Starring: John Laurie, Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn, Ian Lavender
Other mistake: Wilson picks up the empty tablet bottle, but we hear the tablets rattling inside. Wilson then says 'it's empty, sir.'
Continuity mistake: At the end when they line up for The Royal Train to pass there are six platoon members amongst those present, Private Frazer is not one of them. However, after the train passes and they are shown wet in head shots, he is present. As the camera pans out, we are back to the original six.
Mainwaring: In the words of the great E.C Cochran. "Early to bed, early to rise, no jolly good if you don't advertise."
Trivia: Clive Dunn was a prisoner of war during World War 2.
Question: A set of complicated events mean that Captain Mainwaring and some other members of the platoon have to drive a railway engine. After they leave the railway station it turns out that the railway engine has no brake wheel and cannot stop. The ARP warden, the mayor of Walmington, the vicar and verger take the brake wheel, jump on a handcar and chase after the engine. Catching up with the engine, they throw the brake wheel to Captain Mainwaring. The engine then reverses, so they must pedal the handcar even faster to avoid being run over. Could four men (all obviously in late middle age, and past peak fitness) pedal a handcar to outrun a railway engine at full steam? When the engine reverses, why do they pedal the handcar to stop being run over? Why don't they jump off the handcar, then pull the handcar off the track? (Also it takes the engine less than a minute to reverse. In reality, it would take several minutes to change a moving railway locomotive from forward to reverse).
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Answer: The show is a comedy, this was played for comedic effect and to show that in times of extreme fear, in this case about to be crushed by a steam train, the men had an adrenaline surge strong enough to pedal fast enough.