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"Ray" the movie - 1950s Double Stack Intermodal?

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Posted by twhite on Monday, November 8, 2004 10:52 PM
Jetrock: I have a movie train. A little Roundhouse 2-8-0 with a Cogdon stack, all dressed up in Rio Grande 'Bumblebee', hauling a cattle, box, combine and caboose. As soon as the scenery's all in, I'll be staging some 'lights, camera ACTION!' stuff in the Yuba River canyon. Should be fun.
Tom
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Posted by Jetrock on Monday, November 8, 2004 8:57 PM
A made-for-HBO film about Pancho Villa (with Antonio Banderas) set during the 19-teens featured quite a few N de M steel-sided boxcars. Some of the locomotives looked pretty close to appropriate but the steel boxes just threw things off...

of course, in "Old Gringo", with Jimmy Smits and Jane Fonda, there's an amazing private lounge car that I think is wood-sided, at least appropriate to the era!

"Boxcar Bertha", a Depression-era adventure film from the late Sixties (with, I think, David Carradine and, um, Debra Winger?), featured a lot of trains of the "Reader Railroad" that seemed fairly correct, not a bad job considering the film's rather low-budget appearance (I think it was a Roger Corman film.) It also featured quite a bit of discussion about railroad work and operations and early labor-struggle discussion. Interesting stuff.

Hmmm...for you operators who use "situation cards" for oddball occurrences to mess with the schedule...what about a wild-card situation where a length of track is tied up because of a movie being shot, with an appropriately (or not-so-appropriately) anachronistic engine and consist running by, messing with your freight schedule?
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Posted by jockellis on Monday, November 8, 2004 7:27 PM
We should be glad Hollywood uses railroads period! But to add my two cents worth, in Biloxi Blues, the army recruits rode Lackawanna coaches all the way to mississippi. At least it was behind steam. If I ran a shortline railroad, the first thing I'd line up is a Hollywood agent who could get my railroad in the movies.
Jock Ellis

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Posted by OldArmy94 on Friday, November 5, 2004 3:24 PM
Yeah, it's funny how seeing something like that will jolt you into reality. I'm not faulting the movie co. too much--heck, it's very difficult to be an expert on EVERYTHING that comes across in a movie scene.
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Posted by mustanggt on Thursday, November 4, 2004 3:41 PM
ever see that movie with leslie neilsen called "wrongfully acused"? In it there was a part with the classic bus getting hit by train scene from the fugitive. they used a U-boat with a mars light thing on the front. anyone ever see that movie? pretty funny if you ask me[:p]

and then theres fast and the furious where they have a race and they almost hit a southern pacific sd something. that was innacurate, because they went kaput in the 90's and the movie takes place in the 2000's
C280 rollin'
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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, November 4, 2004 2:35 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by sparkingbolt

...Then there was the sound of a steam engine doing wee hours switching chores in the background on the original "Rocky" movie, 1977....

And I recall a station wagon rounding a distant hillside curve on Grizly Adams, not noticed by the crew at shooting. Not trains but, you know.

And who else caught the fact that in "The Fugitive", the locomotive (with it's lights on)that wrecked and came to rest above Harrison Ford didn't have traction motors? Didja catch that? Still a great scene! Dan


It was a gutted and modified N&W GP30 shell so thats why it had no traction motors![:D]
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Posted by Bergie on Thursday, November 4, 2004 9:25 AM
QUOTE: Originally posted by brothaslide

There is a scene in the movie Ray which is from the early 1950s. He and his band are driving in a truck under a train bridge while a train is rolling overhead. The only thing is that the train is a modern Double Stack intermodal.

The movie was excellent!!!

Sean


I saw it last Friday night and noticed the same thing. It's funny to see something like that happen when everything else is so "period perfect" (or so I think... maybe a soda machine fanatic noticed an out of place Coke machine).

Other than that, yes, it is an excellent movie.

Bergie
Erik Bergstrom
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Posted by sparkingbolt on Thursday, November 4, 2004 2:54 AM
...Then there was the sound of a steam engine doing wee hours switching chores in the background on the original "Rocky" movie, 1977....

And I recall a station wagon rounding a distant hillside curve on Grizly Adams, not noticed by the crew at shooting. Not trains but, you know.

And who else caught the fact that in "The Fugitive", the locomotive (with it's lights on)that wrecked and came to rest above Harrison Ford didn't have traction motors? Didja catch that? Still a great scene! Dan
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Posted by twhite on Wednesday, November 3, 2004 10:32 PM
And then the aforementioned "Atomic Train" that was running wild toward Denver, but was obviously on some trackage in British Columbia (Hey, fellas, the mountains are DIFFERENT!) and since it was heading downhill to Denver, I would assume it was on the Moffat Line, and since when did the Moffat Line develop a 'Summit' between Moffat Tunnel and Plainview? But then, there's always a nifty little western from the 1950's called "Denver and Rio Grande" about the fight between the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe (Canon City & San Juan) for control of the Royal Gorge. Funny thing, though, the Royal Gorge turned out to be the Animas Canyon on the Silverton branch. But hey, those little narrow-guage trains in the Rio Grande 'Bumblebee' paint schemes were cute as the devil. Too bad they had to head-on collide two actual trains instead of using models, though.
Tom
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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, November 3, 2004 8:32 PM
[:(!]And what about those rio grande SD39's? I mean DRG&W only owned SD40T-2's and 45's and wouldnt it be funny if they used an SP tunnel motor with the SP lights and painted it as a rio grande and then ran the train with the lights on?that would be so funny[:D]!!!
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Posted by willy6 on Wednesday, November 3, 2004 8:31 PM
how about the train in "The Battle Of the Bulge" a european loco doing "what looked like 90+ miles an hour" on mountain curved track.
Being old is when you didn't loose it, it's that you just can't remember where you put it.
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Posted by johncolley on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 12:22 PM
And what was the old puffer and coaches in "Cider House Rules"?
jc5729
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Posted by twhite on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 12:05 PM
Well, they've been doing it for years. Watched an old Errol Flynn movie recently, can't remember the title (it was THAT kind of film) he played a Canadian Mountie travelling into the Northwest Territory wilderness to track down a Nazi spy. Takes the train in one scene, during a blizzard. The train? Pulled by an SP AC-5 or 6 cab-forward. Hey, CN, where'd you get ahold of THAT one?
Tom
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Posted by GerFust on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:55 AM
I was watching the movie "Annie" this week with my kids. It is set in 1929 or so. Interesting, I saw a boxcar with steel ends (couldn't see the whole care). Were there steel boxcars around back then?

-Jer
[ ]===^=====xx o o O O O O o o The Northern-er (info on the layout, http://www.msu.edu/~fust/)
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Posted by railman on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 9:11 AM
QUOTE: Originally posted by Sask_Tinplater

I

Another example simmilar to this is "Runaway Train." The movie takes place in Alaska and was filmed on the Alaska Railroad, but the ARR wouldn't let their name or logo appear anywhere in the film. If you look very closely at some parts of the set, you can see the name "Alaska and Eastern". As far as technical accuracy goes, though, there is very little in this film. The train (a GP40, an F7 and two high-hood GP7's) becomes a runaway because the engineer has a heart attack and tries to stop the train, but the power of the wheels burns the brake shoes off. In one scene, a freight train is pulling into a siding to get out of the way when the runaway comes along and smashes it's caboose just as it's about to make it onto the siding...and keeps on going! If the switch was set for the freight to go onto the siding and against the mainline, wouldn't the runaway train have derailed when it hit it? There are many other things, but I'll stop there. Despite these facts, I actually like this movie.

Of course we can point out all the incorrect train scenes there are in movies, but have you ever thought about some of the completely implausible stuff there must be that we don't notice in movies?


The movie was okay until the end (sorry, it's been on video, so I'm not ruining this for anybody) but when the train just dissapears into the endless railroad and snow I was sitting there going, "That's it?"[8D]
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 9:05 AM
I can think of some other examples, too. I have seen westerns set in the Civil War with trains that have knuckle couplers. I can also remember the movie "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss", a rather dumb comedy about a family going on a vacation in the 1950's. There was a scene with the characters waiting at a very modern looking railroad crossing for a train that had a bright green Burlington Northern extended-vision caboose on the end!

Sometimes, though, there are certain factors that are beyond the filmmakers' control. In the movie "Silver Streak", the train used is a CP Rail passenger train with decals for "Amroad" put over the logos. Some people might scoff at this, but the production company in charge of the movie approached Amtrak initially, but they refused to let them film on one of their trains. The movie is actually very good as far as technical accuracy goes, though.

Another example simmilar to this is "Runaway Train." The movie takes place in Alaska and was filmed on the Alaska Railroad, but the ARR wouldn't let their name or logo appear anywhere in the film. If you look very closely at some parts of the set, you can see the name "Alaska and Eastern". As far as technical accuracy goes, though, there is very little in this film. The train (a GP40, an F7 and two high-hood GP7's) becomes a runaway because the engineer has a heart attack and tries to stop the train, but the power of the wheels burns the brake shoes off. In one scene, a freight train is pulling into a siding to get out of the way when the runaway comes along and smashes it's caboose just as it's about to make it onto the siding...and keeps on going! If the switch was set for the freight to go onto the siding and against the mainline, wouldn't the runaway train have derailed when it hit it? There are many other things, but I'll stop there. Despite these facts, I actually like this movie.

Of course we can point out all the incorrect train scenes there are in movies, but have you ever thought about some of the completely implausible stuff there must be that we don't notice in movies?
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 1:58 AM
QUOTE: Originally posted by drephpe

And in that same vein, if you watch the early Spielberg cult movie "1941" (which was a big hit in Europe but never really made it in the States), take a close look during the scene where "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell and entourage pull up on the tarmac for the news conference among all the "new" old warbirds at Long Beach. This is just before Loomis gets the girl in the B-17 and drops the bomb on the apron. Sitting there, pretty as a picture in the background across the field, is a white lease Boeing 727 (top secret war project, probably!)[(-D]


Or in Pearl Harbor, the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, Newport-class LSTs, and USS Missouri...not only too modern to stand in as USN ships in 1941, but they all sported their 1980s and 1990s vintage radar globes and cruise missile tubes (except for the Newports)..

Oh wait, they're Spruance-class ships and they have ASROC launchers.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 10:40 PM
"The Train" with Burt Lancaster was awesome! as was Von Ryan's Express, though I think the story line was considerably weeker, personally.

In Enemy At The Gates, a movie inspired by the story of a really good Soviet Sniper during WWII, had a scene where soldiers were being loaded on to trains in the beginning. They used German steam engines! okay, I know the Russians inherited several German Class 52's after the war, but it still doesn't look quite right to me. Otherwise, the movie was pretty decent.

Alvie,
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 9:02 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by railman

QUOTE: Originally posted by Robert Langford

kEver noticed the "con trails" from jets in the skys in some of the old western movies?
If not, look next time you watch one of AMC.
Bob


I will be watching the next time I'm watching some of the westerns.


And in that same vein, if you watch the early Spielberg cult movie "1941" (which was a big hit in Europe but never really made it in the States), take a close look during the scene where "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell and entourage pull up on the tarmac for the news conference among all the "new" old warbirds at Long Beach. This is just before Loomis gets the girl in the B-17 and drops the bomb on the apron. Sitting there, pretty as a picture in the background across the field, is a white lease Boeing 727 (top secret war project, probably!)[(-D]

On the other end of the spectrum "The Newton Boys" got it almost right, using relettered T&NO 786 and a repainted RPO for the train robbery scene. At least they were the right era, and they stuck up the right car.
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Posted by trainfan1221 on Monday, November 1, 2004 6:35 PM
This always a fun topic that we have discussed before. Another movie is the one with Denzel Washington, about an army investigation. Can't think of the name right now to save my life. Anyway, at one point the guy is running away at the end and a train is shown moving in front of him. Although only the fuel tank is seen, it is clearly an EMD from 1966 on. Movie was supposed to take place I believe in the 40s.
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Posted by railman on Monday, November 1, 2004 6:27 PM
US2, that got corny in the end...I liked the first one aboard the battleship Missouri.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 5:48 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by twhite

Caught "Under Siege 2" Amtrak equipment pulled by old what looked to be Alco diesels.


Actually the locos were a GP30 and a GP7 or 9 (Couldn't really tell) I presume they were borrowed from the Rio Grande.

James
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Posted by railman on Monday, November 1, 2004 5:40 PM
QUOTE: Originally posted by modelrailroader71

Hollywood does NOT acuratelly portray trains.

For example, Train Robbers did NOT ride horse back and then stop the train like you see in some western movies.[:(!] Why doesn't Hollywood care?[V][B)]


because for some reason, that's the idea people have in their heads about how things "happen." Rather than work to change that, the movies play to the LCD and make money.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 4:21 PM
Hollywood does NOT acuratelly portray trains.

For example, Train Robbers did NOT ride horse back and then stop the train like you see in some western movies.[:(!] Why doesn't Hollywood care?[V][B)]
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 4:10 PM
Anyone else seen "Atomic Train" - one character shouting "The throttle's stuck" when the lever is all the way forward i.e. closed! Then add the train running away as a result of the air line being disconnected - wouldn't this tend to result in the brakes coming on?

I think it's the same type of mistakes as in the film "Titanic" - film makers thinking that trains (and ships) are operated in the same way as road vehicles, and that the public won't be able to spot the errors. Sad really, they obviously think making films realistic will be too complex for audiences!
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, November 1, 2004 3:57 PM
Emperor of the North it is.. I am a-fixing to catch it again and record it this time.
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Posted by twhite on Monday, November 1, 2004 11:32 AM
Caught "Under Siege 2" Amtrak equipment pulled by old what looked to be Alco diesels. Oh, well--the Colorado scenery was nice. Neat head-on collision on a trestle, too. For a wild train-wreck, check out the last part of "Greatest Show On Earth", a Cecil B. deMille groaner from the '50's. One part of a circus train rams into the back of another, cars and locomotives all OVER the place! Models, of course. Funny thing, the loco pulling the first part of the train is a CRI&P Hudson. I don't ever remember the Rock Island having Hudsons on its roster, do you? Ah, Hollywood! However, if you want to watch a WHOPPER of a movie about trains, check out THE TRAIN from the 1960's. All about the French Resistance trying to stop a train of art from being smuggled to Germany during WWII. It's on DVD and it's a stunner! No models. Just full-scale French trains being whacked around.
Tom
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Posted by willy6 on Monday, November 1, 2004 11:14 AM
Under Siege part 2,Steven Seagal movie was all trains. The train looked real but the story was a little.........................far fetched.
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Posted by twhite on Monday, November 1, 2004 8:21 AM
DSchmitt. Right you are. Movie was "Emperor of the North," novel it was based on was "Emperor of the North Pole." Got the two mixed up. Thanks for the info. By the way, movie buffs, if you want to see a film that's REALLY affectionate--and authentic--about a locomotive, try and catch an old 20th Century Fox movie called "A Ticket to Tomahawk" starring Dan Dailey. Cute movie, the locomotive in it is a former RGS 4-6-0 that's all decked out in 1870's finery as the "Emma Sweeny". The director, Richard Sales, was a well-known train buff and model railroader back in the 1950's. Worth watching. I think it's on video, it sometimes shows up on the Fox Movie Channel.
Tom

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