fictionalized scenes. In fact the victims are listed in the credits only as Goatee(Schwerner), Passenger(Goodman), and Black Passenger(Cheney). I didn’t mean to sound that critical of the insertion of a steam locomotive in 1964 Mississippi. It’s just that it jumped out at me and I started this thread more out of my own curiosity. I doubt the director even knew it was incorrect and probably wouldn’t have cared. I bet few in the audience would have noticed it. I didn’t the first time I saw the movie.
In addition to Mississippi Burning, there have been two made for TV movies about the event. Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan played in 1975 with Peter Strauss playing the Schwerner based character. Murder in Mississippi came out in 1990 and was the only one of the three in which the actual names of the victims were used. Schwerner was played by Tom Hulce (Pinto from Animal House) and Blair Underwood played Cheney.
The Reader Railroad operated steam in daily service in Arkansas until 1971 (with mixed trains, no less). It was widely regarded as the last common carrier to operate steam in regular service.
So it’s remotely possible that steam was in operation somewhere in Mississippi in 1964, but pretty unlikely – and probably just something that the movie company got wrong.
[There were some steam-powered sugar plantation railroads in Mississippi, but I don’t know if any were operating steam that late.]
Out here I have never heard a seagull warble. They have more of a call similar to that of geese. Any of the eagles I have seen here have never made screeching sounds if any at all.
Though watching nature movies about the pacific north west up through BC and Alaska, the sound of eagles tends to be a screech. I just watched a video on youtube and all of the eagle sounds are like a screech. Different pitches.
My guess is the director made a conscious decision to have that background sound in those two scenes and that it was dubbed in after filming. He probably went back to the studios and asked the sound engineer to dub in some background railroad sounds and the sound engineer picked out a steam loco.
Hence the sound of squeeling tires on a dirt road or the cry of a majestic eagle- -eagles don’t screech, their call is a warble or something similar to a seagull. That familiar eagle sound is actually the cry of a falcon if I remember correctly.>>
Eagles DO screech, and it’s loud. There was a road kill deer in front of my house last summer and there was a local bald eagle there competing with the crows and wolves over the carcas. It was unbelievable how loud it was for about a week and how little of that deer was left. Just some hair.
You don’t have to have a steam engine to have a whistle. Some diesels were equipped with Hancock Air Whistles. Depending on the type and air pressure used, some of them could sound just like a steam whistle.
I suppose that is possible but I’ll bet dollars to donuts the director just asked the sound engineer for a canned sound of a locomotive in the background and didn’t give much thought to the kind locomotive. Or maybe since it was a period piece he though a steam locomotive sound would create that feel not realizing steam was all but gone from American railroads by 1964.
Having the wrong sound effects is not as bad as having the wrong railroad in the wrong part of the country.
In the movie, “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen, and Danny Kaye, they board a Santa Fe passenger train in Florida and get off a Southern Pacific passenger train in Vermont.
I know there were numerous shortlines and logging railroads in the South that used steam into the mid-1960’s. Many railfans flocked there to ride and photograph the trains. If you go thru old issues of Trains from that time, you’ll see quite a few pics of small Southern steam engines still working on trains. The coverage these lines got was way out of proportion with their size and importance otherwise; by 1964 only around 1-2% of US engines were steam.
BTW it wasn’t exclusively the South. The Duluth & NorthEastern in NE Minnesota used steam until late 1964.
If that’s the case, maybe the director did do some research and discovered there was still steam operating in he region in that era. That’s why I started this thread to satisfy my curiosity.
The movie The Natural had the team riding the Santa Fe Chief. The problem with that is the movie was set in the 1930s and Chicago and St. Louis were the westernmost cities with major league teams back then, each having an American and National League team.
Then there was The Sting. I gave them points for having Doyle Lonnegan making his bi-weekly trip from New York to Chicago on the 20th Century Limited which they simply called the Century Limited. The storyboard showed a drawing of the Dreyfus Hudson but that didn’t start leading the 20th Century Limited until 1938 and the movie was set in 1934.