Look what showed up on Andy Griffith Show

Union Pacific steam engines have a large yellow UP on the back of the tender. It's so they know which way to put them back on the track.

Yes, the show WAS done in the Los Angeles, CA area. The show's lead-in with Andy and Opie walking through the park was done in a canyon park just above Beverly Hills.

I believe that was a dream sequence in the show, similar to the ending of "Newhart." The premise was that Andy woke up and it was no longer the 1960s. It was actually 2008 and the Union Pacific had indeed assimilated all other railroads in the U.S. :-)

CAL> On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 00:35:24 -0500, "mike" CAL> wrote: CAL> CAL> >I guess Hollywood doesn't know much about railroads or geography. In the CAL> >movie White Christmas the train Bing Crosby and Danny Kay take north from CAL> >Florida uses a Santa Fa streamliner for the scene. I don't think that ever CAL> >ran on the east coast. CAL> CAL> One of the worst ones was From Russia With Love which had been both CAL> edited for content and time-expanded to fit the two hour broadcast CAL> slot. CAL> CAL> We all know about the train leaving Istanbul with blue and yellow cars CAL> that mysteriously turn green. CAL> CAL> But the time-expansion consisted of splicing in any shots of green CAL> trains they could get hold of. Including British Railways Southern CAL> Region.

Right. You can generally count on Hollywood on using totally the wrong railway equipment in almost any production. Wrong locomotives, wrong car types, wrong era/vintage, wrong railroad, wrong sort of stations, etc. They might as well be using a randomlly selected 3-year old with a random assortment of Brio or Lionel set(s) to 'design' the RR scenes.

CAL> CAL>

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

|| snipped-for-privacy@deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

You have good eyes. That scene is about a second long, and I think they were hoping that people wouldn't be paying attention. Not only is the Santa Fe emblem visible on the front of the engine, but the ocean is visible as being nearly trackside. Unless the train was pre

1935 (and WWII) coming up from the Keys, that would be incorrect - besides, the train goes from right to left on the screen and the ocean is beyond it. That would mean, on the east coast, that the train was going south to Vermont at a great rate of speed. :-)

Most Hollywood films are knee-slappers to people that actually live in the supposed area of action.

Exceptions that prove the rule:

The Wild, Wild West (OK, it's a bit of a cheat - it's a private train) Back to the Future III Tough Guys (Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas steal SP 4449)

...and Petticoat Junction!

Is it:

1. Hollywood doesn't care

-OR-

1. Hollywood KNOWS damn well that 99.5% of the viewers don't know OR care?

I see more pickiness among railfans when something isn't right in a move with regard to trains than any other interest group. I just say "so what", get over it, the situation will never change. The railfan community is very small compared to many other interest groups, so Hollywood is NOT going to cater to it.

I think they already do.

I don't know about that - I thought the railroad scenes were a bit wonky. Westinghouse automatic air brake, knuckle couplers, and an oil burning steam loco in 1883? Not to mention the mad professors "high temperature logs" to make more steam to achieve higher speed. Pity he didn't screw the safety valves down first...

A good 'un, for sure. Doyle McCormack said that Burt Lancaster knew his way around a steam loco - a legacy of being taught to drive for his role in what is arguably the best rail-themed movie ever made.

JE> In article , Robert JE> Heller wrote: JE> JE> > Christopher A. Lee , JE> > In a message on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 00:41:22 -0500, wrote : JE> >

JE> >CAL> On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 00:35:24 -0500, "mike" JE> >CAL> wrote: JE> >CAL> JE> >CAL> >I guess Hollywood doesn't know much about railroads or geography. JE> In the JE> >CAL> >movie White Christmas the train Bing Crosby and Danny Kay take JE> north from JE> >CAL> >Florida uses a Santa Fa streamliner for the scene. I don't think JE> that ever JE> >CAL> >ran on the east coast. JE> >CAL> JE> >CAL> One of the worst ones was From Russia With Love which had been both JE> >CAL> edited for content and time-expanded to fit the two hour broadcast JE> >CAL> slot. JE> >CAL> JE> >CAL> We all know about the train leaving Istanbul with blue and yellow cars JE> >CAL> that mysteriously turn green. JE> >CAL> JE> >CAL> But the time-expansion consisted of splicing in any shots of green JE> >CAL> trains they could get hold of. Including British Railways Southern JE> >CAL> Region. JE> >

JE> >Right. You can generally count on Hollywood on using totally the wrong JE> >railway equipment in almost any production. Wrong locomotives, wrong JE> >car types, wrong era/vintage, wrong railroad, wrong sort of stations, JE> >etc. They might as well be using a randomlly selected 3-year old with a JE> >random assortment of Brio or Lionel set(s) to 'design' the RR scenes. JE> >

JE> JE> Exceptions that prove the rule: JE> JE> The Wild, Wild West (OK, it's a bit of a cheat - it's a private train) JE> Back to the Future III JE> Tough Guys (Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas steal SP 4449)

OK, with *steam* trains, Hollywood does better, generally because they either have to build it from scratch (esp. if they plan on wrecking it ala Back to the Future III) or hire private equipment. Almost always when they are dealing with a 'modern' train (esp. passenger trains), they just go to the nearest Amtrak station, assuming that Amtrak stations and trains are as homogeneous and interchangeable as milk.

JE> JE> -- JE> JE> Joe Ellis JE>

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

|| snipped-for-privacy@deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

in article snipped-for-privacy@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com, skeet06 at snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote on 1/7/05 16:17:

That reminds me of the ABC show "The Practice." One episode had to do with a murder victim allegedly killed or found alongside the MBTA line (the show was set is Boston). Sure enough, there's a location shot showing "investigators" processing the scene, and a commuter train come through...painted for LA Metrolink.

Dieter Zakas

The worst that I recall was on the old "Mission Impossible" show. The show was set in a ficticious Blakan nation. A passenger car that was supposed to fool the dictator into thinking he was in a train wreck was being shoved back and forth by a Union Pacific switcher on the edge of a freight yard, with hundreds of U.S. freight cars directly behind it.

I saw a made for TV movie once about FDR. They used Southern 4501 (2-8-2)to pull FDR's train, instead of the original 1401(4-6-2). Hey at least they got the road correct..............

There's one even worse.

A recent-years movie "Con Express".

Rent the VHS or DVD at Blockbuster, the jacket shows a Metrolink F59PH (#853) on the cover with the Metrolink lettering removed.

First few scenes of the movie look like some railfan's 8mm camcorder shots up at Summit on Cajon Pass. Then a few of the shots had the film flipped so the lettering was all backwards. And they kept repeating these scenes over and over throughout the movie.

Then it goes to using some, I believe, Bulgarian or Romanian rail equipment!

And then, the final scenes were done on the Heber valley RR in Utah.

A cartoon version of a train, yes, but a lovingly rendered image of a steam locomotive. Somebody involved in that movie knows something about steam power and CARED about the details!

Yeah - about like "Tora Tora Tora" with the film of an Essex class carrier (I served on 3 of them, and on detachment from a couple more) flipped to represent that IJN carrier that had the island on the port side.

Of course it was an Essex 27C conversion (as were all of them remaining at the time), which means it had an angled deck, a biiiiiig anachronism.

That merits points for trying at least - were there any Southern Ry Pacifics still running then?

You can see UP engines in NC now, albeit no F-3s. So just maybe they were ahead of their time. :)