History Main / JustTrainWrong

** 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 or just use push-pull equipment, but in Paris' case, it'd require another massive detour to get to the right station or on the right line.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'': "The Good, the Bad and the Tigger" is full of this. It even provides the page quote. The tender seems to lack a water tank and Tigger can walk through the whole train even though it includes a boxcar. And the train does some physical impossibilities like braking so hard that the cars flip through the air and land back on the rails, ''facing the other way''. After Pooh and Tigger rebuild it with only half of the parts, and with some parts from a handcar mixed in, ''nothing'' it does should be possible. Then again, as Pooh put it, "[[ImagineSpot It's a fantasy]]".

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'': Even to a person with little knowledge of steam locomotives, the artistic license taken by the game is quite glaring. First of all, the trains in the game are ''tiny'' compared to those in real life; secondly, the Spirit Train has no tender or supply car (instead sporting a ''cannon'' of all things, which would likely be top heavy enough to tip the entire train over). The Spirit Train is also very clean, with no sign of ash or smoke anywhere save for the pretty white puff-balls discharged from the chimney (which appears to work as a whistle despite a separate whistle being clearly visible on the engine). The train has no visible infrastructure, never runs out of water or coal, and the tracks have green ties and yellow rails and are insanely narrow. Also, the ties are arranged in a zig-zag pattern. That's several problems found without even having an in-depth knowledge of how locomotives are constructed. However, this is all [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] given the game itself mentions the train itself is [[AWizardDidIt magical]], as well as the tracks themselves being actually magic shackles binding a demon lord that just happen to look like train tracks.

** However, the train was running from Italy to Croatia, so unless the footage was interspersed, it could be explained as the train crossing into Eastern Europe. (There are vineyards in Croatia) Less forgivable, is the presence of an EMD F7A unit at the head of the train, when they could have just about got away with an [=SD40=], a version of which was built in Yugoslavia (this is all a case of CaliforniaDoubling as the train scenes were shot on the Fillmore & Western Railway in California).

** However, the train was running from Italy to Croatia, so unless the footage was interspersed, it could be explained as the train crossing into Eastern Europe. (There are vineyards in Croatia) Less forgivable, is the presence of a GM 'A' unit at the head of the train, when they could have just about got away with an [=SD40=], a version of which was built in Yugoslavia.

* Usually in a climactic scene involving a train chase, said train may come across a washed-out bridge and is within '''literal feet''' of the dead end. The train usually stops in time before it can fall off of the bridge. In real life, trains take about a mile to stop fully, so if a real-life train came across a washed-out bridge, they’d have to abandon ship (er, train) or pull the emergency brakes, '''''hard. '''''
* Numerous engines’ tenders are depicted reversed, as the coal bunker should be facing the engine, but instead faces the cars. The rear end of the tender is used ''AS'' the bunker.
* A train’s valve gears can be depicted as simply as one rod, or an entire amalgamation of them. The latter, if real, would render the engine immobile. Or, it may have no valve gear at all, which makes one wonder how they even got them moving in the first place.

* 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 cars built after the 1870s, and, until the 1980s, most heavily-laden trains had a brake van/caboose at the rear before that (nowadays, rear helper engines and end-of-train ([=EoT=]) devices do the same job). 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.

* Most cartoon locomotives are actually six-wheeled steam locomotives without tenders that cannot decide whether they should be a 0-4-2, a 0-6-0, a 2-2-2, a 2-4-0, or a 4-2-0. It may or may not have coupling rods.
** And if they do have coupling rods, expect them to be arranged very loosely so that they serve no actual purpose.

* Subverted by "fireless" steam locomotives that had neither a fuel bunker nor a water tank. These operated where the risk of fire or explosion was great (often inside certain factories), and the steam was replenished from an outside source. Some outlasted steam engines in regular mainline service for many years.

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Easily, the number one mistake is showing a steam locomotive without a tender or bunker and tanks -- which usually means that it doesn't have any fuel or water and therefore can't move. And even if there is a tender, it often looks like one big fuel bunker on wheels with nowhere to put the water. 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. Whenever a train appears, it'll almost always be blasting its horn or whistle (if even that, as sometimes they'll use whistles on diesels and horns on steam engines and vice-versa), when in real life trains are only meant to sound their horns and/or whistles at set points along the route such as at level crossings, or if there's something or someone on the track. But, hey, most viewers don't know or care what the proper train would look like, ''or'' the ins-and-outs of railway operations.

* LEGO [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4F09UsPtAY shot a commercial in 2022]] to advertise a collector's set based on the Hogwart's Express from the Harry Potter films. But with ''Olton Hall'' in long term storage, LEGO looking for a similarly painted red locomotive settled on using Keighley & Worth Valley Railway's 41241, an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Ivatt_Class_2_2-6-2T LMS Ivatt Class 2]] locomotive. Other than the red color, the engine has no resemblance to the Hall class the LEGO set depicts.

** Further complicated by the lore given on Pottermore that explained the Hogwarts Express was stolen from Crewe Works in 1830. Crewe didn't open until 1840 by the Grand Junction Railway, later becoming part of the London, Midland, and Scotland Railway system. The locomotive that primarily portrays the Hogwarts Express in media is ''Olton Hall'' a Great Western Railway (a rival railway of the LMS) 4900 Class engine built in 1937 at Swindon. If the Hogwarts Express were an accurate 1830's engine it would look much more like Stephenson's Rocket than the larger and more modern engine it was depicted as on screen. So in "lore" the Hogwarts Express was an engine stolen 100 years before it existed at an engine shop that wouldn't exist for another ten years and operated by a railroad that never rostered that particular locomotive class!

* A train’s valve gears can be depicted as simply as one rod, or an entire amalgamation of them. The latter, if real, would render the engine immobile.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1360820050072019400

[[quoteright:350: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SukTBSJJ4KM https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_funny-fake-train_5551.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[VisualPun Shocking footage of a man hit by a train.]]]]
->'''Tigger:''' Say, where's the propeller on this thing?
->'''Rabbit:''' Tigger, trains don’t have propellers, although it does seem to be missing its rudder.

** When Luke is watching White Hat pick up Cole and some other men, he's supposedly in Harlem, yet he's standing under the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn.

** The episode "Flatline" features, in modern day Bristol, two Class 117 multiple units - withdrawn in the 1990s - in BR Green! However, First Great Western have started to paint their units green with white stripes sort of kind of similar to the British Railways DMU livery so it might almost convince in the future. However, the head code is for a trainload of ballast empties via Mountsorrel.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'': "The Good, the Bad and the Tigger" is full of this. It even provides the page quote. The tender seems to lack a water tank and Tigger can walk through the whole train even though it includes a boxcar. And the train does some physical impossibilities like braking so hard that the cars flip through the air and land back on the rails. After Pooh and Tigger rebuild it, ''nothing'' it does should be possible. Then again, as Pooh put it, "[[ImagineSpot It's a fantasy]]".

* By and large, the trains in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemptionII'' are fairly accurate for the time period. However, you can encounter British 1930s semaphore signals in Saint Denis.

** The exterior of the car they discover is the 1972 Bakerloo Line Tube Stock train that's parked there for filming, but the interior of the car is a 1978 D Stock car of the kind used on the District Line at the time that the episode was broadcast.

*** Pegler had first seen the the-then brand-new locomotive at an exhibition in 1924 and had been something of a FandomVIP ever since. Whilst restoring her completely to her 1920s condition was ruled out (for the reasons stated above) he was keen to return her to her former LNER condition as much as possible. This resulted in something of an AnachronismStew, as she had an original shaped chimney and 1920s LNER paint job and running number but still carried BR-period fixtures and fittings from a much later timeframe, notably the boiler.

** In one episode, there is a passenger train with a caboose. Cabooses were made so freight trains have someone at the back to make sure none of the wheels get hotboxes (overheated axles)[[note]]Cabooses are no longer used on regular freight service, as modern stationary detectors can detect hotboxes, and EoT (End of Train) devices can release the pressure and activate brakes from the rear end.[[/note]]. These are not needed at the back of passenger trains, as people can be accommodated at any point in the train. Also, it seems that the passenger cars only have doors on the left side. The vast majority of passenger cars have doors on both sides, often straight across from each other. One notable exception is the Disneyland monorail, which has doors on the left side only. It has only two stops anyway.

* A common error in many cartoons is for steam engines to be operated by only the driver (engineer in American terms), with the fireman being mysteriously absent. Slightly TruthInTelevision: smaller tank engines used for shunting or short lines were able to be operated by one person most of the time, but not large mainline tender engines.

Cases of anachronistic locomotives and rolling stock [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality are more forgivable]], for most of the same reasons given in sister tropes involving [[ArtisticLicenseShips ships]], [[JustPlaneWrong aircraft]] or [[TanksButNoTanks armoured vehicles.]] Sometimes there are simply no serviceable examples still in existence, or the surviving examples are stabled at preserved railway lines far from their original area of operation and are too expensive to transport, leaving the production team with a choice between this trope or CaliforniaDoubling. Even when you manage to make locomotive and rolling stock match the period and the location, they're often in a livery from an earlier or later period of their service lifespan, and the owners may well be reluctant to have them repainted for filming, especially considering the expense involved. They figure that only weird railroad nerds will notice anway.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' has some examples. Whilst the author of the books, Wilbert Awdry, was a railway buff who made a point of getting the details right in his books, there are many examples of unrealistic railway operation in the TV series, particularly in later seasons, as advertising new toys took precedent.

* The train to Canada in "START", the series finale of ''Series/TheAmericans'', set in December 1987, is clearly a Metro North train made up to look like an Amtrak train. Why they do this is never explained, seeing as Amtrak ''does'' have a route that runs from New York City to Montreal, the ''Adirondack''. The train we see uses a modern GE Genesis P32 locomotive painted in the Amtrak Phase III livery of the time when the episode is set, but in real life the [=F40PH=] was the main road diesel in that era (the Genesis locomotives didn't come until the mid-1990s when Amtrak needed to replace their [=F40PHs=] in favor of more efficient locomotives). Amtrak mainly used Turboliner trainsets on routes that ran in upstate New York at the time, including the ''Adirondack''.

Cases of anachronistic locomotives and rolling stock are more forgivable, for most of the same reasons given in sister tropes involving [[ArtisticLicenseShips ships]], [[JustPlaneWrong aircraft]] or [[TanksButNoTanks armoured vehicles.]] Sometimes there are simply no serviceable examples still in existence, or the surviving examples are stabled at preserved railway lines far from their original area of operation and are too expensive to transport, leaving the production team with a choice between this trope or CaliforniaDoubling. Even when you manage to make locomotive and rolling stock match the period and the location, they're often in a livery from an earlier or later period of their service lifespan, and the owners may well be reluctant to have them repainted for filming, especially considering the expense involved. They figure that only weird railroad nerds will notice anway.

Cases of anachronistic locomotives and rolling stock are more forgivable, for most of the same reasons given in sister tropes involving [[ArtisticLicenseShips ships]], [[JustPlaneWrong aircraft]] or [[TanksButNoTanks armoured vehicles.]] Sometimes there are simply no serviceable examples still in existence, or the surviving examples are stabled at preserved railway lines far from their original area of operation and are too expensive to transport, leaving the production team with a choice between this trope or CaliforniaDoubling. Even when you manage to make locomotive and rolling stock match the period and the location, they're often in a livery from an earlier or later period of their service lifespan, and the owners may well be reluctant to have them repainted for filming, especially considering the expense involved.

* ''Anime/BloodPlus'': The ''Siberia Express'' episode - ''Oh boy''. The train interior is [[SarcasmMode rather spacious]] compared to how cramped the RealLife train corridors are. The express is being hauled by a [[CriticalResearchFailure self-propelled railcar]] which aren't powerful enough to haul such long and heavy trains. Its front crudely resembles the Czech-made [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChS2 ChS2 locomotive]]. There is an obligatory rooftop fight scene and nobody seems to mind the electrified catenary conduit a single bit. There's more train-related nonsense but this should be enough.

* Even to a person with little knowledge of steam locomotives, the artistic license taken by ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'' is quite glaring. First of all, the trains in the game are ''tiny'' compared to those in real life, secondly, the Spirit Train has no tender or supply car (Instead sporting a ''cannon'' of all things, which would likely be top heavy enough to tip the entire train over.) The spirit train is also very clean, with no sign of ash or smoke anywhere save for the pretty white puff-balls discharged from the chimney (Which appears to work as a whistle despite a separate whistle being clearly visible on the engine.) The train has no visible infrastructure, never runs out of water or coal, and the tracks have green ties and yellow rails and are insanely narrow. Also, the ties are arranged in a zig-zag pattern. That's several problems found without even having an in-depth knowledge of how locomotives are constructed. However, this is all [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] given the game itself mentions the train itself is [[AWizardDidIt magical]], as well as the fact the tracks themselves are actually magic shackles binding a demon lord that just happen to look like train tracks.
** Aside from the fact that it's a [[AWizardDidIt Spirit Train]], the game does try to justify the flaws in locomotive design by having Anjean, who entrusts the Spirit Train to Link and Zelda, state that the train, a symbol of the spirits, doesn't normally transport ordinary people around.