Began production in 1995 and, because of financial problems, it was put on hiatus during 1998. Production companies Production I.G. and Sunrise got involved and brought the movie back in production. A total of eight years was spent on making the movie.
A new record for the most expensive Japanese animated movie. It cost about 2.1 billion yen (twenty million U.S. dollars) to make.
When Ray is walking through the city of Manchester at the beginning, for a few seconds, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels can be seen talking together on the street (Marx is the smaller one with white hair and beard, Engels is the taller one with the mustache). Both men were living in Britain at the time this movie takes place.
Used one hundred eighty thousand individual drawings.
Robert Stephenson was the son of George Stephenson, known as the Father of the Railway. In 1829, they built a locomotive "Rocket" in the Rainhill Trials and won. Robert built lots of steam locomotives in England, and some of them were shipped to Japan, India, Egypt, and some other countries.
Katsuhiro Ôtomo: [eye shot] James and Scarlett are seen reflected in a character's eye as they fly away during the final scene.