Greetings family, friends, and train buddies. We go "Back to the Future" for today's rambling and the backstory of Doc Brown's Time Train......Bill 

Railroad Ramblings

DOC BROWN’S TIME TRAIN

8. G. Wells published his post-apocalyptic science fiction novel in 1895 establishing the premise that travel forward and backward through time was possible with the use of a specially designed devices or vehicles, coining the term “time machine”. Endless variations of these fanciful devices have appeared in popular culture in the ensuing decades including cars and trains, but none more entertaining than Doc Brown’s Time Train in the final scenes of Back To The Future Part lII.

Dr. Emmitt Brown and his family return from the past in his steam powered time machine locomotive to meet up with Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker in the present. Despite being built with relatively primitive materials of the late 1800’s, Doc Brown’s time train is assumed to be the culmination of ten years of extensive work based on the technology of the original Delorean time machine complete with successful temporal displacement, operating flux converter and with the addition of hover conversion. The location of the films closing scene was the earlier site of the explosion of Sierra Railway’s 1897 Rogers 4-6-0 “movie” locomotive pushing Marty in the Delorean after barely reaching the required 88 mph for time travel.

The design of the Doc Brown’s Time Train was loosely based on Jules Verne’s Nautilus Submarine in Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and constructed in miniature, full size, and in digital versions by Universal Studios. Based on the dimensions of Sierra Railway’s movie Locomotive used extensively in the scenes in and around Jamestown CA, the static Time Train was filmed on the Ventura County Railway with digital animation effects added later.

Doc Brown’s Time Train is “permanently” on display at Universal Studios Orlando.     -Bill   11/23