TV/Railroad Accuracy

[Medicine Man]

Did anybody else see "Atomic Train" on the tube about 2 1/2 year's ago. Very nice close shot's of the train,but the script was "STUPID".
In a nut shell: US Army ships a nuke without telling anybody. Also in this boxcar are several 45 gal drums of some fluid the combusts on contact with water..Low and behold the train becomes a "runnaway" somehere east of LA. Fun watching them chase this train trying to stop it(at one point at a mountain peak is doing less than 10 mph!!!). They finally stop it by de-railing it just out side Denver with the inevitable fire's.Water bomber sent to put out the fire's incuding boxcar with nuke an drum's. Water hits fluid,drum's explode,sets off nuke, and "BOOM" the mile high city become's the mile deep crater.

YUP!! Just like in real life.

MM

 

[svacon]

Hollywood gatling

http://members.tripod.com/~ravingpsycho/minigun.html

 

[Flangehead]

Hollywood still thinks most trains whistle, even diesels.Maybe it's not such a bad idea.

 

[Alan Bickley]

Going ever-so-slightly off topic, but I remember watching a re-run of an episode of "Airwolf" a while ago, and in it, there was a scene where a C 130 transport plane was starting up and the producers put the sound of PISTON engines over it!
Could I stop laughing?!

 

[Gary Pfeil]

But, a C130 does have props. What kind of engine turns them if not one with pistons?

 

[svacon]

Engine for props...in no way RR related

That would be four Allison T56-A-15 turboprops.....a turbine engine like a jet but with all HP taken out via the turbine shaft and through a reduction gearbox to the prop!

SA

http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/c130_specs.asp

 

[Gary Pfeil]

I see, thanks!

 

[Alan Bickley]

I should have said. Good job there's other aircraft fans out there!

 

[jetrock]

Personally I find myself amused when I see freight trains in Westerns pulling steel-sided 50-foot boxcars. HBO did a made-for-cable "Pancho Villa" movie that featured lots of railroad action, and despite the era of the film (circa 1912) the boxcars they used were all steel-sided...I didn't know N de M had a modernization program that early!

 

[neilmunck]

Or in "Emporer of the North", already mentioned, there is a bit where the two hobos are on the top of a passenger train that is being pulled by what looks suspiciously like a USRA 0-8-0 dressed up in a fancy paint scheme (on a secondary, if not branch, line!).

Honestly - these people

 

[MilesWestern]

Heh, interesting thread here....and I must add, in "The Professionals" (1966) they managed to capture the era (1906) equipment quite nicely, if for a few errors...

 

[TrainNut]

I also love those chase scenes where you hear the tires squeal on dirt roads!
BillS

Sorry to be the "mythbuster" but I grew up driving on dirt roads many years ago and if the dirt is packed hard enough with nothing loose on top, the tires will indeed squeal quite nicely and leave big 'ol black skid/burnout marks!

There are several sites out there that deal with movie goofs which it sounds like you guys would get a real kick out of. Do a search sometime! Here is one I was actually just looking at for Bourne Supremacy... http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0372183/goofs

 

[Old 'n' Weary]

F7

I live in the San Francisco Bay area, quite close to the Cal Train line (the former SP Mainline), and there is no scheduled passenger service here that uses an F7. Cal Train used F40PH and F59PH to haul its trains. Amtrak doesn't run up the peninsula - you have to go to the East Bay to catch the Coast Starlight - so I never see their engines here.

 

[Old 'n' Weary]

I live in the San Francisco Bay area, quite close to the Cal Train line (the former SP Mainline), and there is no scheduled passenger service here that uses an F7. Cal Train used F40PH and F59PH to haul its trains. Amtrak doesn't run up the peninsula - you have to go to the East Bay to catch the Coast Starlight - so I never see their engines here.

 

[MilesWestern]

Actually, the engine that looks like an F59PHI is actually an MP36PHI, but who really cares!? Does anyone know the numer on the F7's nose? If it's 918-D it's owned by the Pacific Locomotive Assoc. Which I'm a member of, they own an orange (WP zyphr) F7, and I'd make perfect sense in the Monk episode because I rmember that it was orange too...or am I wrong?

 

[Dick Elmore]

Bill...The movie you're referring to with Kirk Douglas was "The Racers". 50's vintage
formula one cars. Great shots of the cars but as you said, phoney closeups and soundmix.

Dick
texas Chief

 

[Canopus]

Well, an M-60 certainly can be fired from the hip. You just won't hit much, although it's a lot of FUN. If you've seen a clip of someone firing a ".50", (Terminator 3?) that wasn't a .50, but an M-1911 Browning, in 7.62mm, same as the M-60.

The one that cracks me up is the Minigun (6 barrelled Gatling type) being carried as a personal weapon. (Predator) Let's see. The thing weighs over 60 pounds, it's electric, so you'll need another 40 plus pounds of battery...and it fires at a variable rate of 3000 to 6000 rounds per minute. That's 50 to 100 rounds per second. Ever seen the size of the ammo cans for one of those things? So, before your own personal kit, you're carrying 200 pounds worth of gun and ammunition. Easy for a Terminator, I suppose.

I've only ever seen how a man wearing powered armor could carry a minigun. The ability to lift one and fire one at the same time would be limited to only those with amazing physical endurance, let alone strength, without such powered armor. Also, with power armor often being powered by microfusion power plants in this kind of fiction, no batteries are required, meaning the warrior only has to carry ammo, which is pretty easy when you're in a suit of armor that's 9 foot plus and able to lift a metric ton. When you get films with this kind of thing happening the inaccuracies are at least limited to trivial things like the feasability of microfusion powerplants, rather than in-your-face errors like ordinary people holding a weapon that is so large that it's normally mounted on aircraft. I don't see the point in getting too technical, but I also don't see the point in errors being so blatant that they ruin the film.

 

[60103]

Can we turn this around a bit?
Would you like to write a bit of a sports movie (The old college football, or baseball) with errors as bad as the train errors? "And now, he pitches the puck into the hoop..."

 

[Canopus]

Can we turn this around a bit?
Would you like to write a bit of a sports movie (The old college football, or baseball) with errors as bad as the train errors? "And now, he pitches the puck into the hoop..."

Well the errors are of the same magnitude. It's just people don't consider trains to be important to anyone, and if any does find trains to be important, they're insignificant/sad/pathetic/whatever. The general attitude of non railfans toward railfans is quite disgusting I find. They laugh at our totally safe, harmless hobby, while they go off and do something that endangers their own lives as well as the lives of others, or harms the environment in some way. I guess it's slightly pointless to hope for more tolerance and consideration, because it's hoping to recieve it from the kind of people who can appreciate a love for cars with their engines and their wheels, but hit a brick wall when trying to understand a love for locomotives with their engines and their wheels.

 

[Nick8564]

On line with the move goofs but off the trains, any one seen Million Dollar Baby? Clint Eastwood has a new Chevy Impala probably in a late 1970, 80's era. Watch closely and one of the gas stations they stop at have old style gas pumps back when leaded gasoline was around, and I don't beleive that Implala would last long on leaded.