Goofs

After a straight piece of track in front of the train is destroyed, they remove a curved piece from behind the train to replace it. This piece becomes straight after it's brought forward.

In the beginning, Ryan's wounded P-38 is an unpainted aluminum color, but when the German officers arrive at the wreckage, the plane is now olive drab.

When the rear boxcars are on fire after the air raid, Ryan orders his men to "cut loose the box cars". Yet in later scenes, the rear coach car is still attached.

When the prisoners are getting off the train for the first time in Rome to get food and water, the German commander's private car is already attached to the end of the train. However, later a rail-yard worker is helping guide the passenger car into place and coupling it to the last boxcar of the train.

At the end, when Ryan is fighting the German pursuers, his rank is visible on the shoulders of his leather jacket. When lying on the tracks after being shot, they are gone.

After Italy's surrender is announced, Ryan claims that Battaglia is now a civilian, not an army officer. This is incorrect, and the characters would have known his proper (and unchanged) status. Although it surrendered, Italy continued to be a country with a proper government and military forces. Battaglia would have been an officer in a non-belligerent (but untrusted) military.

All of the German soldiers carrying MP38/40 sub-machine guns (including all of the guards on the train) were wearing the wrong ammo pouches. The MP38/40 fired 9mm pistol ammunition from a 32-round detachable box magazine. The soldiers were all wearing cartridge pouches designed to hold 5-round stripper clips of 7.92mm ammunition for a bolt-action Mauser rifle. This means none of the Germans carrying sub-machine guns had any ready ammunition available once they fired the 32 rounds in their only magazine. This is a common mistake in WWII TV shows and movies.

Colonel Ryan insists on being saluted by Major Battaglia when he is brought into the POW camp. However, according to the Geneva convention, Ryan would be obligated to salute Battaglia, since, as camp commandant, he is technically senior to all of the Allied POWs. Naturally, Battaglia would be expected to return the salute in keeping with military courtesy.

Sunbeams cannot shine simultaneously into the boxcar from opposite sides.

As the train passes through Rome, it looks as if it is passing alongside the Forum. No trains run next to the Forum.

A German soldier mentions in German that the train is going to "Oesterreich" (Austria). From 1938-1945 Austria was a part of Germany, and while its official name during that period was "Ostmark" instead of "Oesterreich", many Austrians (and some Germans) continued to refer to the territory by its original name.

During the attack on the train by the Messerschmitts, the prisoners on top are shooting at the aircraft with MP40s, a weapon that fired pistol rounds. As such, the 9mm rounds wouldn't have the range to even reach the aircraft, let alone damage them. However, the prisoners would have tried to fend the aircraft off with whatever weapons they had.

Luftwaffe pilots are supposed to be flying ME-109s, but in fact they are flying Messerschmitt ME-108 Taifuns. The Taifun was a liaison/training aircraft, not a fighter, but its resemblance to the ME-109 made it a reasonable stand-in for the film.

When arriving to Florence (Firenze), the guards stay on the roof of the train, despite the fact that there are overhead wires. While they may not be "live" due to wartime conditions, the POWs can't tell this. Staying on the roof is, therefore, foolish and very dangerous.

Per IMDb Guidelines - i.e., "no personal opinions and no criticism of characters' actions" - this does not qualify as a Goof.

When the German Captain is on the phone to Bologna station, the words "ridiculous" and "alright" are misspelled in the captions. [Note: in fact, "alright" is a misspelling of "all right".] "A shipment for Fieldmarshal Goering? This is ridiclous!" and "Allright, I'll check it."

Per IMDb Guidelines, captions/subtitles have "nothing to do with the filmmakers, so are not acceptable as goofs."

When Ryan is inspecting the prisoners' escape supplies, he picks up and examines a bottle. The top of the label lists "Mepacrine", an anti-malarial drug. Looking into the bottle, compressed powder tablets can be seen. However, the label lists the contents as an aqueous suspension (i.e., - a liquid product). Beyond that, the contents of the bottle are described as being female hormones ("Estrogenic substances consisting mainly of Estrone"), which would be of limited use to male prisoners trying to escape, as the primary listed ingredient causes nausea and vomiting when given to men. It would seem likely that the prop department was having a laugh with this one, as the label is on screen for under two seconds and is not easily read (beyond the large print name at the top) without being able to pause the film.

At the beginning, when Col. Ryan's P-38 airplane is flying over the city trailing smoke, the smoke is coming from the center fuselage, not one of the engines. The sound of an engine sputtering is heard, but the smoke is not coming from an engine.

Major Von Klemment uses a shard of glass to cut the rope binding his hands, but the gap in the loosely tied rope is clearly big enough to slip his hand out of it.

The title on the office door reads "Obergruppenfuehrer" in English instead of "Obergruppenführer" in German.

Colonel Ryan orders the prisoners to remove their clothes and burn them. However, Private Ames starts undressing before the order is given.

Saluting by Colonel Ryan (Sinatra) and most of the men is exceptionally sloppy. Usually, the junior officer salutes first and holds it until the senior officer returns the salute. This is constantly violated during the movie. Sinatra's "high-ball" salutes are particularly flippant.

A German officer uses a transistorized bullhorn to address the prisoners on the train. The transistor was not invented until 1947.

As the Padre is typing the order to change the routing of the train, he is using an American-made Underwood typewriter. This was a common office model in the 1950s in the U.S., but definitely not in use by the Germans in WW II. The German military would have used a Siemag or Adler pre-war model.

The markings on the wings of the crashed P-38 in the beginning are incorrect markings that weren't used in World War II; they were not adopted until 1947 by the United States Air Force. US Airplanes in 1943 would have used the markings without the red stripes in the bars of the roundel insignia. The red stripes were not adopted until 1947.

When the train is passing through Rome by the Vatican, modern cars can be seen in a fluent traffic at the intersection on the left down the viaduct.

The young women at the cafe have clothes and hairdos that were trendy during the mid-1960s.

In the beginning, the faltering engine sound coming from Ryan's wounded P-38 is NOT that of a V-12 Allison power plant but more like that of a Piper Cub.

When Ryan's crashed airplane is burning, the bracing holding the burning aircraft in the inclined position is visible.

When the Milano train station's control room board lights come back on, the shadow of the camera is visible on the left as the camera is moved towards the German officer on the phone trying to get the Luftwaffe Commander.

The map shows the Passo Maloja in Italy before the Swiss border, but this pass was and is in Switzerland.

Steam locomotives in Italy don't seem to produce soot and sparks. The guards posted on the roof would've been in a terrible position and would hardly be able to breathe all the way, but they at least had protective glasses. The POWs sneaking up on them from behind would be blinded by the smoke and the sparks. The same goes for the German officers who peek over the roof of the locomotive at the end of the movie - they would've gotten a ton of soot right in their faces.

There are multiple scenes with a large group of the POWs sneaking silently, but in reality this would be impossible. One such scene is when they're tiptoeing along the tracks: the rocks would make a lot of noise, no matter how cautious they were. Another example is when they sneak up on the resting German guards on the roof of the train cars. Some people are even jumping but make no noise.

When the trainload of escapees is trying to make the final stretch through the Alps into Switzerland, a wounded pilot crashes his plane into the mountainside a few yards (or meters) below the train track, exploding dramatically. A moment later, a second fighter plane fires two rockets into the mountainside just in front of the train, again with a showy fountain of dirt and rock. Neither of these explosions and subsequent sprays of debris has any effect on the men directly exposed to them.

When taking over the train they shot and killed the German Major's aide on the rear porch of the train. No one notices the blood that would be there.

As the Padre begins to type the change orders for the train to be re-routed, he says (in German) the date of 11 Sep 1941. The U.S. was not involved in the war until December 1941. The year should have been 1943.

The British prisoner, on being asked by Ryan whether the train will move, refers to the 'Engineer'. Unless he is aware that Americans use this term for the driver (unlikely), he would refer to the Driver.

When the fighters are attacking the train the flight leader gives a hand signal to dive and attack. Though common in World War I, this would not have been necessary in World War II as all aircraft had radios. Also, it would be hard for pilots in fighter planes to see such a signal from a closed cockpit at the speed they were flying at.

Col. Ryan says he is in the U.S. Army Air Corps .. The U.S. Army Air Corps became the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on 20 June 1941, before the U.S. even entered WW2, so Ryan would have known the difference.

Even in the 1940s, it was common for trains carrying hazardous goods to avoid routes through heavily populated areas, unless they were unloading or loading cargo. The POWs could have chosen a route used by freight trains and avoided major cities entirely while traveling up the Italian peninsula.