Car vs Train: BBC Top Gear race the California Zephyr

[Paulus]

This was a pleasant surprise to run across. Won't spoil it, but it's quite close.

 

[Ted Bell]

This was a great read. Was it also on their show, or will it be?

 

[caravanman]

Speaking as a Brit, I must apologise for the existence of Top Gear, a highly scripted bunch of posh boys pretending to be off the wall regular guys, and getting so far up my nose they give me a headache! Grrrrrr!

Ed

 

[the_traveler]

Apology accepted Ed. The only BBC show that I really care about is Dr Who, and there are many Whovians around!

 

[amtrakwolverine]

I like dr who But I also like top gear. It might be somewhat scripted but I think alot of the pranks and stuff are real.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Yeah, yeah, in Top Gear the car always wins all the races.

 

[Ted Bell]

Speaking as a Brit, I must apologise for the existence of Top Gear, a highly scripted bunch of posh boys pretending to be off the wall regular guys, and getting so far up my nose they give me a headache! Grrrrrr!

Love Top Gear. Of course it's scripted, what good show isn't?

 

[Shortline]

Best BBC show ever was "Keeping Up Appearances" that show was brilliant!

Good Lord, a thread can spin off topic fast around here, can't it???

 

[Ryan]

Top Gear is officially awesome.

Would love to see this in an episode.

 

[D.P. Roberts]

The Zephyr, Top Gear, and In-N-Out - what a great combination!

Even though I'm a huge fan of Top Gear, they are certainly biased against trains. I think this article is a fairly realistic look at a real car-vs-train journey. Do you want to spend your time caffeine-fogged, bleary-eyed, and queasy from gas station food, or relaxed, refreshed, and awed by the beautiful scenery that you actually had time to enjoy?

 

[sportbiker]

This was a great read. Was it also on their show, or will it be?

Did you read the article while on the Website? All I can see are the first two paragraphs and the gallery.

 

[Amtrak Cajun]

I read that article, it was amusing.

Personally, a bit OT, but, my favorite BBC show is Traffic Cops UK. We can catch the episodes online here in the US.

 

[KWBud]

Did you read the article while on the Website? All I can see are the first two paragraphs and the gallery.

The story is in the captions for the pictures in the gallery, so you have to click through the gallery to read the entire thing.

--

Bud

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Speaking as a Brit, I must apologise for the existence of Top Gear, a highly scripted bunch of posh boys pretending to be off the wall regular guys, and getting so far up my nose they give me a headache! Grrrrrr!

Love Top Gear. Of course it's scripted, what good show isn't?

It's entertaining, I'll give them that. Unfortunately the car reviews appear to be scripted before the car even arrives, up to and even including total breakdowns that didn't actually occur in real life but are presented without explanation on the show. I guess a more accurate term than scripted would be outright fabricated. Today it's strictly an entertainment show that started out as a more of an information show and still pretends to have informative advice that's basically useless for 99% of the audience and still rather suspect for the 1% who can actually afford most of the cars they review.

 

[Paulus]

 

[Amtrak Cajun]

Ahahahahaha, I remember seeing that one on TV, I loved the beach assault.

"Would it be more comfortable if you just shot out of the window? They are electric".

 

[Karl1459]

Actually its a great article. Both for car lovers and train lovers.

Yes, you can team drive and beat the train... but you are beat when you arrive, the train passengers refreshed.

btw i think the parameters of the "race" are you have to go to every station the train serves... simply doing an I-80 marathon would be "cheating".

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Actually its a great article. Both for car lovers and train lovers.

Yes, you can team drive and beat the train... but you are beat when you arrive, the train passengers refreshed.

btw i think the parameters of the "race" are you have to go to every station the train serves... simply doing an I-80 marathon would be "cheating".

I guess they had to use US 34 to FMG. They couldn't parallel the train through the Rockies because it has an exclusive route, but probably had to go through Glenwood Canyon then up on US 6. Finally, they sped west on I&D 80 because that was paved over US 40.

 

[calwatch]

It looks like this was just a feature for the magazine, and did not include the gang from Britain.

 

[ScottRu]

I think the "Stig" is actually an engineer for Amtrak!

 

[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.

 

[sportbiker]

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

If the "race" occurred as-filmed, it would mean pre-positioning camera crews at dozens of locations along the route. Given set-up and take-down time, there's no practical way one or two crews could leapfrog the target vehicles, set-up, wait for the vehicle(s) to pass, tear-down, drive faster than the targets to the next stop, set up, etc. The only way it could physically be done is one crew per location, and that's so outrageously expensive as to not even be within the realm of sanity.

Instead, consider this. The "race" is all scripted/storyboarded ahead of time, at the office. Then location scouts travel the scripted route to find camera locations. For production, two camera crews go out: one to the first location, followed later by the other crew to the second location. Filming takes place at the first location. That may involve several passes of one stretch of road to get just the right take, which could occupy quite a bit of time. During this time, the second crew sets up at the next location. Back at the first location, a GoPro inside the car records the internal sequences, which have also been scripted from the beginning. When filming is done at the first location, the car/s move to the second location and begin filming there while the first crew breaks down and moves to the third location then sets up. Etc. Given how long it takes to film one minute of final product, two crews could film the entire piece doing a leapfrog.

There were two films that really convinced me of this: one involved driving over a very long, very modern cable-stay bridge located part-way in the route. Scenic, swoopy exterior shots came from a helicopter-mounted camera. Were the race "actual," it would mean the helicopter would have to be stationed at the bridge ahead of time, burning hundered of pounds an hour, just waiting for the target cars to show, and then being at the mercy of existing weather and traffic on the bridge for the single pass. No production company is going to spend that much money on speculation. That bridge shot was meticulously planned to the minute as an isolated event, to minimize helicopter expense and maximime usable footage.

The other film involved some SUVs playing hide-and-seek with army tanks on a firing range. Supposedly, the SUVs could travel anywhere on the range doing whatever random avoidance maneuvers they wanted in order not to be shot by the tanks. Yet in all this chaos, producers somehow managed to get awesome close-up action shot after awesome close-up action shot, including from fixed ground-mounted cameras. Do you think they had 100 cameras positioned so that if a car passed from that angle they would get a shot? Or that they had several camera trucks dodging and weaving the other vehicles to get the takes? More likely is the producers had their shot list and one or two crews skipping from location to location within the range, filming an SUV doing a rooster tail here, a slide there, then the whole thing was stiched together.

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.

 

[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.

 

[Agent]

I saw this train! A #5 led by Amtrak 155 and two other P42s pulling thirteen cars including three private varnishes (longest Zephyr I've ever filmed). This train left Chicago on August 13, 2012. Looking at the Amtrak Status Maps archive, it says #5 left Chicago fourteen minutes late, even though the article says it was a half hour late.



I also find it interesting that he mentions, "one section of the I-80 Westbound between Des Moines and Omaha is 70 miles dead straight," but in the next parargraph state they went through all the towns in southern Iowa which are on Highway 34. You can't take both those routes in one trip and expect to beat a train.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I also find it interesting that he mentions, "one section of the I-80 Westbound between Des Moines and Omaha is 70 miles dead straight," but in the next parargraph state they went through all the towns in southern Iowa which are on Highway 34. You can't take both those routes in one trip and expect to beat a train.

Ooops! Well, he would have been cheating if he had gone through Des Moines, so I wonder which route he actually took. That is, if he actually did the race.