Cars Stalling on Train Tracks
Why do cars in movies always stall when they’re over train tracks?
———- from Corey Werth of Troy, MI
Movies cultivate a special kind of non-reality that thrives on conflict. Conflict is the source of dramatic tension, that force that pulls you back to your seat when you’ve wandered off to the kitchen or concession stand. In the real world, train tracks become magnetized after a few million pounds of load have passed over them. These magnetized tracks have the power to confuse automobile ignitions, so, when magnetized train tracks are replaced, as they must be every few years, they’re sold to the film studios. This is just another example of how the waste products of daily living become the stock in trade of Tinseltown. So what else is new?
Movies cultivate a special kind of non-reality that thrives on conflict. Conflict is the source of dramatic tension, that force that pulls you back to your seat when you’ve wandered off to the kitchen or concession stand. In the real world, train tracks become magnetized after a few million pounds of load have passed over them. These magnetized tracks have the power to confuse automobile ignitions, so, when magnetized train tracks are replaced, as they must be every few years, they’re sold to the film studios. This is just another example of how the waste products of daily living become the stock in trade of Tinseltown. So what else is new? 