The classic movie screwup is filtered cigarettes in WW2 movies.
My favorite model railroad screwup was a layout set in 1927 with a rail-served brewery.
The classic movie screwup is filtered cigarettes in WW2 movies.
My favorite model railroad screwup was a layout set in 1927 with a rail-served brewery.
My favorite is the Civil War scene in Virginia with a Virginia & Truckee train.
Paul
Get lots of those, as there is an ever limited set of operational period locos available. And even then they have to find some way to cover the air pump. That one Sierra Railway loco has a bigger filmography than some actors.
One that really jumped out at me and was totally missed by my railroad employee ex father in law was in the move Ray, when they are on their way to a gig, riding in a period correct car on a street lined with period correct cars, and they go under a railroad bridge - and a modern stack train passes over!
–Randy
In the movie, Back To The Future III, which takes place in 1885, I am constantly bothered by the Janney Knuckle Couplers.
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-Kevin
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The reason early F units had the same number with a small letter suffix is that the railroads had a concern if numbered differently the unions would demand a crew in each engine. Ultimately they did not and the practice was eliminated.
News to me that locos got numbered. I thought it was only freight cars. You learn something new.
Mistakes in movies happen far more than we know (or care to know). Anyone interested can check out webpages that track various types of errors made in movies. Plenty of movies are quite liberal with facts; this includes those based on books.
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One movie mistake that jumped out at me was in the baseball movie The Natural. I believe it is set in the 1930s. There is a canned shot of the Santa Fe Chief taking the team to their next stop. At that time, there were no major league baseball teams west of either Chicago or St. Louis so there is no way any team would have been riding on The Chief.
To get back to anachronisms and other realism errors on layouts, including great layouts, it is a reasonably recent phenomenon that manufacturers release rolling stock, locos or cars, with multiple numbers, or that subsequent runs of a model have different numbers. In fact it is a reasonably recent phenomenon that the numbers were accurate ones! Even back in the 1950s Model Railroader’s Trade Topics reviews would often point out that the number slapped on the car was for a 50’ car and the model was a 40’ boxcar, that kind of thing. Or a totally made up number. MR’s library obviously had equipment registers. Back then relatively few modelers did; railroadiana of that sort was hard to come by if you were not a railroad insider. Evidently the manufacturers didn’t have them either. For a long time, models that came painted and lettered whether metal or plastic often featured the very numbers that were pictured in the Car Builder’s Cyclopedias, which back then were just about your only reliable source of prototype photos and data. Sometimes two rival manufacturers would use the same number on their stuff because it was in the “Cyc.”
Maybe one reason relatively few of us cared much back then is that the car card and other forms of realistic operation had not taken full hold. Nothing turned on the fact that all of your identical cars had the identical numbers. And the photo reproduction in MR and RMC (and the quality of the original photos) was such that the numbers were a bit of a blurr anyway. That might also explain the structures that just sat on the scenery – now the photos are so clear you notice things like that more than you did.
As for vehicles, there was such a limited choice at one time that any vehicle you had on the layout was more or less a stand-in for what you really wanted but couldn’t get. Often they weren’t really to scale anyway, such as most Matchbox cars. Just
Of course I’m late to the party and this thread has since morphed into the IMDB Goofs/Factual Errors section, but getting back to the Modern-Era Rail Hub article. Yes, I saw the trailer with the landing gear up (hey, make a mini-scene with a wreaker or payloader attempting to lift the trailer), I saw the matching numbers, I saw the foundation gaps (in particular, staying with the opening image, gaps under what appears to be a small ‘brick’ cardstock building at the end of the siding where the switcher clones are on, which seems to also have no track bumpers or wheels stops to prevent said switchers from smashing into the wall, leading me to believe that building was plopped down for the photo-session to hide, I dunno, a drill hole or paint spill or something).
No, what kind of bothered me is, in 2010 (the stated year of the layout), the 15+ year old BN & Santa Fe liveries being plentiful AND pristine (particularly in the Steel Complex image, #2). I know the modeler John said he doesn’t weather rolling stock (if not preweathered), but if JawTooth* among others has taught me anything weather your rolling stock at least some, and if the rolling stock is 15+ years old and hasn’t revisited the paint shop (which, since they would have been relettered BNSF, they haven’t) weather them a decent amount (or, a lot) - heck there are a number of articles on simple & easy weathering, MR itself has published quite a few.
*The JawTooth YouTube channel, in spite of it’s rather overenthusiastic host, does have some great videos of Ohio/Kentucky short lines, particular Cinncinati Eastern Termail, and explores these short lines as they service customers, repair track, install new sid
They accually had them but they did not become common till the 60’s. It is amazing how many products go back farther than most know.
I thought the same when i first saw his channel.
Some modelers don’t want to paint or weather freight cars because it will devalue the product. Majority of people won’t purchase weather cars because it’s used and out of place.
I have never bought anything in this life worrying about what it will be worth if I resell it…not cars, not even houses, and surely not model trains…
Sheldon
I think that’s the difference between you and I. That everything has a resell value.
[quote user=“angelob6660”]
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
angelob6660
chutton01
No, what kind of bothered me is, in 2010 (the stated year of the layout), the 15+ year old BN & Santa Fe liveries being plentiful AND pristine (particularly in the Steel Complex image, #2). I know the modeler John said he doesn’t weather rolling stock (if not preweathered), but if JawTooth* among others has taught me anything weather your rolling stock at least some, and if the rolling stock is 15+ years old and hasn’t revisited the paint shop (which, since they would have been relettered BNSF, they haven’t) weather them a decent amount (or, a lot) - heck there are a number of articles on simple & easy weathering, MR itself has published quite a few.
Some modelers don’t want to paint or weather freight cars because it will devalue the product. Majority of people won’t purchase weather cars because it’s used and out of place.
I have never bought anything in this life worrying about what it will be worth if I resell it…not cars, not even houses, and surely not model trains…
Sheldon
I think that’s the difference between you and I
[:O] Don’t use a razorblade! The method Cody Grivno recently showed in Cody’s Office - I think the January one - of using Solvaset and an eraser works MUCH better. I’ve used it a number of times over the past few years with good results.
This engine came as a black Wabash engine. I removed the lettering and striping with Solvaset and a rubber eraser, sprayed it with gloss finish, and decaled for NYC. (Sorry, something about the MR website blocks me from making the link work…)
BTW some railroads continued to run F-units as A-B sets with a single ID number at least into the 1960’s.
I disagree…if the weathering is reasonably well done, it can actually increase the value. When I decided to backdate my layout to the late '30s, I sold-off most of my diesels, and a couple hundred freight and passenger cars. None were originally expensive models when I bought them - mostly Athearn, Model Die Casting, Front Range, etc.
Much of it had been re-detailed, re-painted, and re-lettered. Some was lettered for real railroads, but quite a bit of it was lettered for my freelanced roads. All of it was weathered, although not to extremes.
I was pleasantly surprised to get two to five dollars for them, for every dollar they had originally cost, which allowed me to re-equip with locomotives and rolling stock more appropriate to my current layout.
Wayne
I found little if any “Next Level Realism” in the article starting on page 54.
I think most of us share your feelings, as that picture on 54/55 is what started this thread.
Then it moved on to other thngs, as usual.
Mike.
double post deleted