Why don't film producers ever get railway stuff right?
Discussion
Just watching a Poirot and the subject takes a train from London to Plymouth via Bristol, simple you think, a GWR express but no they have numerous shots of Sir Lamiel with green Southern Railway coaches. Not as bad as when you see a Royal Scott class rolling out of London (I say London because it's usualy Marylebone) and they subsequently cut to a tank engine on the Bluebell Railway but you get my point. When they go to so much trouble to get other details correct you'd think this would be easy! 
mybrainhurts said:
I have no idea what you're talking about...
Ah, a TV producer..... :-)Basically TV shows show any sort of train going anywhere at anytime, wrong place in the country, wrong time period, even changing from one sort to another in the middle of the journey.
Picture a plane journey set in the 1930's, starts with a 707 leaving Heathrow, changes to a DC3 in flight, then to a DH Rapide on landing!
Edited by neilb62 on Friday 21st January 21:19
The best train-related nonsense recently was the first "Mission Impossible" film, where the action builds into a crescendo on a TGV train supposedly heading from London to the Channel Tunnel.
Superb aerial photography of said TGV threading its way through the "English" countryside, except TGV is electric and powered by overhead power lines. No power lines in sight. Perhaps its a "special" TGV that runs on 3rd rail juice, hang on, only two rails. The MI team had obviously managed to get a TGV to run using only the power of bull$hit!
In the Michael Caine/Pierce Brosnan cold-war thriller, "The Fourth Protocol" said Mr Caine attempts to covertly follow Mr Brosnan (a KGB agent) to a rendezvous with his contacts somewhere in the Essex marshes. Mr B jumps onto a slam-door train, which promptly leaves the station and Mr C has to sprint (it was made in the 1980s) to jump onto the last door of the departing train. Sounds plausible, until you realise that the train is actually leaving the old St Pancras Station, which was then only used by trains to the Midlands and North of England.
The BBC, famous for its attention to detail and historical accuracy has no qualms about shooting WWII dramas with arrivals and departures from sooty stations, usually with the main characters boarding or alighting from 1950s or later BR Mk1 carriages and often being pulled by a loco whose tender sides are graced by the "Ferret and Dartboard" insignia.
My pet hate, however, is when 1930s detective dramas (you know who you are) use Bedford OB coaches with lovely Duple bodies, surely the archetypal British touring coach of the 1930s. Duple bodied Bedford OBs were not produced until after the end of WWII.
Anorak off.
Superb aerial photography of said TGV threading its way through the "English" countryside, except TGV is electric and powered by overhead power lines. No power lines in sight. Perhaps its a "special" TGV that runs on 3rd rail juice, hang on, only two rails. The MI team had obviously managed to get a TGV to run using only the power of bull$hit!
In the Michael Caine/Pierce Brosnan cold-war thriller, "The Fourth Protocol" said Mr Caine attempts to covertly follow Mr Brosnan (a KGB agent) to a rendezvous with his contacts somewhere in the Essex marshes. Mr B jumps onto a slam-door train, which promptly leaves the station and Mr C has to sprint (it was made in the 1980s) to jump onto the last door of the departing train. Sounds plausible, until you realise that the train is actually leaving the old St Pancras Station, which was then only used by trains to the Midlands and North of England.
The BBC, famous for its attention to detail and historical accuracy has no qualms about shooting WWII dramas with arrivals and departures from sooty stations, usually with the main characters boarding or alighting from 1950s or later BR Mk1 carriages and often being pulled by a loco whose tender sides are graced by the "Ferret and Dartboard" insignia.
My pet hate, however, is when 1930s detective dramas (you know who you are) use Bedford OB coaches with lovely Duple bodies, surely the archetypal British touring coach of the 1930s. Duple bodied Bedford OBs were not produced until after the end of WWII.
Anorak off.
Eric Mc said:
It's called artistic licence.
I;m a plane geek and have to put up with similar. At least it had steam coming out of it.
Steam? Its always a bonus if you get steam after something set in the Victorian period!I;m a plane geek and have to put up with similar. At least it had steam coming out of it.
Incidentally Heartbeat consistently show Steam hauled trains, even though that area was solid diesel by the early 60's, a few years before the series is set!
I expect it was the best they could do with the what's available and the budget. It's a bit like watching a film about the Battle of Britain and then complaining they didn't use squadrons of Mk1 Spitfires and Bf109Es. They don't exist and to build them would cost 40 gazillion pounds!
Tootles the Taxi said:
The best train-related nonsense recently was the first "Mission Impossible" film, where the action builds into a crescendo on a TGV train supposedly heading from London to the Channel Tunnel.
Superb aerial photography of said TGV threading its way through the "English" countryside, except TGV is electric and powered by overhead power lines. No power lines in sight. Perhaps its a "special" TGV that runs on 3rd rail juice, hang on, only two rails. The MI team had obviously managed to get a TGV to run using only the power of bull$hit!
To be fair when the channel tunnel first opened the Eurostars did use 3rd rail in the UK rather than overhead power lines.Superb aerial photography of said TGV threading its way through the "English" countryside, except TGV is electric and powered by overhead power lines. No power lines in sight. Perhaps its a "special" TGV that runs on 3rd rail juice, hang on, only two rails. The MI team had obviously managed to get a TGV to run using only the power of bull$hit!
Surely the biggest error in that segment of the film was the channel tunnel being one tunnel with 2 lines rather than the twin single tunnels it actually is.
The worst example of this I have seen was in a action film called Doomsday.
Basically its set in the future and Scotland has been sealed off due to a virus. A few years later a group of sciencists head into Glasgow to find a cure. Then it turns into a scotish version of Mad Max.
Anyway, while trying to get away from a gang of survivors they run into Glasgow Queens street. Waiting on the platform is a South African steam locomotive and the rest of "Queens Street" is full of South African railway rolling stock.
I know part of this movie was filmed out there but also most of it was done over here, you'd have thought they could have found a old class 37 or something to use.
Basically its set in the future and Scotland has been sealed off due to a virus. A few years later a group of sciencists head into Glasgow to find a cure. Then it turns into a scotish version of Mad Max.
Anyway, while trying to get away from a gang of survivors they run into Glasgow Queens street. Waiting on the platform is a South African steam locomotive and the rest of "Queens Street" is full of South African railway rolling stock.
I know part of this movie was filmed out there but also most of it was done over here, you'd have thought they could have found a old class 37 or something to use.
Engineer1 said:
There are a limited number of steam trains and lines they can use them on, so you need a train for the characters to travel in so you go and get a steam engine and carriages from somewhere.
I guess on this occasion it annoyed me because some GWR 4-6-0 with some chocolate & cream coaches would have done the job and they must be some of the easiest to film for producers, preserved railways are full of them. Film + technical content = cockup. It doesn't matter whether it involves railways, computers or anything else. Like in "The World Is Not Enough" where lassie francaise has the two subcritical lumps out of a gun-assembly nuke lying on the table and sunny jim casually picks one of them up in one hand and starts fitting it into the other one.
neilb62 said:
Basically TV shows show any sort of train going anywhere at anytime, wrong place in the country, wrong time period, even changing from one sort to another in the middle of the journey.
..and as such is an authentic representation of the average train journey.I have often been on trains in the wrong time period (or at least, wildly at variance with the published one), and not only do they morph into a different type of train, they can invariably change into a bus at short notice.
Pigeon said:
Film + technical content = cockup. It doesn't matter whether it involves railways, computers or anything else. Like in "The World Is Not Enough" where lassie francaise has the two subcritical lumps out of a gun-assembly nuke lying on the table and sunny jim casually picks one of them up in one hand and starts fitting it into the other one.
Tut tut! Reminds me of a similar scene in Balamory, where Miss Hoolie was fatally irradiated during a Play Doh criticality excursion in front of her nursery pupils.neilb62 said:
mybrainhurts said:
I have no idea what you're talking about...
Ah, a TV producer..... :-)Basically TV shows show any sort of train going anywhere at anytime, wrong place in the country, wrong time period, even changing from one sort to another in the middle of the journey.
Picture a plane journey set in the 1930's, starts with a 707 leaving Heathrow, changes to a DC3 in flight, then to a DH Rapide on landing!
Edited by neilb62 on Friday 21st January 21:19
Picture a plane journey set in the 1930's, starts with a 707 leaving Heathrow, changes to a DC3 in flight, then to a DH Rapide on landing!
'vette
which movie?
Tootles the Taxi said:
The best train-related nonsense recently was the first "Mission Impossible" film, where the action builds into a crescendo on a TGV train supposedly heading from London to the Channel Tunnel.
Also the scenes at Liverpool Street station where Tom Cruise was using phone booths under the stairs that never existed and a flat above the tube station on the corner that never existed. Stuff happens.As has been said, the main reasons we get these anomalies are -
availability of suitable artefactrs
time
budget
During the Autumn, the BBC did a pretty good version of Geoffrey Wellum's "First Light". Their Spitfire footage showed a variety of Marks and colour schemes and the internal shots were done in a Harvard.
Reading James Holand's blog (he was teh script adviser) on the programme, he told how the shooting schedule was extremely short and they had to use different Spitfires on different days due to availability of aircraft - which accounted for the different Marks and colour schemes. None of the two seat Spitfires were available during the shooting period so they compromised and used a Harvard - which was available and cheaper.
So, not perfect, but it didn't ruin a worthwhile production.
availability of suitable artefactrs
time
budget
During the Autumn, the BBC did a pretty good version of Geoffrey Wellum's "First Light". Their Spitfire footage showed a variety of Marks and colour schemes and the internal shots were done in a Harvard.
Reading James Holand's blog (he was teh script adviser) on the programme, he told how the shooting schedule was extremely short and they had to use different Spitfires on different days due to availability of aircraft - which accounted for the different Marks and colour schemes. None of the two seat Spitfires were available during the shooting period so they compromised and used a Harvard - which was available and cheaper.
So, not perfect, but it didn't ruin a worthwhile production.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff