Hollywood and railroads.

[longhorn1969]

Talking about Hollywood who can forget this gem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNMbFCUKec

Go 1:16:30sec . Ever since I was a kid and saw this movie (help me become an Amtrak fan) I never understood what exactly were the track gang trying to do? Support the track? Thats what the nails in the ties were for.

I have been in a F40 cab, I really don't think engineers sat that far back from the control stand that the engineer can slam brakes close with his foot.

[BaltACD]

longhorn1969

Talking about Hollywood who can forget this gem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNMbFCUKec

Go 1:16:30sec . Ever since I was a kid and saw this movie (help me become an Amtrak fan) I never understood what exactly were the track gang trying to do? Support the track? Thats what the nails in the ties were for.

I have been in a F40 cab, I really don't think engineers sat that far back from the control stand that the engineer can slam brakes close with his foot.

Talk about a hoot!

[BLS53]

All I know about Jane Fonda, is that the Orgasmatron scene in Barberella, still works as good for me at 65, as it did when I was 15.

[54light15]

Convicted One

Well,.....you know how "trendy" real estate can be. Once demand for a location is established, then "everybody" wants to go there. 

Thanks for that! Funny as hell! 

But aside, Narrow Margin is well worth seeing with the incomparable Marie Windsor, the best Femme Fatale of all time! 

[jeffhergert]

longhorn1969

Talking about Hollywood who can forget this gem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNMbFCUKec

Go 1:16:30sec . Ever since I was a kid and saw this movie (help me become an Amtrak fan) I never understood what exactly were the track gang trying to do? Support the track? Thats what the nails in the ties were for.

I have been in a F40 cab, I really don't think engineers sat that far back from the control stand that the engineer can slam brakes close with his foot.

 

The camera angle isn't the best, but it looks to me like he's using his foot to close the throttle.  That's after he appears to release the independent and then release the automatic, which looked like it was already in either handle off or the emergency position.

I read once that when the RI got new diesels, I think the U25B order of the early 60s, that the control stand layout had engineers using their foot to close the throttle when hanging out the window looking back for signals and manipulating the brake valve(s) when making shoving moves.  They called it "tap dancing the throttle".

Jeff 

[rrnut282]

You hear the same howling about movies over on the airplane sites.  

[lidgerwoodplow]

   In one of the Spaghetti Westerns, Lee Van Cleef disembarks from a European train (4-wheel cars)—in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

[M636C]

lidgerwoodplow

   In one of the Spaghetti Westerns, Lee Van Cleef disembarks from a European train (4-wheel cars)—in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

 

I think trains appear in most of the Spaghetti Westerns. These sequences were all filmed in Spain, and I expect that other location scenes were filmed in Spain. All you have to do is set up an early Western USA town and bring the cameras.

 

It is worth looking at the locomotives. In the 1960s, there were many very old steam locomotives in Spain, many in full working order if not in daily use.

 

I think an 0-8-0 fitted with a cowcatcher, diamond stack and wooden cab (built over the fairly basic original cab) was used in at least one of these movies. It had, in the European manner, outside Stephenson valve gear.  

 

The overall impression wasn't too bad. The light broad gauge track (just under 5'6") gave a suitable "pioneer" appearance.

 

To change the scene completely, "Shanghai Express", the 1930s version with Clive Brook and Marlene Dietrich, had a wonderful opening scene of the train leaving a Chinese city, where it wound its way out of narrow streets with stalls set up just clear of the train. The train was hauled by a Southern Pacific MT-1 or MT-3 before skyline casings were fitted. I think Chinese Characters appeared in the train indicators. Like the huge production number in "Harvey Girls" where the actors nearest the locomotive had their clothes soaked by the steam from the cylinder cocks as they moved forward with the train, these scenes were made prior to serious Occupational Health and Safety rules.

 

Peter

 

[ROCKING-ROBERT]

When I enlisted in the Air Force in 1961 we were transported to San Antonio on the Sunset Limited in our own sleeper.  NO KEYs for the room doors

[Overmod]

longhorn1969

Ever since I was a kid and saw this movie (help me become an Amtrak fan) I never understood what exactly were the track gang trying to do? Support the track?

Human gauge bars.  Or the moral equivalent.

[Sunnyland]

I've seen stuff too, but just tune it out and watch the train.  I know a friend who saw Unstoppable said physics would never allow that train to go around a curve like that with wheels up. I agree, but it was exciting to watch anyway. I guess I am easy to please. ha ha   And I did not know any sleepers ever had keys, used to wonder about leaving our stuff in the bedroom, but never had a problem. But the Pullman porter was always watching who came in the car. And now on Amtrak, the attendant keeps watch too. But something could be stolen by another passenger, so I always keep my suitcase locked just in case.  

[54light15]

I recently watched "The Sting." Did trains back then really have "card rooms?" 

[BaltACD]

54light15

I recently watched "The Sting." Did trains back then really have "card rooms?" 

Cards and railroading are not mutually exclusive.

A Pullman Conductor hosting a regular card game in a unused Pullman accomidation would not be beyond the realm of possibility.  Pullman Conductors stayed with the train from origin to destination.  Railroad Conductors changed out at crew change locations.

[Deggesty]

I had the impressionn that the game was played in a drawing room that was occupied by at least one of the card players.

[NittanyLion]

rrnut282

You hear the same howling about movies over on the airplane sites.  

 

Everything, really. Lawyers point out the problems in lawyer shows, doctors in medical dramas, whatever. Take a movie like The Martian. Very well made and very accurate. But there's dozens of things someone could nitpick.  TV and movie writers are experts at telling a story, not making documentaries. 

[54light15]

You could do that with a film like Ratatouille. Aside from a rat being a chef, restaurant staff have told me that the kitchen culture is dead on. Also totally accurate French cars such as the bad guy's Facel Vega. The thing is, the film has credibility in it's own way. 

[54light15]

I just saw a movie that does not have trains at all. "The House on 92nd Street," a thriller about the Eff Bee Eye fighting sinister Nazis before and during WW2. What you do see are streetcars in Washington, D.C. Lisbon and New York City, at Columbus Circle and on 59th Street. Some very clear shots of them, too. Maybe Dave Klepper could identify them? Also, there are scenes of the Hamburg elevated railway and a shot of J. Edgar himself.