Happy Back to the Future Day!

The big day is finally here.  Today is the day that Marty McFly arrives, when he travels to the future in Back to the Future II.  The exact date: October 21, 2015 at 4:29 pm, exactly thirty years after his adventure in 1985 took place as portrayed in the first film.

When Back to the Future (BTTF) part II was released in 1989, it was definitely a must-see for me.  After all, I was a huge fan of the original movie.  Unfortunately, I wound up feeling a bit betrayed when it wasn't really a complete story and I got a big "to be continued..." slapped in my face.  It turns out that the director, Robert Zemeckis, actually fought with Amblin Entertainment about this.  While Amblin wanted to advertise the second movie as a complete story, Zemeckis insisted that they honestly portray it as the next installment of a continuing story.  In the end, Zemeckis lost the fight and Amblin released trailers that gave no indication of the continuing saga.  Many BTTF fans were put off by the surprise up-sell to make us watch the third film.  I really think that if Zemeckis had prevailed, it would have changed my feelings about the second and third films.  Perhaps I wouldn't have felt as "nickled-and-dimed."   Either way, I have finally warmed up to these movies years later.  

Since I am a fan of steam engines, it is hard not to enjoy the final part of this trilogy.  The climactic action sequence In BTTF part III takes place aboard a steam locomotive that is being used to push the time traveling DeLorean up to 88 mph.  That's pretty f-ing cool, and so is today's toy.

This toy is made by the company Diamond Select.  It is a 1:15 scale representation of the DeLorean time machine as it appeared in the third film.  This is the version that is equipped with railroad wheels.  When I heard about this toy I crunched a few numbers to determine what gauge (distance between the rails) of railroad track it might fit.  If this model was true to scale, it would fit a track gauge of 3.7666666666666666."  I happened to have a garden railroad with two "ride-on" live steam track gauges: 4.75" and 3.5"  I figured that the Diamond select toy would fall somewhere between these, so I went ahead and ordered one.

When it arrived, I quickly opened it up and grabbed my ruler to see how accurate the toy designers at Diamond Select had been with the track gauge.  It turned out, not very.  It was clear that they made decisions based on how they thought the toy should look, instead of actual scale measurements.  The front wheels had a narrower track width than the rear, which made absolutely no sense for a railroad vehicle.  The good news was that the rear axle measured out to exactly 4.75" gauge.  While this is way too wide a gauge for the scale of the vehicle, it did happen to be one of the gauges on my railroad.  The front wheels measured closer to 4.5" gauge.  With some twisting and pulling, I was able to spread them to match the rear axle.  The other problem was that the front wheels were smaller diameter than the rear.  On the actual movie car they used rail-car wheels that were the same diameter front and rear.  This again seemed like an aesthetic choice on the toy at the expense of accuracy.

Aside from these minor issues, this toy is pretty nice.  The detail level is good and it has some fun lights and sounds that simulate time travel and other movie "moments."  I shot the photos for today's post on my garden railroad.  I'm probably the only lunatic out there who has a railroad on-which to display this toy so I hope you enjoy the pics.  The nice thing about displaying this toy on my railroad is that it doesn't matter what era my modeling depicts because a time machine is always "period correct."  Full steam ahead!