When watching a recent rerun of “The Rifleman”, Mark and Lucas McCain are riding the first train into North Fork. In the early scenes, they are riding a train marked for the MK&TRR (Missouri Kansas and Texas). When the train leaves town, it’s lettered for the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe. Reminds me of the “Six Million Dollar Man” and Steve Austin would be seen taking off in one fighter, flying another and landing in another.
Marlon,
Nice catch, I recently was able to catch an episode of “Highway Patrol” (1958ish) & they had the premise of derailing a train that had a ‘money car’ on it. They filmed in an SP area & I was shown various SP consists some were F units & others were Alco! Ha hah…
What I was really impressed with was that they shot it in & around a Type 22 Station, I have 2 & built One of the American Laser Kit ones & I really did not know how HUGE those buildings were, they are ginormous, & very excellent looking. I really enjoyed that episode, even though it is aired at 4am my time. I was very glad to catch that one!!!
Also, I guess we can blame hollywood for this deception & other things like 37 shot revolvers & other far fetched hyprocrisis!
You get the ‘Golden Eye’ award fro that catch!
How about the holiday/Christmas Classic “White Christmas” where Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Miles are travelling from Florida to Vermont. They obviously took a detour. In one scene the train shown is a Southern Pacific passenger train. The next time it’s a Santa Fe!
Steve
Not Vera Miles, chief, Vera ELLEN. [;)] The smallest waist in showbiz at the time.
In the Andy Griffin show, people arive into Mayberry SC on the Southern Pacific.
Now theres a remote branch line![(-D]
On “Happy Days” , which is set in the 1950s, the Cunningham Family and friends talk about taking a train train trip from Milwaukee to a vacation spot further west. A few moments later, the scene shows a Pennsylvania GG1 hauling a train that looks like the Broadway Limited!
On the Happy Days spin-off “Laverne and Shirley”, which also supposedly takes place in the late 1950s, the girls take a train trip. So what do we see? An Amtrak Phase-1 streamliner hauled by 1973 vintage SDP40fs!
One can go to Steamtown National Historic Park in Scranton PA.several differing times, even differing years and MAY NOT See the same loco twice. OR may only see ONE steamer up to steam. They have 3 steam locos in various stages of operating capacity, and a 4th they are going to start working on to get to running capacity. It also depends on which is running the best when they have two capable of running.
SO it is with TV trains.
I always check the number of the loco on the number plate or number board on TV trains, even if I can’t read the name insignia on the side.
Sometimes they have the same number loco for every train scene within a shows runnigs, others, differing numbers, and some they change numbers {rare granted} within one “train ride”.
When they {TV shows} transport and locate to a train station/area for a scene/scenes, they may not always get to be choosers as to which train is running, especially amongst the Historical steam trains.
Often in movie and television production, they will use stock footage to save time and money. If it isn’t appropriate, they know that most people watching it will not know that. So it works.
Or they use what is available locally to save time and money. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” had a steam train sequence, but a Royal Hudson did not belong there, nor did it ever travel through that area. But it was available.
I saw one glaring error on the “A Team” once. During a car chase, the sequence of the chase cars kept changing when the angle changed. Obviously, to save money, they used one camera to shoot the entire scene, then edited the shots together, but no one paid attention to order the cars were in the line. (Dart/Caravelle then Caravelle/Dart…) They even masked over the badges to try and hide the brand…
In the movie “Flyboys” about the WW1 Lafayette Escadrille, one of the future pilots is seen leaving “Lincoln, Nebraska” on a “UP” train that is obviously English or European, having a coach with an exterior door to each compartment.
Thanks for the correction.[:$]
Steve
In the movie “Ray” which takes place in the 1950s, in one scene the bus carrying the band is stopped by the side of the road and several band members are beside the bus talking. In the background a container train can be seen crossing the road on an overpass.
A couple weeks ago on this Showtime show, Shameless which is set in Chicago, William H Macy’s character is having a fight with his wife in the car, they get out at crossing as train is going by and from one angle you see a bunch of box cars and from the other angle it looks like a unit train of tank cars, then back to the box cars from the other angle and back to the tank cars from the other angle. It looks like they the director wanted to use the train for effect but do to several takes they had to use what ever trains were rolling by.
Only ONE glaring error??
It’s not just trains, folks.
In the Guns of Navarone, supposedly set in the Greek Isles in 1940, when the Allied destroyers are running the gauntlet and the guns are firing, the British destroyers (White Ensigns clearly visible) suddenly become US Fletcher class cans between salvoes - then switch back!
To add insult to injury, the first Fletchers were still on the building ways at the time the action was supposed to have taken place…
Back on topic, a lot of New York - produced movies had people boarding or arriving on trains pulled by CNJ camelbacks - no matter where they were supposed to be.
Hollywood moguls have always assumed a level of stupidity far lower than reality for their audiences. Even the mundanes remark on how often things just change in the middle of a story.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with rolling stock either appropriate for the place and era or wild feats of imagineering)
Even the great Alfred Hitchcock could goof with trains. In NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Cary Grant leaves New York for Chicago on New York Central’s “20th Century Limited”, yet at the end of the movie, he’s returning to New York on Southern Pacific’s “San Joaquin Daylight”, LOL!
And in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, we somehow have Southern Pacific’s “Coast Daylight” pulling into Washington DC’s Union Station.
My favorite, however, is Paramount’s zingy western DENVER AND RIO GRANDE, where the famous Rio Grande/Santa Fe “Royal Gorge War” ends up taking place several hundred miles WEST of the Royal Gorge on the Silverton Branch. Hey, fellas, there really IS a difference, LOL!
Tom
In the movie “Butterfield 8”, a trip out to Long Island is on a New Haven train under triangular catenary. Interior shots are aboard a southbound with the Hudson River outside the window.
I just thought of a few more hollywood errors. In the latest Mission Impposible Chicago metra trains are seen in the backround while an assain does her job at a train station.
The problem is that they are in europe.
Also (though not train related) the movie about to come out in theaters “Battleship”, is very inaccurate.
All of our Battleships are mothballed at this time!
One thing I’ve seen too many times to count is when you see people driving filmed thru the front window with a film playing in the background the shift lever is almost always visible in the top position which is “PARK”.
And no rear view mirror.
Let’s all shout “BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK”!