Car vs Train: BBC Top Gear race the California Zephyr

[D.P. Roberts]

Pure speculation on my part, but I'm going to go one step further and say the "race" never happens. Let me explain...

It's not news: it's entertainment. And it works! I get a kick out of the show, but I don't take it as serious.

I agree with you, especially in terms of the filming. Every challenge is set up to be "even", even if it wouldn't be even in the real world, like your tank example. Another one would be the car that tried to outrun radar lock from a helicopter. As they even pointed out, in a real battle the helicopter wouldn't have tried to follow the car, it would have just popped up from behind the trees, gotten a radar lock on the car, and blew it up.

They have a lot of other artificial rules as well. My favorite is that in the trains vs cars competitions, the train riders always have to walk to a bus stop, wait for a bus, take a bus to the train station, etc. Apparently (they have mentioned this several times on the show), it's common in Britain for people to drive to the nearest train station, and then take the train into the city (being that it's too congested & parking is too expensive in the city). If the "train" guys were allowed to do this, they'd beat the car guy every time. This shows that as a real transportation alternative, regional trains can make a huge amount of sense, but they refuse to acknowledge this, as it would ruin their point that trains are bad and cars are good.

Secondly, they're wrong about every comparison between public transportation & cars. Considering that planes and trains are already scheduled and are going to cross the country with or without you, the incremental cost of your trip (in its carbon impact, energy use, or whatever you want to calculate) is negligible for a train or plane, but enormous if you drive your car. If I'm going to travel across the country, my only environmental impact is the additional weight (my luggage plus myself) that the plane or train takes on. If I choose to drive, I'm adding an additional 2000 pounds of material to be transported (and, depending on who's doing the calculating, it will operate less efficiently as well). Transporting ten times as much material will always be less efficient. It's a no-brainer.

Don't get me wrong, I love Top Gear. It's enormously entertaining. But one of the reasons I like it is that they're always presenting their completely biased, best case scenario for a car vs a train (in time, money, environmental impact, or whatever), and they still can't make a car look good.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Pure speculation on my part, but I'm going to go one step further and say the "race" never happens. Let me explain...

It's not news: it's entertainment. And it works! I get a kick out of the show, but I don't take it as serious.

I agree with you, especially in terms of the filming. Every challenge is set up to be "even", even if it wouldn't be even in the real world, like your tank example. Another one would be the car that tried to outrun radar lock from a helicopter. As they even pointed out, in a real battle the helicopter wouldn't have tried to follow the car, it would have just popped up from behind the trees, gotten a radar lock on the car, and blew it up.

They have a lot of other artificial rules as well. My favorite is that in the trains vs cars competitions, the train riders always have to walk to a bus stop, wait for a bus, take a bus to the train station, etc. Apparently (they have mentioned this several times on the show), it's common in Britain for people to drive to the nearest train station, and then take the train into the city (being that it's too congested & parking is too expensive in the city). If the "train" guys were allowed to do this, they'd beat the car guy every time. This shows that as a real transportation alternative, regional trains can make a huge amount of sense, but they refuse to acknowledge this, as it would ruin their point that trains are bad and cars are good.

Secondly, they're wrong about every comparison between public transportation & cars. Considering that planes and trains are already scheduled and are going to cross the country with or without you, the incremental cost of your trip (in its carbon impact, energy use, or whatever you want to calculate) is negligible for a train or plane, but enormous if you drive your car. If I'm going to travel across the country, my only environmental impact is the additional weight (my luggage plus myself) that the plane or train takes on. If I choose to drive, I'm adding an additional 2000 pounds of material to be transported (and, depending on who's doing the calculating, it will operate less efficiently as well). Transporting ten times as much material will always be less efficient. It's a no-brainer.

Don't get me wrong, I love Top Gear. It's enormously entertaining. But one of the reasons I like it is that they're always presenting their completely biased, best case scenario for a car vs a train (in time, money, environmental impact, or whatever), and they still can't make a car look good.

I agree. This is just entertainment. People will do this if it's popular and they make money out of it, even if it's not realistic.

 

[Anderson]

My understanding is that it's not that the races are "scripted" in the sense that the outcome is predetermined (and the car has lost both a few major contests and a number of the lesser challenges), but rather that the parameters are set up such that it will be close. For example, on the Race to the North, had they been able to use the highways the car would have won...but by contrast, had the Tornado been able to actually open up on the tracks to speeds allowed back in the 50s (they were badly speed-limited) and been unable to use some of the bypasses available today, the train would have taken the contest in a walk. Basically, they set up a close contest with the rules and methods of travel and play it up with camera cuts and the like.

Wait, wait, when did the car lose on Top Gear? I believe you, I'm just interested to know.

Of the "big races", you've got the London race (the bike won and the car came last) and the powerboat vs. Ferarri race (the boat won). On the "other contests", you've got a lot of them, but a couple of examples would be the car being beaten by the mail, by rock climbers, and by a jet engine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_Races

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

My understanding is that it's not that the races are "scripted" in the sense that the outcome is predetermined (and the car has lost both a few major contests and a number of the lesser challenges), but rather that the parameters are set up such that it will be close. For example, on the Race to the North, had they been able to use the highways the car would have won...but by contrast, had the Tornado been able to actually open up on the tracks to speeds allowed back in the 50s (they were badly speed-limited) and been unable to use some of the bypasses available today, the train would have taken the contest in a walk. Basically, they set up a close contest with the rules and methods of travel and play it up with camera cuts and the like.

Wait, wait, when did the car lose on Top Gear? I believe you, I'm just interested to know.

Of the "big races", you've got the London race (the bike won and the car came last) and the powerboat vs. Ferarri race (the boat won). On the "other contests", you've got a lot of them, but a couple of examples would be the car being beaten by the mail, by rock climbers, and by a jet engine:

http://en.wikipedia..../Top_Gear_Races

By the mail?! What was that about?

 

[sportbiker]

By the mail?! What was that about?

The wiki link is your friend. Click it and behold:

Car vs. Royal Mail: Hammond and May drove a Porsche Panamera in a race against a letter delivered by Royal Mail from the Isles of Scilly toOrkney. Winner: Royal MailSeries Thirteen, Episode Four

 

[Anderson]

Another thought: The races could easily happen, followed by some staged pickup shots on bridges and so forth. Of course, there are a lot of races where they can probably peg crossings to within an hour or so (and/or alert the helicopter crew when they're at a point X time out to get in the air), but nothing is saying that a shot of the car crossing the bridge is necessarily them crossing the bridge, or that it's during the race, I'm fairly certain there's at least a chase car, and I wouldn't be surprised if they've got a few camera teams they can pre-position for these races.

Also...those big races are about one per series and Top Gear seems to be a pretty big budget show as-is. Considering the cost of the car rentals, insurance, etc. for a normal show, they seem to have some room in their budget to run a decent number of pickup shots, etc.

 

[caravanman]

Hi,

I guess I gave my posting the wrong emphasis when I said scripted... I meant that in my opinion most all the silly or entertaining mishaps, stunts, and things that look like accidental outcomes are pre arranged. Nothing wrong with that as pure entertainment, just rather silly when ott slapstick antics are presented as a documentry item.

Ed

 

[domefoamer]

I adore BBC Top Gear (we won't talk about the US per-version, let's keep this a positive thread). I love it like I love trains-- just have a fascination with transportation, I suppose.

Random thoughts on this discussion-

- BBC Top Gear is rumored to spend as much as $1 million to produce an episode. Whether dollars or pounds, that's a lot. They've mastered the use of small remote cameras, so I'd expect that most of their quick racing cuts and much of the rest were done with no live cameraman present. Helicopter shots are omnipresent & ubiquitous (I'm starting to talk like May here), so they may have their own whirlybird and pilot on staff. Point is, they're not resource-costrained.

-- Sportbiker's theory of leapfrogging film crews makes a lot of sense. It's possible to film additional scenes after the real race, as Anderson suggests, but TG's overall level of visual continuity is high enough to suggest that most of what they do away from their home track is real-time and first-take.

-- This race's photographs omit everything that's scenic about the CZ through Colorado, like the Tunnel District and Glenwood Canyon. They needed to follow the Colorado River from Gore Canyon overlook to Dotsero. In '83, I chased the last run of the Rio Grande Zephyr down that winding dirt road. That was a real race! I was in a Honda Civic station wagon, among a knot of three cars trying, and failing, to get ahead of the train for another photo. Pushing 60 mph on that dirt road was the closest I've ever come to ballsy, tail-out Top Gear driving.

-- Basically, they ignored the CZ itself. It was treated like the Stig, a silent competitor of no interest beyond its lap time. I want to see Clarkson hoisting his lanky butt up into a Roomette upper bunk, because May won the coin toss, then sleeping in coach the second night because the sleeper was bad-ordered. While Hammond's waiting for a rockslide to be cleared from I-70.

-- Until that dream episode emerges, you might want to check out James's side series, showing on BBC America currently. In "James May's Toy Stories," TG's Captain Slow assembles jolly bands of volunteers and geeks to blow up toys to giant scale. They create an outdoor model railroad eight miles long, restoring "rail service" between two towns.

 

[Anderson]

Domefoamer,

That chase sounds like one of those stories we all seem to acquire as the years go by. I'm sorry you didn't get your photos, but it sounds like it was a hell of a day.

With that said, I'm actually going to agree with your criticism of the Zephyr being ignored...and it would have been nice to see a bedraggled Hammond staggering into the station at the end of his nearly non-stop drive while May and Clarkson are coming off the train refreshed. Granted, that would have done wonders for undermining the show's general car focus...but it would certainly ring true to all of us!

 

[domefoamer]

Oh, I got some pic all right, but my enduring memory of the RGZ is how the round-end Observation car would wink at me as it ducked around corners of the State Bridge Road. Although its speed was modest, the train had the best route, in the valley, while my road wound up and over a longer route. The TG crew could get great footage here; I'm volunteering as location consultant.

Previous Top Gear races have featured races with the stars actually riding the train. In Japan, they puzzled over schedules in the absence of English, and took the wrong one. And don't forget the one where they made trains out of cars and caravans (small travel trailers) and ran them on the rails...