Honestly, I have so much to say about this film and bits I cut from the script that I might do a directors commentary

One of my favorite silly details about this movie is that, when he's riding the horse along the top of the train, he manages to ride at full gallop for several minutes and only seems to move about halfway down the length of the train.

When I saw the title of this, I thought this was an actual 'Everything Wrong With' type video. I will admit a number of the trains scenes in this film are over the top and may have resulted in the movie going over budget, but the amount passion and dedication that was put into them really does show.

Shoutout to ToT for putting up with my ADHD brain and me not realizing when things were happening and making editing the least fun. Great video, mate! I've had similar ideas for other films for years...

Meanwhile in a parallel universe there's an equivalent "Shipload of thought" channel ranting about the incorrectly rigged vessels in the Pirates franchise!

Great video as always, ToT

I didn’t realize I needed a Hyce and Train of Thought crossover, but now that we have it, I hope y’all make more videos together

OK, I read about a filmmaker wanting a field scene to be realistic, so he bought a farm, sowed, left it to grow, shot the scene, harvested, sold the crops and the farm and turned profit, even before the film released, but here they're buliding entire flipping railroad just for a few scenes! Man film making is crazy :D

The climax of this film is for my money the best train chase in cinema history. It’s dynamic, fast paced, as epic music, and culminates in a lot of dynamic train shots. I’m aware that the Jupiter replica isn’t fully accurate and rail laws are ignored, but the whole scene is a lot of fun. I’ll never truly understand why people have so much hatred for the 2013 Lone Ranger.

Makes you wonder how much detail Walt Disney would have done to make the trains scene more realistic.

This movie is basically proof that you can't measure the quality of a project by the size of its budget. I have a soft spot for it in places, but it would have been so much better had it maintained the same pace, tone and energy that the train chase climax had. The historical and technical accuracy irks me to no end, but finding accuracy in a Disney project is like trying to find a vegan who likes beef.

When it comes to movies, I usually prioritize the “Rule of Cool” over accuracy. But the boiler being on fire, that bugs me!

please do more of this, im very interested in breaking down train portrayals in movies

BRO WAS COOKING 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️📣📣📣📣📣📣📣

26 minute of train of thoughts...YES

That Hyce bit is priceless.

20:53 The best part BEGINSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Okay.  I need to add more.

First, the train would not be moving that quickly with that many buffalo around it.  (and that's an incredibly small herd of buffalo for 1869)  In reality, there would be AT LEAST ten times as many buffalo-contemporary reports talk about them filling the horizon in every direction, and taking more than a day to pass.  When encountering a herd of buffalo, standard procedure was to come to a stop-colliding with a single buffalo would cause a total wreck.  Charging into a buffalo herd like that would be suicidal-literally.  

And buffalo wouldn't be living in terrain like that without any grass to eat.

Then, there's the fact that the train is digging into the ground and flipping over.  As Hyce noted in one of his videos, commenting on a US Army rail sabotage documentary, trains can deal with a surprising amount of non-trackage.  Not to mention the whole Canadian National temporary generator story.  I think somebody made a video about that:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWYbD2ga8DM

Regarding stealth track construction-there is actually precedence for it.  Somewhat.

There was the construction of a terminal facility at Promontory Summit-the railroad that built a siding there first could claim terminal rights, so one company sent a team out in darkness, and they managed to build a siding AND A WYE before dawn.

Then there are the many examples of companies building tracks across other lines' rights of way in various "Frog Wars".  Or building across the land of objecting property owners.  Really, you have to appreciate just how empty and unpopulated large parts of the US are, even today.  There are reports of lines being built in secret and presented as a fait accompli.  Admittedly, I can't think of any that were built and then HIDDEN, but I suppose it could happen.

Interesting fact-the first electric toy train was invented by Joshua Lionel Cowen (he changed his name from Cohen) in 1900.  He sold it to a store to run in circles in a display window advertising a product.  It got plenty of offers-but for the train instead of the product it was supposed to be advertising!

The completion of the transcontinental railroad was (rightly) celebrated across the entire US.  It's not inconceivable that the banner is commemorating this, or that the banner was left over from those celebrations (it does look rather oddly worn).

The presence of the Jupiter is actually not entirely inaccurate.  The Southern Pacific was created by the owners of the Central Pacific, and the two were inextricably linked from Day 1.  After an IMMENSE amount of (sometimes rather questionable) corporate shenanigans (enough to fill several books and a couple feature films), the SP ended up being the owning body and the Central Pacific was folded into it.  The corporate entity of the Central Pacific came to an end in the 1920s, but it was nothing more than a few pieces of paper decades before that.  As a result of this corporate entanglement, the Jupiter could very easily have been dispatched to Texas.  As it was, it ended its days in Arizona in the early 20th Century, honored by its crew (who knew its history), but not by anybody else.  So the Jupiter being in Texas could have been feasible.

The BIG issue is that there would have been no reason for any "stealth" to begin with.  Historically, when valuable resources were discovered on land belonging to one of the Native peoples, the US simply dispatched the army to remove them, with the full cooperation of the railroads-when they didn't request the removal themselves to begin with.  Even if the land had been set aside for those people in a treaty with the US Government, said treaties were basically worthless scraps of paper only acknowledged when it was convenient.  The railroad owners would simply buy up the land or use other bureaucratic means to ensure that they got as much of a cut as possible.  There would be no need to resort to working with nutjobs for something like this.

7:50 YOOO ITS HYCE THE ABSOLUTE GOAT LETS GO

“Im glad they built trains but they used em wrong”

-everyone ever

The ladder to the passenger car roof is actually something that I can account for.

Some passenger cars carried water (for washing and drinking).  While some cars used an on-board container, others (especially more deluxe cars) used a built-in tank for more capacity.  In an attempt to get at least a modicum of pressure, water was poured into this tank from a hatch on the roof.  A hose would be snaked up to this hatch for filling.  I have seen contemporary images (admittedly, drawings) of this, and I do somewhat recall seeing a ladder on the car.

So, the passenger car roof ladder is acceptable.

That said, the under-frames of all of the passengers is much too substantial.  Though that can probably be waved for safety/stability reasons.