History Main / JustTrainWrong

** When Grace pulls the emergency brake in the passenger car it should have activated the brakes. Train brakes can be operated operated from any car in an emergency, and don't need the brake throttle [[spoiler: like Gabriel had destroyed]] in the locomotive intact to activate them.

* The subway train scene in ''Film/{{Predator 2}}'' is set on a train in Los Angeles, or rather, a San Francisco [[UsefulNotes/BayAreaRapidTransit BART]] train being passed off as an LACMTA Red Line train. Now, it's kind of justifiable since at the time the film was made (1990), the Los Angeles Metro Red subway line was under construction at the time, and clearly not yet available for the film, which actually takes place in 1997, by which point, the line was opened for 4 years.

* In ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', part of Bond's foot pursuit of Raoul Silva takes place on a Jubilee line train of 1996 Stock that is trying to pass itself off as a subsurface District Line train, which used D78 Stock when the film came out.
** Also, due to both Temple and Embankment being cut and cover stations, their District line platforms in the same tunnel rather than separate ones.

*** Also in ''Skyfall'' in the opening sequence in Turkey, while Bond is chasing after the stolen hard drive; Patrice shoots open the coupling of the train. The railcar Bond is on continues to coast after the train ahead. In reality the separation of the brake hoses on the train would cause the trailing cars Bond was on to begin to immediately apply emergency brakes, bringing him to a quick stop.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne''

* 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 at the Warner Brothers Studios in London and her mainline certification expired, LEGO looked for a similarly painted red locomotive and 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.

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 -- or having no rods to move it or a mishmash of rods and wheels in all the wrong places. 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 instead of 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. And more often than not, in media that may involve trains or railroads in general as part of the premise, the engineer is commonly incorrectly referred to as the "conductor". Conductors look after trains and make sure they are safe to ride on or operate. Engineers instead operate the trains themselves and focus on driving them from one place to another. Another thing many pieces of media get wrong about trains are the coupler designs. Many of these trains are depicted with a very cheaply designed coupling system with two links held together by a dinky little bolt with only one large cap on the top which makes the whole coupler system look like it should belong on a tractor and a trailer.

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 -- or having no rods to move it or a mishmash of rods and wheels in all the wrong places. 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 instead of 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. And more often than not, in media that may involve trains or railroads in general as part of the premise, the engineer is commonly incorrectly referred to as the "conductor". Conductors look after trains and make sure they are safe to ride on or operate. Engineers instead operate the trains themselves and focus on driving them from one place to another.

* There are ''lots'' of ''obvious errors'' in ''Anime/LoveChuunibyoAndOtherDelusions'' like adult characters being shorter than rail gauge[[note]]the distance between rails in a single track[[/note]] which is about one meter in Japan. It's particularly jarring considering how Japanese ''love'' trains.

* Australian films set in the 1930s which require a steam train (such as ''{{Film/Sirens}}'' and ''Film/RabbitProofFence'') will use stock footage from the 1974 film ''A Steam Train Passes''. However, the locomotive featured in ''A Steam Train Passes'' wasn't built until the 1940s.

* 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress'': Things like the rolling stock bending around a mountain peak or a 100% decline, the length of the train keeps varying from five to about a dozen coaches etc etc. And let's not start on the scene with the train crossing the frozen body of water and slithering across the ice like a snake while being steered by changing the rotation of the drivers on the locomotive.[[note]]The usage of alternating forward and reverse to control the train's sliding is actually ''more'' plausible than the most glaring issue to rail enthusiasts: that being that the violent, sudden manner in which the engineer repeatedly switched from forward to reverse and back again should have torn the running gear to pieces.[[/note]] That said, it was explicitly stated to be a "[[AWizardDidIt magic]] train."

** They got the NS logo (the horse and the NS) but ''not'' the distinctive striping on the front of the locomotive. For a railfan, the easy assumption was that it was Russian mobsters in Newark (or some other Rust Belt city).

** It's possible this is a locomotive on loan to a company that operates in Pennsylvania (something railroads sometimes do), but that's highly unlikely to occur on just any random train.

* Read any given English language article on UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail and look for the mistakes. It's fun! Classics include mixing up average and top speeds ("UsefulNotes/{{China}} runs trains at 300 km/h whereas hours only average 50 mph"), calling it "the" or "a" high speed rail, as if the rail itself was somehow high speed (no it's not, "high speed rail" is shorthand for "rail vehicles and technology that allow operation at high speed" the physical line is called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a "high speed ''line''"]]), getting usual ticket costs wrong, weird notions on what a "profitable" rail line means and of course lots and lots of misconceptions on how trains work. No, high speed rail will not simply use the existing single-track infrastructure, no there will be no level crossings with trains passing at 200 mph, no high-speed rail does not use Diesel ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_125 except when it does)]], no high-speed rail does not usually share track with freight. Some of this can be excused by HSR simply not existing in most of the Anglosphere.

* Read any given English language article on UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail and look for the mistakes. It's fun! Classics include mixing up average and top speeds ("UsefulNotes/{{China}} runs trains at 300 km/h whereas hours only average 50 mph"), calling it "the" or "a" high speed rail, as if the rail itself was somehow high speed (no it's not, "high speed rail" is shorthand for "rail vehicles and technology that allow operation at high speed" the physical line is called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a "high speed ''line''"]]), getting usual ticket costs wrong, weird notions on what a "profitable" rail line means and of course lots and lots of misconceptions on how trains work. No, high speed rail will not simply use the existing single-track infrastructure, no there will be no level crossings with trains passing at 200 mph, no high-speed rail does not use Diesel, no high-speed rail does not usually share track with freight. Some of this can be excused by HSR simply not existing in most of the Anglosphere.

** The franshise's 2021 reboot, ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriendsAllEnginesGo'', takes this trope all the way up to 11 and beyond, with the engines and vehicles being far cartoonier than just colors and faces (the engines flat out use their wheels or buffers as limbs at times), and at times can seem like they are made of rubber rather than metal. The size discrepancies between the engines are also worsened.

* In ''Film/TheSwarm'', 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.

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 -- or having no rods to move it or a mishmash of rods and wheels in all the wrong places. 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 instead of 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. And more often than not, in media may involve trains as part of the premise, the engineer is commonly incorrectly referred to as the "conductor". Conductors look after trains and make sure they are safe to ride on or operate. Engineers instead operate the trains themselves and focus on driving them from one place to another.

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 -- or having no rods to move it or a mishmash of rods and wheels in all the wrong places. 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 instead of 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.

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 to choose between this trope and 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.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'' has a mission in its first episode set in a train, and as it was a game in the 90s when 3D levels were still a novelty, it's unsurprisingly rather off. Most notably, it's incredibly wide, there are no doors on the cars, there are walkways stretching all over the place, including the cab, there's no water by the tender, and the only controls inside the cab (which has no windows) is a handful of switches [[NoOSHACompliance that cause the train to derail]] (at which point the developers were pretty clearly taking the piss).

* When a steam engine appears [[RailroadTracksOfDoom to ram the protagonists down]], it will sometimes have a diesel horn blaring rather than a whistle. Or, if it's a diesel barreling down on them, it will blast a steam whistle.

** Considering the [[RealityIsOutToLunch daily]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs routine]] of Nichijou this should go hardly noticed by anyone.

* The ending of the ''WesternAnimation/FraidyCat'' episode "Meaner Than the Junkyard Cat" has Fraidy watching a trainyard with fast diesel trains passing by him. Despite being diesels, the trains have steam whistle sounds, and steam chugging.

* WesternAnimation/{{Garfield}}'s movie has a scene where Garfield infiltrates 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 controller to switch points in front of an approaching train, and the signal system is interlocked to prohibit any movement that might cause a collision.