Passenger Trains > Another movie with the wrong railroad

"The Band Wagon" (1953) has the cast going by train from NY to Boston, then down to Philly. Train pictured was pulled by a Daylight painted SP engine. Boy, are they lost.

symph1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "The Band Wagon" (1953) has the cast going by
> train from NY to Boston, then down to Philly.
> Train pictured was pulled by a Daylight painted SP
> engine. Boy, are they lost.

That's typical practice in movie making for that era.

Secaucus & Passaic?

Hollywood has come up with some real doozies when it comes to trains in movies. My favorite is "White Christmas". Take a trauin from Miami to Verrmont? Sure! Santa Fe "San Diegan" and SP passenger with a Black Widow F on the point, somewhere in the mountains.

Santa Fe and SP served Southern Californa, so the Hollywood studios got stock footage and arranged special trains for location shooting obn those two railroads.  It was all about cost, not that the producers were dumb!  (I.ve seen very little footage shot on UP, don't know why.)

Barry Draper

djansson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hollywood has come up with some real doozies when
> it comes to trains in movies. My favorite is
> "White Christmas"

The Narrow Margin is another interesting example. A train supposedly from Chicago to Los Angeles wanders all over the southwest, plus a side trip on the PRR.

Same with aircraft. They take of on a 737. But somehow land on a 747...and that's on a supposed domestic route that 747's don't typically fly. TV series are just as bad. One of my favorite shows, somehow the lead character ended up on a TGV but the show was set in the U.S. I guess accuracy doesn't count....with some exceptions such as North by Northwest. 

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...with some exceptions such as North by Northwest. 

My favorite: Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. 1950's New Haven all the way.

Ray

A Union Pacific passenger train showed up on The Andy Griffith Show. I don't remember what episode that was, but to see UP varnish in North Carolina...

Posted from Android

djansson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hollywood has come up with some real doozies when
> it comes to trains in movies. My favorite is
> "White Christmas". Take a trauin from Miami to
> Verrmont? Sure! Santa Fe "San Diegan" and SP
> passenger with a Black Widow F on the point,
> somewhere in the mountains.

I believe that may have been possible in the 1940's with interline Pullman services. A Pullman operating from Montreal to Miami may have actually existed. Need to consult an older Offical Guide. 

One of the best comedy movies ever made - It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert - is set 'on the road' between Miami and New York in 1934.  About 2/3 of the way into the movie, Clark Gable is delayed at a train crossing featuring a clearly marked Southern Pacific steam engine.  I never knew the SP went that far east! 

....and in a Law & Order: SVU episode I saw recently, a character boards a Long Island Railr Road MU-electric at a close-in station in Queens but gets off a diesel-powered train in Long Island City. The latter location obviously was chosen for the trip's endpoint because it would have been easier to use for filmmaking purposes than Penn Station, plus it conveniently had the midtown Manhattan skyline for a backdrop.
 

Spirit-ofTheConrail7 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A Union Pacific passenger train showed up on The
> Andy Griffith Show. I don't remember what episode
> that was, but to see UP varnish in North
> Carolina...
>
> Posted from Android

I remember that episode. They were meeting somebody getting off the train. The Mayberry, NC station on the Union Pacific Coast Line.

Happens now as well. Don't remember the episode but the cast of NCIS was investigating a body in a parking lot when a Metrolink train passed by.

Movies often take liberties with locations and other facts, etc., and those who have some expertise in these areas will pick up on them. Just check out the "goofs" entry on IMDB. I believe that to expect that movies meant for entertainment will get all the details correct is expecting too much. Of course, documentaries should be held to a higher standard.

BRAtkinson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the best comedy movies ever made - It
> Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette
> Colbert - is set 'on the road' between Miami and
> New York in 1934.  About 2/3 of the way into the
> movie, Clark Gable is delayed at a train crossing
> featuring a clearly marked Southern Pacific steam
> engine.  I never knew the SP went that far
> east! 

Several vintage Greyhound buses in that movie, as well

The worst is the TV series ALASKA RAILROAD. The editing, the narration, the people. Over the top on every scale.

Posted from Android

In one "Hogan's Heros" episode, the prisoners temporarily escape the POW camp to blow up a German ammunition train.  Scenes showing the train are archive footage of a New York Central steam powered freight along the Hudson River!

I have seen several Metrolink trains on NCIS.  And it seems that every episode Northern Va. is having a severe drought as they try to pass off a brown location in the TMZ as somewhere in the woodlands around Quantico.

House of Cards episode that one of the President's men is chasing someone in Albequerque, New Mexico, shows a three track mainline with catenary.