Goofs

The first car of Pelham 1-2-3 as it enters 28th St. is car 7339. However, at Grand Central, 7339 is seen on the opposite track across the platform. On top of that, the first car in the tunnel after being cut from the rest of the train is car 7434.

When Pelham 1-2-3 initially enters 28th St., car 7339 is clean. As the train leaves the station after being hijacked, red splotches are visible on 7339.

After cutting away the rest of the train, Mr. Green, Mr. Brown and Bud Carmody walk up and climb into the head car. In the next shot, Mr. Green enters the motorman's cab while in the background, Carmody and Mr. Brown can be seen climbing into the car again.

When Mr. Green first enters 59th street station, an R16 NYC Subway car is seen leaving with the designations of a 6 train (2:16). Seconds later, Green then goes downstairs to catch an R22 train that is also a 6 train (2:45).

At approx 7:40 the conductor looks outwards towards the front of the train and sees a young man in a jacket rush into the car ahead. 50 seconds later Mr. Brown asks the conductor to look out the window and tell him what he sees. He sees the same young man in the jacket entering the car ahead.

Hand-held 2-way walkie-talkie type radios were not (and still are not) functional in the NYC Transit subways and tunnels. Midway through the movie, two officers are shown communicating in this manner in the tunnel.

The sub-machine guns used by the gang are the Smith and Wesson M-76 9mm. There are a couple of scenes where Mr. Grey pulls the bolt back and releases it, letting fall into the chambered position. First the M-76 would have locked the bolt back in an open bolt configuration, making the gun ready to fire. Secondly, had any ammunition been in the magazine, pulling the bolt back and letting move forward onto the chamber, it then would have fired as all open bolt guns would have.

Subway signaling displays do not show trains in a manner that allows their length to be continuously observed by counting the lit dots.

The train is supposed to be part of the Pelham 1, 2, 3 line however at approximately at the 15:00 time line you can clearly see this is the Number 6 train that runs on a totally different track. The number is on the front of the train.

Robert Shaw explains Mr. Grey's unstable behavior as the reason he was "kicked out of the Mafia." No one has ever been kicked out of the American Mafia and lived to tell about it. Translation: Cosa Nostra does not give "pink slips" to its malcontents; it KILLS them.

The action takes place on the local downtown Lexington Avenue Line, which terminates at the abandoned City Hall loop station, just past Brooklyn Bridge station. While the fact that the train in the film runs to the inner loop at South Ferry (where some express trains terminate) may appear to be a goof, the hijackers request that the switches be set in order to put them in the South Ferry loop - and there is indeed a switch onto the downtown express tracks, right before the Brooklyn Bridge station. At the time the film was made, the Lexington 5 and 6 lines went to South Ferry station. That section of track is still there but no longer in use.

Mr. Blue has demanded that all the signals to West Ferry must be showing green, yet at the first station the train approaches, 23rd Street, the signal is clearly showing red and the train passes it without being tripped.

A number of times late in the movie when Mr. Blue talks to Lt. Garver on the radio, he does not push the transmit button on the microphone.

As the police car rushes uptown, the same buildings reflect off the car's windows several times.

When the police car carrying Inspector Daniels and Lt. Garber returns to 17th street (just after Mr. Green has climbed out of the emergency street exit), the police car screeches to a stop. Tire marks on the road are already visible at the same spot where the car stops, indicating previous takes.

When Mr. Green pulls out of 28th Street, we see him disengage the "Dead Man's Feature" (by pressing down on the throttle with his hand). However, he does not actually move the control lever to make the train move. In that position, the train is at "idle" and will not accelerate.

Employees at banks have rubber finger grips or a substance to smear onto their fingertips to help them grip paper currency to prevent bills from sticking together. this also enable them to count paper currency faster. Additionally, in this situation, they would have set the counting machines to count out a set amount of money to be able to bundle the bills the way the thieves wanted them.

The movie says the following about the ransom money. $500,000 in 100's $500,000 in 50's So that would make 10,000 50-dollar bills and 5,000 100-dollar bills. In packets of 200. So, that would be the following 50 packets of 200 50-dollar bills 25 packets of 200 100-dollar bills Making a total of 75 packets of bills. Now 75 divided by 4 = 18.75. In scripts I've read, it is said to divide using 19 packets each. The actual movie differs from the written script in that Mr Grey says it's 18 packets each. Either way, there is no way to evenly divide 75 packets between 4 people assuming it is to be evenly-divided.

There are an inordinate number of babies crying on train, yet there are none visible, only two children.

(at around 27 mins) Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo) walks through the two doors between the second and first subway cars. As the door slides shut, you can see a crew member reflected in the door window.

The relevant section of the Lexington Avenue Line includes curves sharp enough to have speed-controlled signals. As Mr. Green would have known, these cannot be cleared to green in advance of the train's arrival and will not clear if it is running away.

There are no switch-points - nor have there ever been any, between the local and/or express tracks on the IRT's Lev. Av. Line from roughly 40th Str. downtown to about 16th Str., yet frequently tunnel shots supposedly between the 33rd Str. Sta. and the abandoned 18th Str. Sta DO show points.

Pelham Bay #6 Train does indeed begin at the Bronx's elevated last stop, but ENDS at the Brooklyn Bridge stop in Lower Manhattan. it is NOT possible for a local "Lexington Line" train (#6) to go any further south than Br. Bridge stop, and could NOT have proceeded to the South Ferry (Named for Staten Island Ferry) station as it does in movie.

The station used at the beginning of the pix is actually the 28th Str. stop on the BMT and not the IRT's 28th Str. station under Park Av. where the story is supposed to be taking place.

Departing the 42nd Str. (Express) Station for the 33rd Str. (Local) Sta. those downtown tracks - and only those, receive a switchpoint whereby the 42nd Str."shuttle" joins the Lexinton Avenue line... Those points are shown BUT in the opposite/wrong direction. (Either the scene is using a different set of points somewhere else in the System OR that scene was somehow edited-in to the film BACKWARDS.)

When Mr. Green enters the motorman's space to take over the train he lets the motorman know he was a former motorman even going as far to ask "were you ever written up?" Brown criticizes him for this yet they later let the motorman (Doyle) to walk the passengers away. Green would be easily caught. Later they murder the conductor . . . they should have killed the motorman.

The conductor brags that he knows that all cars on the IRT are 72 feet long, when the correct length would have been 51 feet.

When the gang separates the train and backs it up to separate it from the train, the young conductor says in amazement, "I didn't know these things went backwards." Cute, but this is a very unlikely line from an apprentice conductor "studying to take the motorman's exam." Besides the usual running back and forth while making up trains in the yards, every subway car runs in both directions, because they usually do not turn the train around at the end of the line. Instead, the operator stops at the last station, walks from the former front to the former back, switches controls to the new "front end" and goes back the way he came. So all subway cars spend half of their life "going backwards," as any conductor would know.

During Garber's tour with the Japanese visitors, he says that each train is named for its "terminus" and time that it departed. Thus, he says, a train leaving Woodlawn at 6:30 would be named "Woodlawn 630." Woodlawn is not the terminus (end of the line) of such a train, but its beginning. However, American dictionaries define terminus as either end of a rail line; British dictionaries define terminus as only the destination end of a rail line. Mr. Garber is an American.

James Broderick aka " Denny Doyle - Train Conductor," was incorrectly credited . He was the Motorman and not the Conductor.

Several times Mr. Blue states on his radio, "Over and out." Anyone versed in military communications, as a mercenary soldier would be, understands those terms are mutually exclusive. "Over" means the person is done talking and expects a return communication from the other person. "Out" means the conversation is over and no response is expected.