Next summer, Disney plans to release this movie starring Johnny Depp. There's just something about this picture I just can't get past...actually two things.
If The Lone Ranger was set in "the old west" why is the steam locomotives tender filled with coal?
Presumably this is a locomotive tender, why is the forward end not facing the rear of the locomotive towards its cab?
Did they really need all that coal just for pot bellied stoves?

Shhhhh! You're not supposed to notice things like that! Or hey, maybe it's one of those "inspection" locomotives with the passenger car body constructed around the locomotives boiler.

Les

I suspect that the reversed tender is due to the movie crews being familiar with the Sierra Railroad. Take a look at this photo of #8.

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/177722/

See, the "notched part" of the tender faces the cab.

Yes, I know, it's a different type of tender, and it's backwards, but these are props, and the prop masters get stuff wrong.

Some weeks ago, there was a Disney crew at the Santa Anita racetrack parking lot in Arcadia CA, with two "locomotive" props and an assortment of freight and passenger cars of that era. They built a "blue screen" wall that was about 40 feet high and a wooden trestle with a prop passenger car on it. I was told that this setup was for "pickup shots" to fill in gaps in the action where the principal actors were not needed. Most of the railroad action was in Arizona and/or New Mexico. One source mentioned the film budget as $225,000,000, and after seeing just the month-long production in Arcadia, I suspect that's on the low side. I'm not sure who the target audience is for the movie--some railfans will probably attend just to see the railroad scenes on a big screen (and give "howls of derisive laughter" at the anachronisms and errors). Will anyone in my age bracket, who remembers the TV series and even the radio version go to the show? Johnny Depp as Tonto gives the show a "bankable star", but does that translate into full theaters? By this time next year the answers will be known.

"Will anyone in my age bracket, who remembers the TV series and even the radio version go to the show?"

Not likely for me, partially because of my current money situation (yes, it's that bad right now).

Of course, the originals, as popular as they were in the day, weren't what you would call the best productions in the world. They were also aimed at a rather young audience, not quite as young as Thomas the Tank Engine, but down well below what would normally be a target audience today.

Got to see a classic western recently by the way, and one with some good (if limited) railroad action in it--"Dodge City," a 1939 Warner Brothers film in Technicolor. Stars included Errol Flynn, Olivia DeHaviland, Ann Sheridan, Alan Hale, Sr., and Sierra Railroad No. 18. The Sierra Railroad stood in for Kansas in 1866 and 1872. Anachronisms we would chuckle at today include air brakes, AAR couplers, and a headlight generator on the 18, which of course was also wearing the required fake diamond stack and funny paint. Still a good movie, though, with some funny lines in between gunplay, particularly between Flynn and Hale.

Afraid I can't find any of the too-brief rail sequences, but here are the clips I could find, including one of the most spectacular barroom fights you've ever seen, and another sequence featuring Flynn and DeHaviland (huffa, huffa, huffa--don't tell my wife I said that!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2GIirKPy6g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWfpdtfX24

Didn't color film work look great in 1939? Oh, why didn't somebody adapt "One Way To Eldorado" back then?

And I still don't understand why Hollywood is still apparently unable to see the potential of something like this today, instead of trying to revive a long-dead television and radio franchise and having at best mixed results (see "The Green Hornet," "The Phantom," "Dick Tracy," "Starskey and Hutch", and others). At the horrendous cost this thing is having, I wouldn't be surprised if the studio lost money on this one, at least in its original release. I wonder if the creative juices have really dried up out there. . .

its a short tender with the fuel all the way to the back, but look at the rivets...ahhhh

wheres the water...

...ooops rivet counter here ...:)

I guess the same thing can be said about Sierra #3 in Back To The Future III. It was supposed to be 1885. Didn't railroads of that time use hook couplers and not the ones we currently have?
Oh well...that's the 'magic' of Hollywood I guess.
But this IS a strange picture!!

That's Tonto? Can't wait for this one to show up on TV so I can watch something else.

Later!
Mr. Ed

The bit about coal in an "Old West" setting for a locomotive isn't that far off from reality. I have a book on the Carson and Colorado (Southern Pacific's little Narrow Gauge Line that at its height ran between Mound House, Nevada along the Virginia & Truckee, and Owenyo to connect with the SP and south to Keeler, CA for those of you who don't know) NG, and there are pictures of around the last turn of the century showing not only coal burning locomotives, but the facilities there for such locomotives showing it wasn't uncommon to have such engines.

U. P. #119 was burning coal at the golden spike ceremony in 1869.

Didn't know that. At least I learned something from this thread!

The U.P. was burning coal from the very start in 1866. Not much wood for fuel in the great plains. Even getting enough for ties was a very big problem, one that they solved by using half as many as they should have. And besides, they knew that they would be building through areas that had good deposits of coal.

Very privileged to attend a seminar for the film majors at my school in Montana. About a month ago, Martin Schaer came in to talk to us about his career. He shot all of Gore Verbinski's big movies (including the Pirates movies and The Lone Ranger, as well as all of Tony Scott's movies starting from Enemy of the State and including Unstoppable.)

He talked (much to my great luck) a lot about some of the train shots in The Lone Ranger. (They just finished shooting it several months ago.) Hate to break it to you but there's no live steam used while shooting the movie...

But that doesn't mean the production crew didn't do a phenomenal job creating a fake steam engine! Here's some points I remember.

-shooting the steam engine scenes were in 2 locations. desert in New mexico, mountains in Colorado.
-There was 2 locations: desert and mountain.
-in the desert they took some old steam engine, put it on some stretch of track they build, and painted it and greased up the running gear, and installed some form of a diesel engine to push in the tender. Originally they attempted to use fog machines for the "steam" in the stack but Gore decided to contract with ILM (lucasfilms in Marin County CA) to add all the steam effects in post pro.
-in the mountain scenes Gore decided to scrap the "train on the track" system entirely...they built the upper parts of the engine on trucks, racing through the mountains...the rest of the train and the right of way they race by...all added in post.

He talked a lot about working with Gore and used some of the things he worked on as examples...

Nevertheless I can't wait to see the movie just to see how good the CGI is...and if there's some other details not so accurate, other than the coal in the tender...

I am also curious if anyone knows what steam engine they used in Colorado to convert to the diesel "pusher."

I also got Martin's email...so if you have any questions you can post them here and I'll forward them...

Look! The dickey really can go around the rear of the tender, unless Baldwin made movie props too...

I'll have to check my old photos, but I'm reasonably sure the "woodburning" era didn't last long in California. Wood is labor-intensive and doesn't have the BTUs per cubic foot that coal does. I recall stories of coal coming to California from Australia in sailing ships, sometimes as "ballast" to keep the windjammers on the proverbial "even keel". Any "old salts" out there who can confirm this, or tell me "It's just a sea story"?