It’s been seen in old movies, but did it ever really happen?
Yes. There was a Dope article on it in 2007, which surprised me:
A wonderful fictional account here, The Swan, by Roald Dahl.
https://www.angelfire.com/md/Topperites/swan.html
In the original melodramas, why did the villain decide to use tying someone to the railroad tracks as a method of murder? It’s hardly likely to be ruled an accident.
So they could have plausible deniability and keep their hands clean? Probably because it was dramatic and had a built in time clock for audiences. Tension, and all.
Because someone put a padlock on the old saw mill?
So Lassie could get a chance to play the hero again, that egocentric pooch.
Reminds me of:
Dr. Evil:
Scott, I want you to meet daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers.
Scott:
What, are you feedin’ him? Why don’t you just kill him?
Dr. Evil:
No, Scott, I have a better idea. I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
Scott:
Why don’t you shoot him now? I mean, come on, I’ll go get a gun. We’ll shoot 'im together. It’ll be fun. BANG! Dead. Done.
Fat lotta good that did; all the rescuers were at the well looking for Timmy
I think it was a method of intimidation, to extract property or information, rather than murder.
According to a documentary I saw.
Salty Sam was tryin’ to stuff Sweet Sue in a burlap sack
He said, "If you don’t give me the deed to your ranch
I’m gonna throw you on the railroad tracks!"
It’s not surprising that this trope emerged on the heels of Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum and the genesis of “Suspense” as a genre. Writers were learning that drawing out the peril was more exciting than depicting the actual demise. It’s Screenwriting 101, now, but in the mid-1800s it was still quite novel.
Now showing on Netflix as a Wes Anderson short movie! Together with three other Dahl stories adapted by Wes Anderson, I enjoyed them all: Poison, The Rat Catcher and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.
My guess is that it allowed the movie to include dramatic shots of the train coming toward the camera (and therefore the viewer). Plus trains were the fastest things around at the time. And with anything else, like a motorcar or a horse-drawn carriage, you’d expect the driver to see the tied-up victim and divert or stop in time. The train, of course, can’t really be diverted.
I don’t have personal experience, but I am going to guess that ID’ing a body that has been run over by a train using 19th century tech would leave a wide range of doubt if that were a goal.
But they always show someone tied across the tracks so that their head and legs wouldn’t get run over. The head would be the most easily identifiable feature.
Do they? I’ve always seen it set up so that the feet and legs are sticking out.
Truly tasteless joke…
Summary
Dave: “I was walking down along the tracks and I found this girl tied to the track just like in the old movies… I untied her, one thing led to another and we spent a weekend of mad passion together.”
Bob: “Was she a good kisser?”
Dave: “I don’t know - I couldn’t find her head…”