Mark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Charles, you're evading my questions. I'll ask
> them again.
>
> -Why would the REAL 3502 have vents on the nose
> for a truck driver to look thru? Doesn't that seem
> strange to you?
> -Why was the handbrake on the REAL 3502 covered up
> with a plate exactly the same way as the "fake"
> 3502?
> -Why was the REAL 3502 painted this way if not
> used for the movie?
>
> I'm not denying the movie 3502 is shorter. On
> rubber wheels it sits several inches closer to the
> ground. Looks to me like FWRY removed the REAL
> Blomberg trucks and traction motors, and possibly
> the fuel tank, then put rubber wheels and a motor
> underneath to turn them.
>
> Have you personally verified the fake and the real
> 3502 being in LA and Fillmore simultaneously?

Every question easily answered, Mark --

1) The real engine has the vents so it will match the faux engine in the film.

2) The handbrake was covered up so the real engine would match the faux engine in the film.

3) The real engine was painted that way to be an exact duplicate so it would match the faux engine exactly in the film.

4) No, but friends whom I know are honest have told me it was there as recently as last week.

And Mark, I think we have discovered the disconnect. You are thinking that they copied the engine and only shot in downtown LA. That is not what happened at all. They copied the real engine so that they could shoot the movie both in Fillmore and in downtown LA and have the footage match each other. The truck version was made to look like the real version for the purposes of "movie magic." I'm sorry, I didn't understand why you were questioning this. Now that I do, I get your confusion.

The two units had to match so that when the film was cut together they would look like the same engine.

Hope that makes sense and settles the issue. And, I was never evading anything... I didn't understand what you were asking exactly.

Charles