4.50 from Paddington query

[didcotdean]

Especially difficult since they were also supposed to be relatively close to the coast.

 

[Gloster]

Another example from Christie which is even more egregious is ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans’ from 1934. A character leaves Paddington at 11.30 and after travelling via Bristol gets to a station about three miles from the Denbighshire coast at 5 p.m., still on the same train.

 

[Rescars]

Another example from Christie which is even more egregious is ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans’ from 1934. A character leaves Paddington at 11.30 and after travelling via Bristol gets to a station about three miles from the Denbighshire coast at 5 p.m., still on the same train.

Perhaps a better title might have been "Why Didn't They Ask Bradshaw?"!

 

[Bevan Price]

Another example from Christie which is even more egregious is ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans’ from 1934. A character leaves Paddington at 11.30 and after travelling via Bristol gets to a station about three miles from the Denbighshire coast at 5 p.m., still on the same train.

Most readers of fiction will neither know nor care about the accuracy of train timetables if the content of the novel is "interesting".

 

[Gloster]

Most readers of fiction will neither know nor care about the accuracy of train timetables if the content of the novel is "interesting".

Agreed, although if the error is blatantly obvious it tends to produce a small worm of distrust in the reader’s mind as to author’s general accuracy and competence: it might inadvertently produce a feeling that they aren’t playing fair in a whodunnit. If a cleverly constructed plot contains a technical error, those who understand the relevant subject might be misled and ultimately feel let down: as Poirot reveals all in the study, they say, “But that‘s impossible because... What a swizz!”

Christie’s Death in the Clouds contains a crucial error (nothing to do with trains or planes) that many a reader might have spotted, at least in those days. She referred to it indirectly through Ariadne Oliver (see #50) in a later book.

 

[Winthorpe]

This is a great thread. Reminds me of the debates of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex’. The fictional places are based on real places, but with different names.

It’s great fun, but just need to keep in mind it’s fiction. Still fun for each authors’ fans

 

[Tester]

Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas

Set in the fictional Plummers Park, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the real Carpenders Park

 

[Gloster]

Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas

Set in the fictional Plummers Park, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the real Carpenders Park

Which both have names differing by just letter from a tradesman‘s description. Giving a fictional location that hints at its real counterpart has been done quite frequently: David Lodge’s Rummidge is based on Birmingham and the name is drawn from Brummagem. Best known is probably Eastenders’ Walford, a blending of Walthamstow and Stratford, but Walford Road in Hackney was where one of the series’ creator lived.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Agreed, although if the error is blatantly obvious it tends to produce a small worm of distrust in the reader’s mind as to author’s general accuracy and competence

Indeed. On that basis, I strongly recommend that no one on this list (who presumably has an interest in railways, including but not limited to the London Underground) read Connie Willis' Doomsday books. The same applies to bell ringers and Brits in general, unless you particularly enjoy hurling part-read books across the room.

 

[Skiddaw]

Agreed, although if the error is blatantly obvious it tends to produce a small worm of distrust in the reader’s mind as to author’s general accuracy and competence: it might inadvertently produce a feeling that they aren’t playing fair in a whodunnit. If a cleverly constructed plot contains a technical error, those who understand the relevant subject might be misled and ultimately feel let down: as Poirot reveals all in the study, they say, “But that‘s impossible because... What a swizz!”

Christie’s Death in the Clouds contains a crucial error (nothing to do with trains or planes) that many a reader might have spotted, at least in those days. She referred to it indirectly through Ariadne Oliver (see #50) in a later book.

The blow pipe!!!

 

[StoneRoad]

In the 1980s these were to/from Paddington and Birmingham New Street, but some ran via Solihull and some via Coventry.

And, during the late 1970s ...

I used them every so often when travelling between Chippenham & Coventry.
IIRC some started from Wolverhampton.

Fare was about the same, travel time better in some cases and the stock was usually compartments and something fairly interesting on the front.
I once had a serious conversation with a TI, who was convinced I had travelled via London, when in fact I always changed at Reading. [Ticket wasn't valid via London]

 

[Gloster]

One author who did know his railway onions was Freeman Wills Crofts, but he had been a senior civil engineer on the Belfast & Northern Counties/Northern Counties Committee. Trains do appear in many of his books and in some of them they and their timetables are an important part of the plot. He often used real places, both at home and abroad, but occasionally invented them: one book has a branch line that, if I remember correctly, ran north-east from Hellifield, but that was to serve the small town that had been invented.

Substantial amounts of two of his books were set in a railway environment, though neither are amongst his best. One is set on a widening contract on the Dorset/Devon coast. Part 1 of the other involves the organisation and running of a special train of urgent military supplies to Plymouth. To avoid denigrating either of the railways involved the company is called the Great Southern Railway, based at Padderloo, and two important towns are Readingstoke and Swinleigh. An important and far reaching event in the course of events is caused by a hot box on a loco’s tender.

 

[johnnychips]

Perhaps the most epic detective railway journey is that of Sherlock Holmes’ attempt to evade Moriarty by travelling from London to Switzerland. An attempt was made to recreate it today, and a rather excellent video it is:

 

[norbitonflyer]

Perhaps the most epic detective railway journey is that of Sherlock Holmes’ attempt to evade Moriarty by travelling from London to Switzerland. An attempt was made to recreate it today, and a rather excellent video it is:

Rather worse is "The Holmes Affair" by American author Graham Moore. (Also sold as "The Sherlockian") It's so bad it's funny.
Most of the story is set in the late Victorian era.
He has his hero, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, arrive at Waterloo from Limehouse.
He visits the Reichenberg Falls, walking there from Zermatt in a morning. (It is eighty miles away, and before the opening of the Lotschberg line in the 1930s it would be a day's journey via Lausanne)
Another character travels to London from West Hampstead by the Great Northern Railway, and then takes the Underground, but apparently that went no further than Aldgate so she has to walk to the docks from there.

Other, non-railway, errors
There is a reference to the Queen Mother - no such person had existed since 1669 when Charles II's mother died.
Doyle takes a cab from Clerkenwell to his home in Hindhead and back in one night (a round trip of 90 miles) - the poor horse!
Doyle and his pal Bram Stoker address each other by their first names throughout.
Westminster Abbey and St Pauls Cathedral both have spires
There are monks working at Lambeth Palace
Two people resident in different parishes need an archbishop's licence to marry - No they don't, the Banns just need to be read in both parishes. A bishop's licence is needed if that is impossible (lack of time, one of the parties is not an English resident etc) and an archbishop's licence only if the wedding is to take place in a CofE church other than a parish church (eg a University chapel)
Emily Davison is murdered in the Victorian era - in reality she was alive and well until she invaded the course at the Epsom Derby in 1913.
A labourer drinks "a pint of bitters"
Five old pence in a shilling

Part of the story is set in the 21st century, but the author commits some howlers there too - notably a car chase in London is described which would only make sense if we drove on the right and London's streets were a lot wider than they really are ("weaving from lane to lane" is not possible on Gloucester Road!)
Characters rummaging round the shelves at the British Library
A woman masquerading as a Swiss police officer in Meiringen speaks in Italian. She would be more convincing in that part of Switzerland if she spoke in German

 

[IanD]

I've noticed a lot of fiction is just made up.

 

[cjw714]

Agreed, although if the error is blatantly obvious it tends to produce a small worm of distrust in the reader’s mind as to author’s general accuracy and competence: it might inadvertently produce a feeling that they aren’t playing fair in a whodunnit.

The one that really annoyed me recently was the second series of Slow Horses where someone gets on a train at Oxford Parkway and gets off at Stroud. I know there might be restrictions on where they can film but it still seemed an unnecessarily glaring error.
(I haven't read the original book so don't know if the error was originally in the book as well)

 

[norbitonflyer]

I've noticed a lot of fiction is just made up.

Indeed, but if the author claims to have thoroughly researched something you expect it not to be entirely inconsistent with reality.

Another one - John Grisham's "First Great Train Robbery", based on a real event in the 1850s.

In the book -
- There are French customs officials at Ostend
- The London & Greenwich Railway is an entirely separate operation from the South Eastern
- The Police at Greenwich are a separate force from the Met, and the town is a day's train journey from London (in reality you could walk there in a couple of hours, and there was, then as now, a train every 15 minutes)
- A train with a maximum speed of 50 mph was in Kent within an hour of leaving London Bridge (notwithstanding that Grisham realises that in the 1850s the boat trains ran via Redhill - that being the case it could not have reached the Surrey / Kent border near Godstone in that time)
- The Folkestone boat trains have the same guard, and the same schedule, every day. I would have hoped a novelist would be familiar with the life story of Charles Dickens, and the circumstances that led to his life-shortening accident at Staplehurst.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas

Set in the fictional Plummers Park, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the real Carpenders Park

Which caused a real stir in Carpenders Park when the book was published as the real identity of most of the characters in the book could be identified. It led to some very awkward family conversations.

The comment about Walford and Eastenders reminds me that they have used Watford a lot for filming (t becomes l), the North Watford Cemetery and Watford Town Hall being the most regularly used locations.

 

[Taunton]

He has his hero, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, arrive at Waterloo from Limehouse.

Sir Arthur regularly managed such feats! He was no mean railway buff himself, it appears, and indeed wrote a number of railway-centric stories, such as "The Lost Special". A particular delight was to have characters leave London from the "Wrong" station, always just slightly adjacent, like leaving for Luton from Euston. A whole article in a past Railway World was devoted to someone who had gone through and catalogued them all. In "Silver Blaze" Holmes and Watson have a detailed discussion about different methods each used for a passenger to time a train, by counting either the telegraph poles, or stopwatching the quarter-mileposts in best Cecil J Allen style.

Detailed knowledge of Bradshaw seems to have been a common well-educated Victorian form of railway enthusiasm, from the times before loco spotters. Headmaster of one prominent public school of the era was known for giving out, as a minor punishment not quite requiring his cane, a Bradshaw and an instruction to find the best way from, say, Aberystwyth to Whitby. When offered next day for inspection he would announce the optimum actual answer off the top of his head.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Aberystwyth to Whitby? Well, considerably easier than today! Through Cambrian service to Manchester (LR) via Whitchurch then Mcr (Vic) - York, York - Malton and Malton - Whitby.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Detailed knowledge of Bradshaw seems to have been a common well-educated Victorian form of railway enthusiasm, from the times before loco spotters. Headmaster of one prominent public school of the era was known for giving out, as a minor punishment not quite requiring his cane, a Bradshaw and an instruction to find the best way from, say, Aberystwyth to Whitby. When offered next day for inspection he would announce the optimum actual answer off the top of his head.

Similarb to the Railway Game which features in an episode of All Gas and Gaiters

 

[Tester]

Similarb to the Railway Game which features in an episode of All Gas and Gaiters

I remember that!

 

[Mogz]

Does the five minute 1962 BTF film Lets Go To Birmingham follow this route?

Let's Go to Birmingham | Replay

player.bfi.org.uk

If so @Skiddaw might want to view it. It’s a speeded up cab ride in a Blue Pullman train.

I love that film!

I have it on DVD and the great thing about it is that you can freeze-frame and see what many places looked like way back when.

Banbury station has hardly changed!

 

[WesternLancer]

I love that film!

I have it on DVD and the great thing about it is that you can freeze-frame and see what many places looked like way back when.

Banbury station has hardly changed!

I'm guessing Banbury station was pretty new in 1962 after the re-build. rather impressive that it remains substantially unchanged I would think

 

[Gloster]

I'm guessing Banbury station was pretty new in 1962 after the re-build. rather impressive that it remains substantially unchanged I would think

It was rebuilt between 1956 and 1958.

 

[exile]

My favourite transport-related movie goof is in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" when Robin arrives at Dover and announces that he will be in Nottingham by nightfall. Presumably he had a motor bike hidden in the bushes.

 

[Gloster]

My favourite transport-related movie goof is in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" when Robin arrives at Dover and announces that he will be in Nottingham by nightfall. Presumably he had a motor bike hidden in the bushes.

No, he used the Golden Arrow.

 

[WesternLancer]

It was rebuilt between 1956 and 1958.

Thanks.

 

[Skiddaw]

No, he used the Golden Arrow.

I really wish I'd said that.....

 

[Railcar]

Research for stories is needed for 'there and back' journeys. For example, in a short story that I wrote, the main characters (Rosie and Robbie) travel to work from their home in Ratcliff (East London) to Canary Wharf by the Docklands Light Railway. At the time the story was set (Covid lockdown), it was two stops from Limehouse to Canary Wharf and three on the return!