East German freight trains?

[Sheffie]

This is a still image from a chase scene in British spy drama "Strike Back", season 3, episode 9. Now, the episode is set in Germany, supposedly on the way to Rammstein air force base, so presumably the locomotives are also German.

I just thought folks here might be interested to identify them - or just to see locomotives making an appearance on the small screen. There are several closer shots and even a couple of seconds of footage inside the cab of one, but it's all very action-y and you can't see much.

 

[lighthouse]

The locomotives are clearly Hungarian vehicles. You can already tell by the colors and shapes. The reddish locomotive is likely to be a M43, the green maybe an M44?

 

[Pashina12]

lighthouse - you got them both bang on, M43 leading an M44.

[railsquid]

And they're trying to hijack a train from the former GDR to the Ramstein airbase in the west of the former West Germany?

[lighthouse]

The imagination is unlimited. Politically not really feasible. But its always exciting, which locomotives are shown in fictitious Germany. I know a few films that have used the right vehicles. In the movie Mission Impossible, the Eurotunnel TGV was also funny a diesel train. Otherwise the helicopter would not have been able to fly in at all. 🤣

Edited June 13, 2019 by lighthouse

[Yavianice]

2 hours ago, lighthouse said:

In the movie Mission Impossible, the Eurotunnel TGV was also funny a diesel train. Otherwise the helicopter would not have been able to fly in at all. 🤣

Maybe we should have a thread of stupid movies with unrealistic or incorrect trains that are added for no other reason because "movie"? Skyfall is another one of those strange examples with its train scene.

[marknewton]

That would be a lengthy thread. Easier to list the movies featuring trains that aren’t stupid or unrealistic. My first nomination would be John Frankenheimer’s film from 1964, “The Train”. And it’s not without flaws, either.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

[Suica]

Even locally produced movies and TV series' do this.

Not long ago there was TV drama set in East Germany. By the end of the film Police stopped a train to arrest a guy inside. What they stopped was a train that looked exactly like this, with a big "DR" slapped on the front. DR never used this kind of loco, neither had they coaches this colour.

Producers often just try to go as cheap as possible and most people, especially those not from the country in questions, will never know or care.

[Pashina12]

1 hour ago, Suica said:

Even locally produced movies and TV series' do this.

Not long ago there was TV drama set in East Germany. By the end of the film Police stopped a train to arrest a guy inside. What they stopped was a train that looked exactly like this, with a big "DR" slapped on the front. DR never used this kind of loco, neither had they coaches this colour.

Producers often just try to go as cheap as possible and most people, especially those not from the country in questions, will never know or care.

 

And then you have films like Das Leben der Anderen that makes sure to have the correct kind of toothpaste tube in the bathroom...

[Khaul]

That’s an excellent film, but well, tooth paste is cheaper than old trains.

 

The most ludicrous recent example I have seen is in Babylon Berlin. A good deal of the plot involves a tank car full of gold coming from Russia. No break of gauge is considered, and the train is driven and crosses the border like a truck. That completely shattered my suspension of disbelief.

[Socimi]

Avlanche express (1979) mainly fetaures an Italian FS E444 mocked up as a West German DB E10

 

http://www.western-locations-spain.com/mooncity/avalanche/avala32.jpg

 

It also fetaures a lot of 1970s italian rolling stock (such as a D445 diesel loco in the original green/brown liviery)

 

then comes the ludicrous "Cassandra Crossing" (1976)

 

An FS E646 mocked up as a SBB Re 4/4 

 

http://pics.imcdb.org/0is408/trainatjc9.1672.jpg

 

FS Type 1959 coaches mocked up as CIWL coaches

 

http://www.imcdb.org/i161850.jpg

 

The Genéve station at the beginning is in reality Basel Hbf (you can see the green Basel trams more than once).

 

The "E646 scene" is also supposed to be at "Nuremberg Station", but it was in fact filmed on the freight tracks at Roma Ostiense station.

 

In said scene, the Re4/4/E646 is changed with an FS D143, that in the next scene morphs into an SNCF BB66000 with the green/yellow liviery of a BB63000 (the scene at the level crossing is also supposed to be in Poland).

 

well, that's one hell of a detour...

[Khaul]

How about the Italian steam engines masquerading as Far West locomotives in Spaghetti Westerns?

[marknewton]

I haven’t seen any Italian engines in spag westerns, but plenty of Spanish engines.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Khaul]

That would be in paella westerns, although many were done in co-production with Italy and thus were Spag-Paella. 

 

Actually, there is a very American looking Baldwin in Spain http://www.baldwin.es/

 

In the 1870s the Tarragona-Barcelona-Francia railway opened with American 4-4-0s and bogie coaches, very high tech compared to other Spanish railways of the time.

[Pashina12]

On 6/13/2019 at 9:55 PM, Khaul said:

That’s an excellent film, but well, tooth paste is cheaper than old trains.

 

True... but *find* a 30-year-old tube of toothpaste and bottle of mouthwash! That's the impressive part of the set dec work in that film, is that they spent a stupid amount of time tracking down DDR-era household items to decorate the sets completely period-accurately.

[Welshbloke]

To be fair to Mission Impossible, I'm not sure the Eurostars had been built by the time the film was released? It wouldn't surprise me if a TGV was the only thing they could lay hands on at the time of filming. Eurostars also ran on 3rd rail power in the UK until the CTRL was built between London and Folkestone. The lack of overhead wiring in the tunnel, on the other hand...

 

The many, many films where a damaged brake hose causes an out of control train always get me. Silver Streak at least got it right, with Gene Wilder trying to uncouple the train so the rear half would stop as the brakes applied.

[bill937ca]

On 6/16/2019 at 4:09 AM, Pashina12 said:

 

True... but *find* a 30-year-old tube of toothpaste and bottle of mouthwash! That's the impressive part of the set dec work in that film, is that they spent a stupid amount of time tracking down DDR-era household items to decorate the sets completely period-accurately.

There was a place with stuff like that in a antique market in Toronto years ago.  Is it still there? Probably.  Depends if the owner is still active. Essentially it's probably a personal collection.

Edited July 2, 2019 by bill937ca

[railsquid]

On 6/16/2019 at 5:09 PM, Pashina12 said:

 

True... but *find* a 30-year-old tube of toothpaste and bottle of mouthwash! That's the impressive part of the set dec work in that film, is that they spent a stupid amount of time tracking down DDR-era household items to decorate the sets completely period-accurately.

 

While I was living in Berlin I was tangentially involved in what for a better word could be described as the "GDR nostalgia business", and there's enough of this stuff around that finding it and/or recreating plausible looking copies is doable without too much effort.

 

https://www.ddr-museum.de/de/objects/1018699

[Pashina12]

6 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

While I was living in Berlin I was tangentially involved in what for a better word could be described as the "GDR nostalgia business", and there's enough of this stuff around that finding it and/or recreating plausible looking copies is doable without too much effort.

 

https://www.ddr-museum.de/de/objects/1018699

 

The DDR-Museum was one of my favourite things I found last time I was in Berlin, in 2009... (it was *so* different from when I spent a month there in 1995!)

 

Either way, even if it wasn't too difficult to do, I do like that the makers of that movie paid enough attention to get all those details right - especially considering that most American moviemakers can't be arsed to get the Cyrillic right when they make a Russian document for someone, and so they have Ivan Nosov spelt out as "Grnv Shchyayuk" or whatever nonsense that'd take 30 seconds to get right...