My name is Ed Burns and a retired NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Minneapolis.
"Trains" made a comment that a TV Show (many years ago) showed people traveling from New York to Boston on the Southern Pacific (with SP cars).
My favorite was an old Andy Griffith show that had Barney Fife getting off Union Pacific cars in Mayberry, North Carolina! Quite a feat.
A "Gunsmoke" episode shows Matt Dillon on a BN steam train. I believe was filled in South Dakota.
Thought this might be a good post to add to.
I am an ATCS host in Anoka.
In the movie "Unstoppable", Denzel Washington is chasing the run away train and is asked how much power he had. He replies 5000 horses. Pretty good for an SD40-2 which was the engine he was on.
Switching to books, I just finished reading, "The Great American Railroad War: How Ambrose Bierce and Frank Norris Took On the Notorious Central Pacific Railroad." What do they show on the dust cover? A picture of a Pennsylvania Railroad steam train of the 1950s.
Glen Brewer
RailroadGloryDays.com
We gotta get to the lead engine... we're running out of road....!!!! Hollywood crapola from "Unstoppable".
gbrewer Switching to books, I just finished reading, "The Great American Railroad War: How Ambrose Bierce and Frank Norris Took On the Notorious Central Pacific Railroad." What do they show on the dust cover? A picture of a Pennsylvania Railroad steam train of the 1950s.
From what I've heard about that book, the blooper on the cover is a good indication of the book's quality. I read Norris's "The Octopus" as part of California history at Cal, didn't find out to much later that the events in the book "based on" the Mussel Shoals incident was almost exactly the opposite of what actually happened.
- Erik
Actually the book is pretty interesting and tries to be unbiased. It discusses the incident real and fictionalized at Mussel Sholes. The real point is the PR damage Hurst, Bierce and Norris brought to Huntington, the SP and the railroad industry in general.
Not on television, but In the movie "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen, they get on a train in Florida to travel to Vermont. Santa Fe all the Way.
Several years ago, I watched a murder mystery which supposedly was set on the Sunset Limited.
What I really remember is that the heroine had misplaced her key to her room in a sleeper. The only times I have needed a key was when I was riding in a Renaissance car on VIA's Ocean--and I have ridden in many different sleepers.
Johnny
The movie "Chattanooga Choo Choo" predictably featured Sierra 28 and environs, and included a scene shot on the Grizzly Flats property (Ward Kimball). No big deal there, other than the story was supposed to be set in the east.
The platform on which was displayed "New York City, Pennsylvania Station" clearly wasn't. I believe all of the platforms there were underground.
While the interior of "Pennylvania Station" was very nice, it obviously the real deal, either.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
In the movie Biloxi Blues, at the beginning the men leave on a train going over a bridge. At the end of the movie they return by train over the same bridge, but, the lettering on the cars are all backwards!
.
But you can still tell they were Lackawanna cars!
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Its not exactly a blooper. In "Young Frankenstein," Mel Brooks' movie, Frederick Frankenstein arrives at Transylvania Station.
BigJim In the movie Biloxi Blues, at the beginning the men leave on a train going over a bridge. At the end of the movie they return by train over the same bridge, but, the lettering on the cars are all backwards!
Some of those cars are now hauling tourists at the Boone & Scenic Valley RR in Iowa.
Jeff
That "Unstoppable" motor was one of them Allegheny & West Virginia rebuilds.
Don't forget those Conrail box cars in the movie "JFK" going through Dealy Plaza in the late 60s.
Early 1960's perhaps? JFK was assassinated November 1963.
Kind of a shock to realize that the start of Conrail was less than a decade and a half after that event.
OOhh I can play this game:
How about the modern double stack container train rolling thru a supposedly 1950's town in "Ray"
A modern P42 Genesis pulling an Amtrak train is supposedly 1970 Maine in "Dark Shadows"
An Obviously British engine and coaches with a badly applied Union Pacific label stuck on to it in "Flyboys"
And photos of weathered PA-1 diesels, not built until 1947, on the lounge car walls of a 1945 train in "Flags of our Fathers"
Have fun with your trains
tree68 wrote the following post at 11-19-2012 5:38 PM:
The wedding at the end of the movie was filmed in the California State Railroad Museum. In the shot of George Kennedy standing in the door of the "roundhouse" Western Pacific F7 #913 is visible behind him. After the wedding party exits the roundhouse the I Street bridge is visible in several shots. http://www.google.com/search?q=i+street+bridge&hl=en&tbo=u&rlz=1T4ITVB_enUS394US394&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rKirUPPNG4ikiQLA2IGADA&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=704
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
baberuth73 We gotta get to the lead engine... we're running out of road....!!!! Hollywood crapola from "Unstoppable".
Back to "Chattanooga Choo Choo." The logical route would have been through Bristol, Virginia, and Bristol, Tennessee. The movie showed the Tennessee state line as being in open country; had the train gone through Bristol, it would have crossed the Tennessee line as it crossed State Street in the two cities (in downtown Bristol the state line runs down the middle of State Street, and the station was on the north side of State Street). Of course, there is the line in the song, "dinner in the diner, nothing can be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina"--which seems to indicate that the train went through Asheville and then the Tennessee line would be crossed in open country. Again, the line may have had some poetic license in it.
cacole Not on television, but In the movie "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen, they get on a train in Florida to travel to Vermont. Santa Fe all the Way.
That's not fully correct. They leave Florida on the Santa Fe and come into Vermont on the Espee.
Lone Geep
\
lone geep cacole Not on television, but In the movie "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen, they get on a train in Florida to travel to Vermont. Santa Fe all the Way. That's not fully correct. They leave Florida on the Santa Fe and come into Vermont on the Espee.
The missing scene is them changing trains in Atlanta and going to Philly on the Great Northern
Deggesty Of course, there is the line in the song, "dinner in the diner, nothing can be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina"--which seems to indicate that the train went through Asheville and then the Tennessee line would be crossed in open country. Again, the line may have had some poetic license in it.
Of course, there is the line in the song, "dinner in the diner, nothing can be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina"--which seems to indicate that the train went through Asheville and then the Tennessee line would be crossed in open country. Again, the line may have had some poetic license in it.
whoa Deggesty; Ashville - Knoxville goes along the French Broad river and very mountainous terrain. Mountains all along the border of North Carolina / Tennessee. Even going Ga -Tn is very hilly.
Yes sir! Track 49. Great funny movie.
vsmith How about the modern double stack container train rolling thru a supposedly 1950's town in "Ray"
An Amtrak train also makes an appearance in the background in that same movie.
But Tree,
It seems to me that Chattanooga Choo Choo is a case where the myth has gained a reality that is far more real that any actual passenger train. Even if the Pennsylvania Station shots were shot in the station there never ever was any train that ran between New York and Chattanooga. Yet this song is known around the world and has even been translated into foreign languages. Isn't this a case where the truth is a blooper because it doesn't conform to the iconic myth?
John
Ed - You've inspired me to vent on a current TV show, "Revolution". I feel confident their writers have never been east of San Bernadino, given the junk they've foisted on the viewers with their depiction of a train (wood burning old timer, no less) leaving "the Chicago area" on single track through the woods for Philiadelphia. Now I know the premise of the show, electricity doesn't work, but wood burning? And the line to Philadelphia is a backwoods beaten up branch line? Not so much...
But that was just to soften us up. After they hiked south from the Pittsburgh area to cross the (un-named, but had to be the Monongahela) river at Morgantown (to go to Philadelphia??? Retroactive "F" in geography) they finally "snuck into" Philadelphia through a tunnel portal (single track, no overhead wire...) with a big sign "Express Train to Philadelphia" over the portal. Then they head toward Indpendence Hall by passing the Girard Station. It's obvious that they're hiking through what's supposed to represent a transit (not railroad) tunnel, but fortunately the set dressers forgot to include third rails. Of course with no juice, they'd be safe anyway. Now, by the way, isn't the Girard Station on the Broad St. line, which runs north-south? Not your route of choice to get to Independence Hall!
The sad thing is that accurate portrails would have significantly expanded the opportunities for dramatic impact in what is, except for these inexcusible atrocities on correct depiction, a fun show.
Dave Phelps
My favorite bloopers are in "Unstoppable". The first is the engineer jumping from car to car at 60 MPH+, he must be superman. Number two is the "dead man" control not stopping the engine. Number three is when the engineer chasing the locomotive can't make the front steps why didn't he try for the rear ones.
Charles Sanchez
PRR-Perfect RailRoad
Another one: IIRC, there's a quick exterior shot of the Twentieth Century Limited coming out of a tunnel in North by Northwest (Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint). OK, it could be the tunnel under the penitentiary at Poughkeepsie (still there?), but the Century is wearing Daylight colors in this shot.
ChuckAllen, TX
I need to follow this thread for ideas for my "Trains" movie if it ever gets made. Ideas are slowly coming together. If made it will have some uniquely modified SD40-2 engines along with a lot of other train stuff in various smaller scales. I'm still looking for co-writers for the movie script.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.