Would the Crashed Train Affect the Timeline?

Question is - Would the cost of replacing the train and the delayed arrival of those passengers disturb the timeline?

Of course it would. The 1985 to which Marty returns after crossing the ravine is a different tangent, resulting from the events that occurred before, during and after the time he spent in 1885.

Several years later Emmett built a steam train time machine. Did he purchase an existing one? The one that replaced the crashed one? Would it not be easier to build a plane or use a wooden wheel cart and attach a tall wind sail to it? What about a time machine plane? He was a blacksmith. Maybe he recovered the wreckage of the train and rebuilt it into a time machine? Wonder how all of this affected the timeline?

Whatever Doc did after Marty left 1885 contributed directly to the tangential 1985 at the end of the film. I'm sure Doc legally obtained an engine, retrofitted it with the time circuits from the DeLorean in the cave (which were good to go) and used it to travel along a known rail line into 2015, where he obtained a new hover conversion for it. I doubt that the wreckage of the train that crashed into Shonash Ravine was salvagable.

Would it not be easier to build a plane

In 1885? No. The first fixed wing aircraft capable of motorized flight didn't come along until 1903, and it didn't come close to going 88 mph.

or use a wooden wheel cart and attach a tall wind sail to it?

Really? That might work in a Terry Gilliam animation...

-Rod

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I always thought a horizontal Trebuchet type of design would work. Since it would be horizontal you couldn't use a falling weight but you could use a team of horses and with an appropriate mechanical advantage you could turn 8.8 mph of horse speed into 88 mph of Delorean speed.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not. Either the implication is mindbending.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

Almost certainly yes. Could've been just minor changes, but there's no telling what changed exactly, maybe a few people didn't meet their significant other or didn't get a business opportunity because they weren't in the exact right place at the right time. Same with Doc spending 8 months in 1885 though... not just the people he interacted with, but he could've displaced the legit blacksmith who worked there in the original timeline.

From what we know, none of this caused any catastrophic changes to the town's history or anyone we know from the movies, but for other townspeople, probably.

reply share

add reply

formatting help