History Main / JustTrainWrong

* ''{{Enigma}}'' features 1950s [=MK1=] British Rail Stock (with Eastern Region numbering) in a scene that takes place near Bletchley in 1943. This is quite common due to the large number of BR Mk1s in preservation (and the large number built; they were a standard carriage used throughout the system, replacing many previous designs, and the last of them weren't taken out of service until 2005), compared to the accurate pre-war types which are in comparison quite rare. The Mk1s are also all steel construction, whereas earlier types were often wooden framed or wooden bodied, which didn't help their survival.

* In ''The Swarm'' the driver falls against the brake, shoving it forward, causing the train to speed up and crash. Pushing the brake forward applies it, and applying the brakes is how you ''stop'' the train.
* In ''Savage Messiah,'' a film set in Victorian England, the protagonist at one point narrowly avoids being hit by a 1940s American-built locomotive.

* TheRailwayChildren is mostly pretty good with this trope - as it's set on a fictional railway, most inaccuracies can be [[HandWave handwaved away]]. However, the engine that nearly hits Jenny Agutter wasn't built until the 1930s.

* ''Enigma'' features 1950s [=MK1=] British Rail Stock (with Eastern Region numbering) in a scene that takes place near Bletchley in 1943. This is quite common due to the large number of BR Mk1s in preservation (and the large number built; they were a standard carriage used throughout the system, replacing many previous designs, and the last of them weren't taken out of service until 2005), compared to the accurate pre-war types which are in comparison quite rare. The Mk1s are also all steel construction, whereas earlier types were often wooden framed or wooden bodied, which didn't help their survival.
* Itis not uncommon to see works set during the war in London with 1950s built AEC [=RTs=] or Routemasters, which are incredibly common due to their popularity with the public and the fact that many were in service until recently, and the rarity of ''actual'' pre-war London Transport buses.

** All but one - LondonUnderground keeps a single example on the abandoned Aldwych line, where ''Creep'' (and most other works involving the Underground) are filmed. It might well be the same train.

* ''{{SuperEight}} featured a train which was, to all appearances, violating the existing class five freight speed limits...not to mention the fact that the most viable routing for the train (as shown in some of the viral material) was over Conrail tracks in 1979. Why is this a problem? Conrail inherited a broken down physical plant from the railroads which merged into it, meaning that there were slow orders all around. Potentially averted given who was doing the shipping...but given the number of derailments that occurred under the Penn Central in the years leading up to Conrail's formation, an incident of seriously questionable judgment.

* NaziGermany was Just Train Wrong about Russian rail gauges being the same as German ones. They were not: as a result they could not maintain their supply lines. Their eventual loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, and the ''hundreds of thousands'' of lives it cost them, was a major factor in the Axis powers losing the war. Russian leaders ''chose'' to keep a different rail gauge from the rest of Europe, specifically to make things more difficult for invaders. Take this as a warning for the next time you plan a major land war.
** Um, I believe that was an urban legend. The German's were not so stupid to forget that Russia ran on a different gauge and during 1942, in typical Nazi fashion, they used massive amounts of slave labour to change all of the captured rail lines in former Soviet territory from Russian gauge to Standard gauge.
*** No, they didn't. It's ''much'' cheaper and quicker to simply change the bogies on the cars. It's actually quite a common process that takes place at ''any'' border crossing where the countries use different railway gauges, and takes a couple of hours per train at most. There are even several bogie designs with adjustable gauge that can change it on the fly. One of the major producer of such systems is Spain, which, just as Russia, has a non-standard gauge, and lot of freight traffic with France (which uses a standard gauge).

* ''{{Unstoppable}}'' is a notable aversion. While the film is clearly a dramatization centered around a runaway train based in part on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident Crazy Eights incident]], the creators of the film went to great lengths to accurately adhere to railway mechanics, physics and procedures.

* ''{{Unstoppable}}'' is a notable aversion. While the film is clearly a dramatization centered around runaway train based in part on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident Crazy Eights incident]], the creators of the film went to great lengths to accurately adhere to railway mechanics, physics and procedures.

* ''{{Unstoppable}}'' is a notable aversion. While clearly centered around a dramatize runaway train based in part on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident Crazy Eights incident]], the creators of the film went to great lengths to accurately adhere to railway mechanics, physics and procedures.

** The so called 'conductor's compartment' is actually an engineer cab for remotely controlling the locomotive when the train is moving in that direction, and is portrayed on the wrong end of the train car (the engineer must be able to see the track ahead). Even more so from the outside view of the cars since it shows the windshields for the cab on the right end of the car, but the side windows of the cab on the wrong end as well. Not to mention this was a Chicago bound train, so the compartment would not have been empty, there would have been an engineer on one side of the compartment, operating the train.

* In ''{{Titanic}}'', in the scene at Southampton, an American switcher is briefly seen on the dockside.

* Runaway trains just do not happen in normal operation due to the entire braking system being designed in a fail safe manner. Any loss of pressure in the brake line or command authority in an electric control system will automatically apply the brakes on any set of wagons built after the 1870s, and most heavily-laden trains had a brake van (caboose in North America) at the rear before that. Almost all passenger and many freight locomotives contain alertness features that sense if there is a live operator and stop the train if there is not.\\

That said, the fail safety of the braking system can be disabled which leads to a number of runaway incidents every year. However, due to brake test requirements runaways are usually just parked cars or trainsets that get loose from a yard.\\

* {{Inception}} has a scene where a train runs the main character's car off the road, when in reality trains require special paths called rails to run on and they don't work very well on roads at all.

* {{Inception}} has a scene where a train runs the main character's car off the road, when in reality trains require special paths called tracks to run on.
** They characters are dreaming, so it's absolutely intentional. The wheels are brutally ripping pieces of asphalt away to show how surreal this is.

** They're dreaming if they think that could happen in real life.

Easily, the number one mistake is showing a steam locomotive without a tender--which usually means that it doesn't have any fuel or water and therefore can't move. Other common departures from reality might involve a RunawayTrain's safety systems [[FailsafeFailure failing]] without any justifiable reason, or the wrong kind of train or rolling stock for the script. But, hey, most[[ViewersAreMorons viewers don't know]] or care what the proper train would look like.

* The second volume of {{The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen}} has a scene in which a Martian tripod destroys Barnes Bridge along with a train crossing it. However, while the train is spot-on for the period, it's a London and North Western Railway design. Barnes Bridge was on the London and ''South'' Western Railway, and used very different locomotives.

*** The infamous RampJump scene is a WallBanger in and of itself.

* {{Garfield}}'s movie has a scene where Garfield infultrates a dispatcher's room and switches trains willy nilly sending them all on collision courses with one another. This would be impossible as the system would not allow the controler to switch points in front of an approaching train.

* {{The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe}} creates a very impressive representation of World War II-era Paddington Station, with the correct engine and rolling stock... and then has the engine painted in 1950s livery.

Just like works that FailedToPayShippingCharges and those that are JustPlaneWrong, many writers just [[DidNotDoTheResearch don't do the research]] when it comes to railways, locomotives and rolling stock. Sometimes they show the wrong kind of train, or the wrong kind of wagon, because, hey, [[ViewersAreMorons viewers don't know]] or care what the proper train would look like. A common departure from realism involves a RunawayTrain's safety systems [[FailsafeFailure failing]] without any justifiable reason.