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Tank kills Pennsy steam Loco? Hollywood trains again!

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  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: California & Maine
  • 3,848 posts
Posted by andrechapelon on Monday, February 18, 2008 1:08 PM
 Autobus Prime wrote:
 snagletooth wrote:

MY GOD.. where's Wilford Brimley when you need him? Who else took take a MP GP38-2 from Little Rock to Chicago on CTC controlled territory and NOT have a swictch thrown in front of them.... W.B. IS THE MAN!!!!

s:

I am glad you posted this, as it reminds me that I'm not the only one who has seen END OF THE LINE.  Cowboy [C):-)]

I feel your pain, brother.

Andre

It's really kind of hard to support your local hobby shop when the nearest hobby shop that's worth the name is a 150 mile roundtrip.
  • Member since
    January 2007
  • 724 posts
Posted by snagletooth on Monday, February 18, 2008 2:04 PM
 andrechapelon wrote:
 Autobus Prime wrote:
 snagletooth wrote:

MY GOD.. where's Wilford Brimley when you need him? Who else took take a MP GP38-2 from Little Rock to Chicago on CTC controlled territory and NOT have a swictch thrown in front of them.... W.B. IS THE MAN!!!!

s:

I am glad you posted this, as it reminds me that I'm not the only one who has seen END OF THE LINE.  Cowboy [C):-)]

I feel your pain, brother.

Andre

We're not alone, guys. We're not aloneLaugh [(-D]
Snagletooth
  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: California & Maine
  • 3,848 posts
Posted by andrechapelon on Monday, February 18, 2008 2:23 PM
 snagletooth wrote:
 andrechapelon wrote:
 Autobus Prime wrote:
 snagletooth wrote:

MY GOD.. where's Wilford Brimley when you need him? Who else took take a MP GP38-2 from Little Rock to Chicago on CTC controlled territory and NOT have a swictch thrown in front of them.... W.B. IS THE MAN!!!!

s:

I am glad you posted this, as it reminds me that I'm not the only one who has seen END OF THE LINE.  Cowboy [C):-)]

I feel your pain, brother.

Andre

We're not alone, guys. We're not aloneLaugh [(-D]

Oh, the pain doesn't end there. I watched second unit filming of a piece of cr... er, I mean fluff called "Chattanooga Choo Choo" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087041/ ) as I was a member of the Pacific Locomotive Association which was running the concession at Railtown 1897 at the time (2-8-0 #28 was used in the filming). I don't even remember what the "plot" was, fortunately for my continued mental health. The filming itself wasn't bad (none of the stars were involved in this), but when the thing was put together and shown as a TV film, I wanted to rip my eyes out of their sockets. If it weren't for the fact that I enjoyed seeing #28 run both in person and on film, I probably would have. I don't remember the last name of the engineer who ran #28 (his first name was Dave), but I do remember that Mike Pardhina, a long time employee of the Sierra Railroad was firing. Mike passed away a few years ago.

There was one other thing that eased the pain of watching that movie and that was a good memory. I caught a ride in the cab of #28 from Oakdale back to Jamestown. There's nothing like riding upgrade in the cab of a steam locomotive listening to her work. We had 4 heavyweight passenger cars in tow, so #28 had some work to do.

Hmm. Maybe things weren't as bad as I thought. The movie was awful, but everything else was fun.

EDIT: Note for anyone who might see this movie in the future (may God have mercy on your soul). The Mother Lode country of California bears no resemblence whatsoever to any location in the state of Tennessee. Trust me on this. I've been to both. The movie goes down hill from there.

Andre

It's really kind of hard to support your local hobby shop when the nearest hobby shop that's worth the name is a 150 mile roundtrip.
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Carmichael, CA
  • 8,055 posts
Posted by twhite on Monday, February 18, 2008 3:11 PM

Andre--

I'm with you on the Sierra Railway--I live within a couple of hours of Jamestown, and as I remember, that area moviewise has been Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and I think even Colorado and Utah on several occasions, among a lot of other settings that it does not even faintly resemble.  And the former 'star' of the show, the 1897 Rogers #3 4-6-0 has played everything from a Civil War locomotive ("Kansas Pacific", "Drums in the Deep South") to a 1930's Dust-Bowl locomotive traveling through Oklahoma in a film about Woody Guthrie.  And 20th Century 2-8-2 #28 has been robbed by the 19th-Century Dalton Boys a couple of times (trailing truck and all). 

I love Westerns, and occasionally Hollywood gets it right as far as period rolling stock (deMille's "Union Pacific", John Ford's silent "The Iron Horse" Richard Sale's "A Ticket to Tomahawk" and the good Alan Ladd western "Whispering Smith"), but I learned at a VERY early age not to expect miracles when a train chuffed onto the scene, LOL!

Tom  Tongue [:P]

,  

 

  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: California & Maine
  • 3,848 posts
Posted by andrechapelon on Monday, February 18, 2008 8:26 PM

I love Westerns, and occasionally Hollywood gets it right as far as period rolling stock (deMille's "Union Pacific", John Ford's silent "The Iron Horse" Richard Sale's "A Ticket to Tomahawk" and the good Alan Ladd western "Whispering Smith"), but I learned at a VERY early age not to expect miracles when a train chuffed onto the scene, LOL

One of the reasons deMille got it more or less right is because he had access to ex V&T equipment. In fact, the "J.W. Bowker" 2-4-0 is plays a rather prominent role in some scenes. I haven't seen "The Iron Horse" in its entirety, but we're talking 1924, when some of this stuff was still available relatively easily. Another good silent is "The General", starring Buster Keaton. Even though the railroad equipment is obviously anachronistic, it's still a fun movie to watch. Disney's "The Great Locomotive Chase" isn't bad, either, even if it is a drama rather than a comedy.

Other movies involving trains that are reasonably good are:

"The Titfield Thunderbolt"  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046436/ Actually, the first time I saw this one as a teen, I laughed my head off.

"The Train" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059825/ Some nice shots of French steam. Unfortunately, there was an anachronism in that the motive power depot that got blown up contained some 141 R's, which didn't exist at the time. http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/fr/steam/141_R/misc/141r-haus-rs.jpg

"Murder On The Orient Express" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071877/

"Von Ryan's Express"  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059885/ Some nice shots of an Italian Railways Franco-Crosti boilered 2-8-0 in action on the chase train.

"Bhowani Junction" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049007/

"The Cassandra Crossing" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074292/ As a movie, this one was rather a bit melodramatic, but there were some really nice shots of the train in the Swiss Alps. IIRC, much of the train footage was shot on the SBB.

"Silver Streak" (the Gene Wilder/Jill Clayburgh version) wasn't bad even if it had some extremely implausible scenes (most notably Wilder getting caught by a signal gantry which rotated 180 degrees before his stunt double dropped to the ground).

Andre

It's really kind of hard to support your local hobby shop when the nearest hobby shop that's worth the name is a 150 mile roundtrip.

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