Goofs for
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) More at IMDbPro »

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): 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.
  
  
• Errors in geography: 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.
  
  
• Factual errors: Subway signaling displays do not show trains in a manner that allows their length to be continuously observed by counting the lit dots.
  
  

• Continuity: 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.
  
  
• Continuity: 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.
  
  
• Continuity: When Pelham 1-2-3 initially enters 28th St. the front "Brooklyn Bridge" destination sign on 7339 has wide lettering. Later, when 7339 comes to a screeching halt after being tripped by a red timing signal, the "Brooklyn Bridge" destination sign has narrow lettering.
  
  
• Factual errors: Just before the gang leaves the train, Mr. Blue talks into the microphone of the radio but does not press the talk button.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bud Carmody closes down the rear section of the train at 59th St., there is a noticeable gap between the train and the edge of the platform. When he closes down the front section, there is no such gap.
  
  
• Continuity: As Mr. Brown is about to pull his gun on the conductor, a man in a black jacket is seen entering the train. Then Mr. Brown pulls his gun and tells the conductor that when the person leaning against the first car (Mr. Blue) gets on, he is to close the doors. The same man in the black jacket gets on again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: 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.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the police car rushes uptown, the same buildings reflect off the car's windows several times.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Just after the subway train has been taken, Martin Balsam leaves the motorman's cab and walks to the other end of the car. Then Hector Elizondo holds the door open for him. In that short scene, they both call each other "Mr. Green." (Apparently Martin Balsam's mistake, as Elizondo's character was called Mr. Gray.)
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): 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.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The movie shows a wall behind the train at the 28th street IRT station. This part of the subway does not have walls between tracks - you can see clear across the express tracks to the local tracks going in the other direction. The wall is typical of an IND station - probably the Transit Museum station where filming was done, but with a different sign.
  
  
• Errors in geography: 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.
  
  
• Factual errors: 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.)
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: 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.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The phone that the Mayor uses to take a call in his bedroom has buttons under the dial pad which must be depressed in order to receive a call on that particular line. When he is seen talking on the phone, none of the buttons are depressed
  
  

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