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Train related Movies


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I'm not much of a movie fan, but here's a recent one I think I'd find interesting:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited by cteno4
Fixed YouTube embed
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Going back to Japanese trains (my knowledge lacks as to which type)

The Clam Clan watched the movie 'Swing Girls'featuring a few train scenes including one of the girls jumping out of the way into a paddy field, as far as I can see not a UK release. My copy from Amazon came from Thailand so has English or Thai subtitles.

 

Being filmed in Yamagata Prefecture, it's a Flower Nagai Line YR-880 series

 

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E5%BD%A2%E9%89%84%E9%81%93YR-880%E5%BD%A2%E6%B0%97%E5%8B%95%E8%BB%8A

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Nagai_Line

 

The original variant (shown in the movie, and in the trailer at exactly 2:00)

 

http://kura3.photozou.jp/pub/500/2950500/photo/168995299_624.jpg

 

The promotional variant, with the film logo and title.

 

http://www2.jan.ne.jp/~jr7cwk/rail/yamatetsu/swing_orihata.jpg

Edited by cteno4
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There are not trains in this movie but Tomix buildings!

Here below a video with some images and the official trailer of the movie ("Psychic" aka "Haunters").

 

 

Cheers,

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Well, you still get (for a fraction of second) an Incheon Subway 1000 series at 1:43

 

http://www.2427junction.com/61a-40102.jpg

 

http://www.2427junction.com/koreaincheon01.html

 

These trains reminds me of E.V.E. from WALL-E

 

Well spotted!

 

Around the mid part of the movie, it also appears.

Btw, I remember seeing the Korail Class 8000 (aka the "Mazinger Z") somewhere but I do not remember the movie.

Anyway, I will keep checking.

Cheers

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I'm not much of a movie fan, but here's a recent one I think I'd find interesting:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

I missed this when you originally post it.  Yes it might be worth a watch.  I do enjoy Jackie Chan's movies.

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I missed this when you originally post it.  Yes it might be worth a watch.  I do enjoy Jackie Chan's movies.

As I mentioned I'm not much into movies, so I didn't know who Jackie Chan was. But we got a DVD of this film, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Chan obviously enjoys his work, and doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. So I think I might become a fan... :)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

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A few classics:

 

I'd forgotten how good this little movie is. Not just because the green girlfriend is the star, though. There's so much old NSWGR atmosphere in every scene, none of which remains today. Seeing it again really takes me back to my misspent youth! :)

 

When I get a chance I'll have a look at the two French movies, they look good too.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

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I'd forgotten how good this little movie is. Not just because the green girlfriend is the star, though. There's so much old NSWGR atmosphere in every scene, none of which remains today. Seeing it again really takes me back to my misspent youth! :)

 

When I get a chance I'll have a look at the two French movies, they look good too.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

Hi Mark,

 

How do you like this one then?

 

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for me the train movie is The cassandra crossing..

so weird, so strange.. ;)

 

but the swiss trains showed in it, specially the locomotives (the passangers cars are for sure gone)  are still around today being the Re 4/4 used to pull the train..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOwWYxV0oTo 

 

It's one of the very few train-related movie i hated.

 

A bit of trivia:

Due to buget restirctions, many of the scenes (such as the interior shootings) were filmed in italy, at Cinecittà studios in rome. Hence the italian weaponry (Beretta PM12S, wich are not used by US military forces) and italian trains, specifically in the "Nurenberg" scene where the US government siezes and locks up the train.

 

The train is headed by a second-batch italian E645 articulated electric loco, mocked-up as a swiss engine.

 

http://img54.xooimage.com/files/e/a/c/the-cassandra-cro...part-7_3-24412bc.jpg

 

Wich will be replaced by a D143 "Truman"* diesel loco, wich will later magically transform into a French BB66000..

 

*These locos were former US-Army Transportation Corps (hence the name from US President Harry Truman) arrived in Italy during WW2. War over, they were sold to the Italian State Railways (FS), to be used as heavy-shunting locos in various yards, industires and ports. Couple of locos still in operation as today.

Edited by cteno4
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Now for some more errors, courtesy of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JustTrainWrong

 

  • While an overnight train from Geneva to Stockholmexternal_link.gif isn't unthinkable, routing it via Paris is plain idiotic. Not only that, it travels from Geneva to Basel and then to Paris which is an even longer way than taking the direct route to Paris by entering France a few miles after Geneva. The train is zig-zagging its way through Europe. It's absolutely useless both to start in Geneva (because whoever wants to travel from Geneva to Paris would take a direct train) and to continue beyond Paris with a sleeping-car on the train (because it's not like there aren't any trains that can take you from Geneva to Brussels in much less time on a much shorter route). One could think that the American script writers picked some random European cities without informing themselves where exactly in Europe they're located, whether it makes sense to send a train that way, and whether Europe has a much denser network of long-distance railroad lines than the USA.
  • Not to mention that it's impossible to let a train have Paris as a mere stopover because the six major stations in Paris are all dead-end, there is no long-distance railroad line through Paris, and trains from Basel arrive in a different station than where trains to Brussels depart. Trains can only start or terminate in Paris, but not stop. Traveling through Paris via train pretty much always involves changing stations via Métro. Unlike American transcontinental trains, a stopover in a dead-end station does not require turning the entire consist from the locomotive(s) to the last car around, European railroads would simply put another locomotive on the other end of the train and continue with that one, but in Paris' case, it'd require another massive detour to get to the right station or on the right line.
  • Of five regular compartment cars, two are first class. Standard for express/intercity trains between Munich and Zürich in the 80s. but a European overnight train would never have that much first class in comparison to the second class.
  • Also, putting the sleeping-car between the two first-class coaches makes absolutely no sense. The passengers from the first first-class coach would have to walk through the sleeping-car to get to the train restaurant.
  • Over such a long distance, one would expect couchette cars on the train along with at least one sleeping-car. There are none, and instead, there are way too many cars fit mostly for daytime travel.
  • In the middle of a train runs a dining-car. This would make it highly difficult to shunt it out of the train, seeing as dining-cars weren't allowed anywhere near the ferry between Germany and Denmark in those days for fear of too much competition for the on-board restaurants. Also, this particular dining-car model isn't too likely to be allowed to operate in Denmark or Sweden. So it would have been removed from the middle of the train in Hamburg's busy main station where otherwise only a new locomotive would have been coupled to the other end of the train to reverse it.
  • Besides, at the film's time, passenger trains in Denmark were heated with steam since the DSB didn't have diesels with head-end power yet. However, the Swiss RIC cars (the two first-class coaches, the three second-class coaches and the dining-car) didn't have steam heating, so they didn't even have pipes to run heating steam through. The Danish locomotive wouldn't have heated anything beyond the first baggage car running right behind it.
  • When the train leaves "Geneva" (wich is actually Basel SBB, the train's next stop), two of the three second-car coaches are missing. The second baggage car at the end of the train is there, though.
  • In Switzerland already, the train changes direction countless times. There are many scenes in which the two first-class coaches and the sleeping-car are in the rear half of the train.
  • In some scenes, a train runs through the scene which doesn't have a single vehicle in common with the Europa-Express, neither the locomotive not any of the cars. One of them even contains German cars whereas the Europa-Express is an entirely Swiss consist. Since most passenger cars were green in West and Central Europe in those days.
  • An infected dog is to be taken out of the train in a basket hung from a helicopter. This is impossible on tracks electrified with overhead catenary like almost every bit of Swiss railroad (and any mainline between Switzerland and Paris). However, when the basket comes near the train (and only then), the catenary is suddenly missingexternal_link.gif. In these scenes, the train is pushed by an off-screen Bm 4/4 diesel locomotive while the electric locomotive with its pantographs down remains in plain sight.
  • When the train approaches "Nuremberg", it is clearly running under swiss caternary.
  • "Nuremberg"'s station itself is actually a freight yard in italy. Apparently, the American script writers didn't care because it used to be quite common for Amtrak stations especially in Flyover Country to have platforms not higher than the rails (i.e. you have to climb steps placed by the crew to board the train) or require the passengers to board from the ground next to the tracks. In Europe, however, passenger stations always have platforms at least high enough to reach the steps below the car door.
  • The locomotive that's on the train upon arrival in "Nuremberg" is an Italian E645 poorly disguised as a generic Swiss locomotive on one endexternal_link.gif◊ to remotely resemble Re 4/4 II 11217 which was on the train all the time up to that pointexternal_link.gif◊ and numbered Re 4/4 III 11363 like the similar locomotive that pulls the train in some but not even most Swiss scenes. It's still clearly visible that the Italian locomotive has an articulated carbody, as are the real front windows behind the larger faux pseudo-Swiss onesexternal_link.gifThe other end remained unchanged except for the green paintexternal_link.gif◊. This scene with this locomotive made it onto the movie posterexternal_link.gif. Both locomotives, by the way, would be unable to operate in Germany, the former because of the wrong current, the latter because the German catenary zig-zag is too wide.
  • The sleeping-car has miraculously transformed from a modern MU to a roughly 40 years older Z, probably because the CIWL (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits = International Sleeping-Car Company) wouldn't let the film crew put those blinds on an almost new car.
Edited by Socimi
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  • In "Nuremberg", the locomotive is replaced by a diesel. While in "Nuremberg", it's an Italian D143. A refurbished American wartime switcher which doesn't even have head-end power for the train (in fact, as a switcher, it doesn't have any train heating whatsoever) is supposed to haul it on the rest of its way. Immediately after leaving "Nuremberg" behind, the train rolls through daylight and what is said to be Poland behind a French first-series BB 66000 repainted green so that the differences in comparison with the previous Italian diesel aren't too obvious, although the BB 66000 looks nothing like a D143, and maybe so that it looks more like an Eastern Bloc locomotive. (Originally and at that time still, the BB 66000 were blue.)

In one scene at a level crossingexternal_link.gif◊, BB 66033 has red covers on her headlights, making them tail lights.

Also, both baggage cars suddenly run behind the BB 66000external_link.gif◊.

The second class is depicted as saloon cars to make it look clearly inferior to the protagonists' first class. The three Swiss RIC coaches which make up the second class are all compartment cars, though. Also, the interior shot shows a first-class saloon car with only one seat on one side of the aisle and two on the other and white headrest covers.

When they were sealed, the two first-class coaches morphed into second-class coaches. This is very clearly visible: The first-class RIC coaches have nine compartments and a yellow line below the roof, the second-class RIC coaches have eleven or twelve compartments depending on the type.

After "Nuremberg", there are armed guards on the roofs of the car. It's pretty hard to stand on top of the curved roof of a European passenger car, fluted or not, and even moreso when the car is moving and you're holding an assault rifle.

According to the movie, there is a central electronic coupling control unit under the dining-car (and only there) from which all couplers on the train can be remote-controlled. In Real Life, however, European railroads still use the same manual chain-like couplings as in the mid-19th century. Blasting one's way to the top by detonating the Kitchen gas is just as much non-sense, for it'd rather rip the Swiss dining-car's aluminum carbody to shreds or at least blow the windows out than damage the floor.

Besides, Swiss dining-cars have electric stoves. Where'd you get the gas then?

What's actually blown up is a not-so-faithful modelexternal_link.gif◊ of a French DEV regular steel dining-carexternal_link.gif◊ that used to be all red back then. The same model is eventually driven off the Cassandra bridgeexternal_link.gif◊.

By the way, the dining-car interior shots (and a group shot of the actors) were taken inside a "light steel" dining-car from the 1930s. Note how the RIC dining-car has one-piece windowsexternal_link.gif◊ and the one used for inside scenes has windows with sliding upper halvesexternal_link.gif.

A more realistic way of uncoupling half the train would have been to undo the coupler underneath the footplates between the cars when there is no pulling force on them. A smarter solution would have been to simply pull the emergency brake which can't be bridged on these coaches (or at all in that time). And even if the emergency brakes had been disabled in any way, lifting one of the footplates and then opening the cock on one of the uncoupled main air line hoses or alternatively uncoupling the respective air hoses without closing the cocks would have stopped the train. But no, too easy and not flashy enough.

If (not only) a European train is separated while running without properly uncoupling the brake hoses, the rear part will not simply roll out, nor will the front part travel on. When the air brake system is opened by ripping the hoses apart, and the pressure drops, the brakes will apply immediately in both halves of the train. In the movie, none of the two train halves brakes before one of the handbrakes on the separated rear part is used.

It's clear from the locomotives and catenary already that only the scenes in Basel are shot on location while most of the rest doesn't even take place in the same country. Most of what should be France or Germany is actually Switzerland, Nuremberg's main station is in Italy, and Poland is actually France.

One has to wonder who drives the train to the Cassandra Bridge and finally into the ravine. In Real Life European railroad operation, only a driver who knows that particular line and thus has a permit for it may drive that train on that line. But if he knows it well enough to be aware of the hazardous Cassandra Bridge, he'd know better than to drive an international express train with passengers aboard over that bridge, much less at such a speed. In fact, there must not be a single engineer in Poland who doesn't know about the Cassandra Bridge.

If the Cassandra Bridge is on the verge of collapsing, why isn't the line closed? Why do the PolishState Railways allow any train, especially an international express train with foreign (Western even) passenger coaches and passengers aboard, to enter that line and try to cross the bridge? How can they force a train driver onto that obvious suicide mission? And no, they can't be forced by the USA because neither the CIA nor the US military could have any saying in an Eastern Bloc country.

When the train falls off the Cassandra Bridge (which is actually the famous Viaduc de Garabitexternal_link.gif in France, designed by Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame), among the falling vehicles are the dining-car, clearly identifiable as the only red car in an otherwise mostly green consist, and two second-class coaches. Just minutes before, the dining-car and everything behind it was explosively uncoupled from the train.

The movie poster design used on IMDbexternal_link.gif clearly displays an older American GM-EMD hood unit standing in for the Europa-Express. (with italian pantographs)

Edited by Socimi
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"Trainmaster". It's a terrible movie, but kids love it. We had to watch it dozens of times with my son when he was younger. They also made a sequel, that unfortunately was never released. 

 

 

 

Edited by gavino200
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