Model Railroads in Movies and TV?

[smarmaro]

i remember finding a website that listed all tv shows and movies that had a scene with trains in them.

can anybody else remember the website address?

i cannot seem to find it any more.

[challenger3980]

    There is an independent filmmaker shooting a train film here in Portland, OR I believe the title will be "Trainmaster" it will have both real trains and HO models in it. The layout scenes were shot over 4 days last week at the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club, which I am a member of. They deliberately shot to avoid showing the entire layout at once, there just aren't too many 4200 square foot home layouts, and that is what the scenes shot at the club are for. they are being used as the GrandFather's own layout in the movie

       It is intended to be a regular theater run film, with an expected release in the Spring of 2008. I haven't yet seen any of the footage they have shot, but if you see any Union Pacific Steam or Veranda Turbines, they are very likely mine. It will be really fun seeing scenes from the club in a movie like that, and of course, even better if any of my own equipment gets any screen time .

                                                                             Doug

 

[Fortkentdad]

In a British TV series called Heartbeat one of the characters named David ends up inheriting the model trains of a fella that passed away,  his widow figured David would enjoy them.  Never see much of the trains in that episode.

 Heartbeat plays of public TV in Canada.  Heartbeat frequently has scenes of a steam train in the series.  I think it is set in the 1960's which makes the steamer a wee bit odd.  When did steam stop running in britan anyway?  Pretty much history by the 1960's here and based n the music and mini skirts in Heartbeat it was not set in the 1950's. 

 

 

[Texas Chief]

Tracklayer

I agree. While "Forbidden Planet" was a good movie, "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" was another of my all time favorites. It was that movie and "The Frogmen" with Richard Widmark that spurred my interest to take up scuba diving when I was young.

Dick

Texas Chief

[Dallas Model Works]

Did those old Lionel trains have built-in sound? Gomez' locos had sound...

Either that, or the television show of Gomez' loco had sound dubbed by the sound effects editor.  Television is not always "real."

Erm...did you see the smiley face at the end of my post? Sometimes posts aren't always "real" either.

[Anonymous]

In the Garfield movie, Jim had a train set.

[Medina1128]

Cox47, I remember the Twilight Zone episode you're referring to. The trains runs through the night and never reaches its destination. There was also a train episode on that anthology series that Steven Speilberg produced, about a train that runs through the house, literally. I think it was a ghost train. And don't forget Polar Express and Von Ryan's Express.

[loathar]

Anyone ever see the movie with Gary Coleman where he plays a shoeshine boy who lives in a locker at Union Station.  He has the ability to pick the winning horse while shining shoes.  Social services wants to move him out of the station and he ends up with his own refurbished caboose to live in.

I don't think that was a movie. Isn't that a reality show about his real life these days?

[leighant]

Did those old Lionel trains have built-in sound? Gomez' locos had sound...

Either that, or the television show of Gomez' loco had sound dubbed by the sound effects editor.  Television is not always "real."

[initagain]

 

How about The Lone Ranger, Wild Bill Hickok, Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers, The Cisco Kid, Have Gun- Will Travel, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West ( this one's really appropriate-it was based on two government agents who used an old-time passenger car as their mobile base of operations.) These ought to get the brain cells cooking.

[steemtrayn]

How about model railroads in music videos?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oGneWngmos

[Anonymous]

There have been several Model Railroads used in movies and TV. The ones I remember the most are from westerns of the late 50's and 60's  Does anyone remember the old serials they used to show in the theaters and later on on TV? Some of  the titles escape me, but given some to to jog the old memory cells I'm sure I can come up with some.

[Tracklayer]

In the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, Bobby (the kid in the movie) has a train layout on a sheet of plywood under his bed, and when Klattu (the alien) knocks on Bobby's bed room door and asks to barrow a flashlight and sees it, he tells him to remind him tomorrow to tell him about the trains where he comes from that don't need tracks...

I sure hope they do a modern remake of that movie and don't screw it up!.

Tracklayer

I sure hope they DON'T do a modern remake. Every remake I've ever seen has been a dismal failure, and this would be one also. This movie is one of the best Si-Fi movies ever filmed. They also show a great still shot of the Santa Fe Chief.

Dick

Texas Chief

 

Dick. It's confirmed!... They are in fact doing a remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. It's set to be released by Fox Studios May of 2008. I just hope and pray they do a good job of it.

Tracklayer

[AltoonaRailroader]

On The Simpsons, Reverend Lovejoy is a model train enthusiest(sp?) and the movie "Garfield" it looks like Jon has a "O" scale running in the one room. Hope this helps!!!

 

[Dallas Model Works]

Being able to run locos head-on into each other can mean only one thing -- Gomez had DCC way before any of the rest of us!

Hardly.  You give DCC entirely too much credit.  Lionel & American flyer trains running on AC can easily do head on collisions.

All model railroaders should experience running Lionel trains. 

Really? Did those old Lionel trains have built-in sound? Gomez' locos had sound...

[csmith9474]

I think one of my favorite scenes involoving model railroading was in the movie Top Secret, even though it was really short. I like how the scene started as a stick drawing in the ground, and when they panned back it was a scale model of the castle including cattle and the model train line.

[jktrains]

How about Alf.  Willie had a O scale layout in the garage/shed that Alf's spacecraft landed on.  One of the early episodes shows Alf running the train while Willie tries to fix the spacecraft.

Anyone ever see the movie with Gary Coleman where he plays a shoeshine boy who lives in a locker at Union Station.  He has the ability to pick the winning horse while shining shoes.  Social services wants to move him out of the station and he ends up with his own refurbished caboose to live in.

 

[TheK4Kid]

I remember it. Didn't watch it for Wilford and his trains, or Shannon Doherty, I always thought Deidra Hall was HOT!!! LOL!

[stokesda]

When I was a kid in the '80's, there was a TV show called "Our House" that we used to watch all the time. It was about a divorced (or widowed?) mother and her kids who moved in with grandpa (her dad or his, I don't remember). The grandpa was played by Wilford Brimley, and he had a layout in a small shed next to the house. I don't remember too much about the show, and don't remember what the layout looked like if I ever saw it.

I do remember one episode where he came home and went straight to the "train room," and one of the other characters on the show remarked that he must really be in a bad mood because he went straight to playing with his trains before even coming in the house.

The mother on the show was played by Deidre Hall, and if I recall correctly, Shannon Doherty played the oldest girl, back in the pre-90210 days.

Anybody else remember this show?

[Gandy Dancer]

Being able to run locos head-on into each other can mean only one thing -- Gomez had DCC way before any of the rest of us!

Hardly.  You give DCC entirely too much credit.  Lionel & American flyer trains running on AC can easily do head on collisions.

All model railroaders should experience running Lionel trains. 

[Dallas Model Works]

Uhmmm....Addams Family?

Being able to run locos head-on into each other can mean only one thing -- Gomez had DCC way before any of the rest of us!

"Tish, that's French!"

 

[Gandy Dancer]

Thanks for all the posts...I just thought of another  Rev. Lovejoy in the Simpsons has a layout in his basement don't know how I forgot that one as the Simpson's is one of my favorites.

The trains have been in several episodes.  I like the one where they are moving the layout out of the basement.  As they are crossing the street a truck drives through it and he says something like, "Dear Lord, why do you hate my trains?"

[Cox 47]

Thanks for all the posts...I just thought of another  Rev. Lovejoy in the Simpsons has a layout in his basement don't know how I forgot that one as the Simpson's is one of my favorites..Cox 47

[stebbycentral]

For you postwar Lionel fans, remember a comedy show in the early 60's (I think),  called The Addams Family:  Gomez (played by John Astin) was always crashing Lionel trains into one another on what I vaguely remember as a pretty sizeable layout.  I remember him using a ZW to control the trains. 

Those iconic scenes were also translated over into the Addams Family movies produced in the 90's, starring Raul Julia and Angelica Huston.  I remember reading a magazine article about the problems of adapting the train sets for the movie.  Though I don't remember whether the article appeared in a hobby magazine or in one of the movie special effects journals.  At any rate the jist of the article what that when they went to film the scenes where Gomez was blowing up his railroad, they found the Lionel locomotives and rolling stock were too well constructed for their purposes.  The special effects team would blow them up with squib charges and smash them together in head-end collisions, but the equipment would come out the other side with only a few scratches and/or burn marks on the paint.  In the end they wound up scratch building their own equipment using cardboard, thin sytrene, and even sheets of lead.  All so they could get their shots of appropriately crushed and mangled rolling stock.

[novicerr]

Cant recall the name, but movie was on encore the other day. About a railroad about to be shut down (new ceo is founders son, and wants to get into airline industry). Anyway, star and coworker steal the engine and go from louisiana to chicago to see owner. He has a layout in his office. Pretty good movie.

[andrechapelon]

I can't recall the name of the movie, but it might have been made in the 50's or 60's but I think Cary Grant was in it but not sure, and they had these "O" scale trains (I think they were Lionel) running all over the one floor level of this big house, and they had made "tunnel cutouts" in the baseboard and walls for the trains to go from one room to the other.

I remember seeing the movie, but it's been years ago. 

 Anyone recall this movie????? 

 TheK4Kid 

It was calle "People Will Talk". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043915/

Andre

[Annonymous]

In the movie "Money train" a guy had a model of the train on his office desk, and Woody Harrelson's character snatched it when he left the office.

Steven Spielberg's "Close encounters": Richard Dreyfuss' character had a layout in his living room, but sadly it was destroyed as he began to model Devil's Tower on it, full scale...

Here in Norway there was an English television series not long ago; "Kingdom", where the main character (a lawyer) had a nice layout (I guess 00 scale) in the attic, and operated it in several episodes.

Svein

 

[snagletooth]

 Barnaby Jones, or was it Quincy, that had a lionel in the opening credits. ran through a whole in the wall to bring him a martini or something. Sorry, but it was before my time. I just barely remember my parents watching it.

[Tracklayer]

I forgot about the movie "Arthur" with Dudley Moore (rest his soul) as a rich, silly boozer... He had a layout right behind the head of his bed that was apparently also his alarm clock. If I ever win the lottery I'm gonna do that!...

Tracklayer