Back to the Future III, A steam engine?

[SeerSGB]

The Doc used the power source that was used by the Time Machine in HG Well's novel.

 

[Hermiod]

^Which was ?

 

[Silvercrest]

Cavorite?




Or maybe not.

 

[Gaith]

Secondly, just to offer a possible explanation of how he might have pulled it off, just for the fun of it: Maybe he used another letter like the one to contact Marty, only this time addressed to himself and asking for a few components to be sent back in time .

Ooh, good one! He could definitely have intructed his pre-BttF 2 future-visiting self to stow away some materials, and, knowing everything would work out, offer no explanation. In fact, you may have me convinced on this point.

 

[IJD GAF]

But wouldn't that endanger the future as much as tampering with the Dolorean in the cave?

By asking 1985 Doc to go back in time with some materials, he would

(a) be endangering a past version of the Dolorean, and

(b) be notifying his past self of his Wild West fate, which is also something he's not too fond of either.

 

[Trekker4747]

Secondly, just to offer a possible explanation of how he might have pulled it off, just for the fun of it: Maybe he used another letter like the one to contact Marty, only this time addressed to himself and asking for a few components to be sent back in time .

Ooh, good one! He could definitely have intructed his pre-BttF 2 future-visiting self to stow away some materials, and, knowing everything would work out, offer no explanation. In fact, you may have me convinced on this point.

Of course, this begs the question on if Doc was going to write a letter to himself to stowaway supplies in the 19th century so he could get out again why, instead of stowing supplies, didn't he tell his future self any number of other things he could've done to avoid being trapped in 1885, to avoid the confrontation with Biff, stowing extra gas in the DeLorean in 1955 and so on and so on.

No, it's unlikely Doc sent a letter to his future self to stow-away building supplies int he 19th century for a new time machine and he just somehow managed to make one himself using late 19th century technology. With plenty of time and money Doc could fashion some vaccum tubes and with plenty of those built the "time circuit(s)" he needs to build the DeLorean. It's not out of the realm of possibility. Given that in all likely hood the time machine's circuits and such went from fitting inside the dash of the car in 1985, to a large box on the hood in 1955 to being the entire tender of a train in 1885!

Now, we do have to wonder if Doc never saw any fallout from hijacking the train in 1885, how he managed to purchase a train and further what the look on the guys faces in hover-conversion shop was in 2015 when he pulled up in the train (?!) and asked for a hover conversion on it!

 

[Trekker4747]

(b) be notifying his past self of his Wild West fate, which is also something he's not too fond of either.

He did as much with 1955 Doc to get Marty home, but I agree it's very unlikely Doc would've asked his future self(ves) to help him rebuild a time machine in 1885 when, as I say above, he could ask them for any number of other things rendering the venture pointless.

 

[DanCPA]

I would like to think that Doc was able to make everything he needed right there in 1885... Then he traveled to 2015 (perhaps much later) to retro-fit the train.

We should keep in mind that Doc was a scientist and could likely create almost anything

 

[Gaith]

He did as much with 1955 Doc to get Marty home, but I agree it's very unlikely Doc would've asked his future self(ves) to help him rebuild a time machine in 1885 when, as I say above, he could ask them for any number of other things rendering the venture pointless.

Southern California was little inhabited before 1885. He could have asked future Doc to bury it somewhere same a long time before that so as not to tip him off.

 

[Trekker4747]

I would like to think that Doc was able to make everything he needed right there in 1885... Then he traveled to 2015 (perhaps much later) to retro-fit the train.

We should keep in mind that Doc was a scientist and could likely create almost anything

Well as said, he just needed a way to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricty he needed. In the DeLorean he used the best thing available to him in 1985 -nuclear fission which he later retrofitted to the "safer" nuclear fusion sometime in the 21st century.

Recall that in BTTF1 the DeLorean's time cicruits only ran off the lightning bolt channeled from the clock tower, at the end of BTTF2 another lightning bolt (actually several, which may have contributed to the overload of time-circuits but on a related note, I wonder how lightning strikes an object that isn't grounded) activates the time circuits.

So the time-train "runs on steam." Doc simply built a steam-electrical generator. Using his "presto logs" and possibly even some reinforcement of the train's boiler he was able to create a lare pressure-boiler to superboil water (as what happens in present-day nuclear reactors) and that superboiled water runs the generator that charges a capacitor(s) with the 1.21gw of electrical power. All... "possible" (although 1.21gw is a LOT of electricty to generate by a steamtrain's engine if we accept Doc's "presto logs" being able to kick up the boiler temperature to run the train at 90 miles an hour it's "possible" some of that energy can be channeled to the time circuits.)

The only "hitch" is the electrical components of the time machine which is simple enough to get around with Doc hand-blowing his own vaccum tubes and other forms of circuitry he's able to build in the 1880s/1890s.

Again, suitable repalcement parts for the DeLorean weren't available until 1947, when some of the first transistors were invented. But that's not to say there's nothing available to Doc in 1885 to built "a" time machine. He simply just found a way using much simpler electronics and technology and "mechanics" rather than electronics. It's apparent that the tiem-train's time cirucits are contained in, and take up most if not all of, the tender. (the first "car" behind the engine that on a normal train contains the wood for the boiler.)

Personally, I didn't much like the time-train. It was... "too much." I think it would've been neat to see Doc arrive in something jauntier like an 1898 Panhard, or even something "cuter" something resembling the time machine from, well, "The Time Machine."

 

[John Picard]

I would like to think that Doc was able to make everything he needed right there in 1885... Then he traveled to 2015 (perhaps much later) to retro-fit the train.

We should keep in mind that Doc was a scientist and could likely create almost anything

Well as said, he just needed a way to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricty he needed. In the DeLorean he used the best thing available to him in 1985 -nuclear fission which he later retrofitted to the "safer" nuclear fusion sometime in the 21st century.

Recall that in BTTF1 the DeLorean's time cicruits only ran off the lightning bolt channeled from the clock tower, at the end of BTTF2 another lightning bolt (actually several, which may have contributed to the overload of time-circuits but on a related note, I wonder how lightning strikes an object that isn't grounded) activates the time circuits.

So the time-train "runs on steam." Doc simply built a steam-electrical generator. Using his "presto logs" and possibly even some reinforcement of the train's boiler he was able to create a large pressure-boiler to superboil water (as what happens in present-day nuclear reactors) and that superboiled water runs the generator that charges a capacitor(s) with the 1.21gw of electrical power. All... "possible" (although 1.21gw is a LOT of electricity to generate by a steam train's engine if we accept Doc's "presto logs" being able to kick up the boiler temperature to run the train at 90 miles an hour it's "possible" some of that energy can be channeled to the time circuits.)

The only "hitch" is the electrical components of the time machine which is simple enough to get around with Doc hand-blowing his own vacuum tubes and other forms of circuitry he's able to build in the 1880s/1890s.

Again, suitable replacement parts for the DeLorean weren't available until 1947, when some of the first transistors were invented. But that's not to say there's nothing available to Doc in 1885 to built "a" time machine. He simply just found a way using much simpler electronics and technology and "mechanics" rather than electronics. It's apparent that the time-train's time cirucits are contained in, and take up most if not all of, the tender. (the first "car" behind the engine that on a normal train contains the wood for the boiler.)

Personally, I didn't much like the time-train. It was... "too much." I think it would've been neat to see Doc arrive in something jauntier like an 1898 Panhard, or even something "cuter" something resembling the time machine from, well, "The Time Machine."

You're very close, Trekker. Steam can be super heated via conventional means (meaning without nuclear fusion). The Navy's older fuel fired frigates, destroyers, and missile cruisers all used boilers that would super heat the steam. If one of those lines ruptured it could cut a man in half

I don't buy the theories of Doc digging up the DeLorean, traveling through time, and then coming back again. Had he done that, he could easily have returned to 1955 at the instant the lightening zapped him to 1885, picked up Marty, and then returned him to 1985.

I believe he would have taken an approach similar to what you stated, in order to travel to the future and retro-fit his locomotive.

 

[Meredith]

You drain the gas if you're putting a car in storage for a while. Doc was smart. He did this.

To bad he did not keep it if that were the case, Gas would have been a usfull chemical to have in 1885 for some invention or something.

They did have gasoline in 1885 -- it is a byproduct of refined oil. But back then, it wasn't used for anything as was merely dumped off to the side.

Also, Doc would have drained the fuel tank, because gasoline breaks down over time and turns into varnish. Any fuel left in the DeLorean would have gummed up the fuel pump and the fuel lines, making for some needed repair work before attempting a trip back to 1885.

He would have had to drain the coolant and the engine oil too maybe

 

[Nardpuncher]

Here's the thing you are all forgetting. it's a joke scene. I think the writers are playing the 4th wall game here deliberately. If you are a BTTF fan you probably know that they never intended for there to be any sequels, because they never would have put the girl in the car at the end of the first movie, and that the end of the first film was a joke. However they have since built the trilogy from that moment (as a means of keeping another producer's hands off the project) so the "joke" was made into a story element. So at the end of the third movie, they decided to incorporate pretty much the same joke, while slightly stepping outside the films to say that no there will not be any BTTF films, even to followup this new time macbhine. They ensured this by making the train preposterous and impossible to begin with, but by that point the films are over. In other words, Doc probably couldn't have channelled or generated the correct gigawatts into the train to begin with, but by the time the viewer tries to contemplate this plot hole, the curtain is closed and the film is over, just as it should have been in the first film.

Thank you! I was going to say this. Funny that you kind of got ignored and people continued discussing it.
I understood that the end was all for fun when I saw it in the theatre at age 15. That's because I'm cool, I guess.

 

[Trekker4747]

Here's the thing you are all forgetting. it's a joke scene. I think the writers are playing the 4th wall game here deliberately. If you are a BTTF fan you probably know that they never intended for there to be any sequels, because they never would have put the girl in the car at the end of the first movie, and that the end of the first film was a joke. However they have since built the trilogy from that moment (as a means of keeping another producer's hands off the project) so the "joke" was made into a story element. So at the end of the third movie, they decided to incorporate pretty much the same joke, while slightly stepping outside the films to say that no there will not be any BTTF films, even to followup this new time macbhine. They ensured this by making the train preposterous and impossible to begin with, but by that point the films are over. In other words, Doc probably couldn't have channelled or generated the correct gigawatts into the train to begin with, but by the time the viewer tries to contemplate this plot hole, the curtain is closed and the film is over, just as it should have been in the first film.

Thank you! I was going to say this. Funny that you kind of got ignored and people continued discussing it.
I understood that the end was all for fun when I saw it in the theatre at age 15. That's because I'm cool, I guess.

It was ignorned because we're not looking for real-world/meta answers but "in universe" answers.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I always assumed that, with a few more years of research, Doc was somehow able to crack how to make time travel more efficient with much lower power requirements.

 

[Kryton]

I didn't think I'd find this thread particularly interesting, but I'm glad I read it through. Carry on! There have been several plausible (if sometimes highly impractical) solutions but they've all been quite creative.

Then there's always "Great Scott, I nearly forgot! Those Mr. Fusions were two for one and I've got an unopened one under the seat of the DeLorean" at least as far as generating the electricity needed for the timefield. And, frankly, it's just patently silly enough a solution that Gales and Zemeckis might've got a kick out of it's eccentric simplicity.

 

[Meredith]

He just used the Red Dwarf/ Bill n' Ted's theory of time travel...

"I'll just take the time machine I put in this over cave that i will send back for myself when I get back to the future using the time travel machine I found in the cave, but I gotta make sure I plant it in the cave in the first place."

 

[MyCylon]

Here's the thing you are all forgetting. it's a joke scene. I think the writers are playing the 4th wall game here deliberately. If you are a BTTF fan you probably know that they never intended for there to be any sequels, because they never would have put the girl in the car at the end of the first movie, and that the end of the first film was a joke. However they have since built the trilogy from that moment (as a means of keeping another producer's hands off the project) so the "joke" was made into a story element. So at the end of the third movie, they decided to incorporate pretty much the same joke, while slightly stepping outside the films to say that no there will not be any BTTF films, even to followup this new time macbhine. They ensured this by making the train preposterous and impossible to begin with, but by that point the films are over. In other words, Doc probably couldn't have channelled or generated the correct gigawatts into the train to begin with, but by the time the viewer tries to contemplate this plot hole, the curtain is closed and the film is over, just as it should have been in the first film.

Thank you! I was going to say this. Funny that you kind of got ignored and people continued discussing it.
I understood that the end was all for fun when I saw it in the theatre at age 15. That's because I'm cool, I guess.

It was ignorned because we're not looking for real-world/meta answers but "in universe" answers.

Plus I'm sure not everyone saw it as a 'joke'. I certainly know I was really eager to actually see the future on screen. That flying DeLorean, now, THAT was cool.