Couple of new trailers for the Lone Ranger pic. Looks like we're in for a full on prop train massacre!

I guess baggage cars can fly down the track sideways:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVn9zjUqxJA

The end of this one explains why that engine sliding on its side didn't have a drive rod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjFsNSoDZK8

You obviously never heard of multi-track drifting, how elce do you take a sharp corner at speed on a train? See videos for more examples.

http://youtu.be/3fITk2lj1_w?t=1m19s

http://youtu.be/86PUB4u2s2A?t=27s

Would the forces involved even allow for a rod to fly off in that manner, and that far?

It's. A. Movie. Where people go to escape reality and be "entertained" by implausibility.

Back in the 60s, there were some "other" ways to do that, LOL.

Howard P.

I'm aware of that! First thing we covered in film school lectures last year, and I knew it coming in anyway.....My question was simply an inquiry as to whether a rod could actually fly off that way, and if a known occurrence has ever happened in conjunction with an accident...

I think this is just Hollywood hokum, as usual. What photos and things I've found of locomotives that lost machinery like this is that the rods, if under enough stress to bend, just bend; they don't spring like this. They certainly don't fly around like what the movie people did. Keep in mind that a locomotive rod is more like a girder than a spring, indeed a girder of rather heavy proportion.

As to the movie, I don't know what to think of it. There looks to be a nice number of jokes to leaven the action and drama ("There's something seriously wrong with that horse" is Depp's comment about Silver being in a tree), the rail sequences themselves look good where the trains are doing what trains are supposed to do (just run down the track), but things like the flying main rod and cars sliding sideways on the track for what must be a mile are more than a little far-fetched.

Would it be possible to film something like "One Way To Eldorado" or "Held For Orders" for a budget of, say, $30 million to $70 million and have it look right and make money?