Model trains used as visual effects in movies

[Arjay1969]

 Not a movie, but remember the (very) short-lived TV series "Supertrain?"  that was pretty much all models, since there aren't any real 10' gauge lines that I know of here!

[steamage]

TrainManTy

Bruce Petty (user Steamage here) has a section of his website about a scene from a movie that was filmed on his layout.

http://lariverrailroads.com/movie_railroad.html

 

Back in the 1960s there was a TV show called "Iron Horse" , my father worked on the show from 1966-68.  The running trains for the the show were shot on the Sierra Railroad.  At the Columbia Ranch in Burbank, mock ups of the locomotive and two passenger cars were made from plywood, and each were rolled around on four rubber tires.  When setting up, the wooden rail, plywood ties and locomotives wooden drivers were mounted.  The old time passenger cars  had their wooden wheel side frames too. 

 Nowadays renting real trains is really expensive for movie production companies, so now, and more than ever model trains are used.   In a previous post from "TrainManTy",  my layout was used for an upcoming movie called Repo Chick due to be released in Spring of 2010.  The movie's director Alex Cox lives close by, he and spent the day shooting the needed scenes on my LA&SFV RR with a HD digital camera.  Best scene was my SP, C30 caboose used special effects of an antenna popping out of the copula.  Our club layout was also used for the movie intro credits. 
 

[BerkshireSteam]

steamage

TrainManTy

Bruce Petty (user Steamage here) has a section of his website about a scene from a movie that was filmed on his layout.

http://lariverrailroads.com/movie_railroad.html

 

Back in the 1960s there was a TV show called "Iron Horse" , my father worked on the show from 1966-68.  The running trains for the the show were shot on the Sierra Railroad.  At the Columbia Ranch in Burbank, mock ups of the locomotive and two passenger cars were made from plywood, and each were rolled around on four rubber tires.  When setting up, the wooden rail, plywood ties and locomotives wooden drivers were mounted.  The old time passenger cars  had their wooden wheel side frames too. 

 Nowadays renting real trains is really expensive for movie production companies, so now, and more than ever model trains are used.   In a previous post from "TrainManTy",  my layout was used for an upcoming movie called Repo Chick due to be released in Spring of 2010.  The movie's director Alex Cox lives close by, he and spent the day shooting the needed scenes on my LA&SFV RR with a HD digital camera.  Best scene was my SP, C30 caboose used special effects of an antenna popping out of the copula.  Our club layout was also used for the movie intro credits. 
 

I've seen a thing for Repo Chic, it looked good enough to spend 9 bucks on. And I was off, it was Goldeneye, I got my Bond movies mixed up. I know some might say a true Bond fan would never make a goof like that, but when you've seen every Bond movie made half a dozen times or so you might get them confused. Did you know the original Bond-mobile wasn't even an Astin Martin?? But still, no one argued with me that the train resembles a PRR 4-4-4-4. I think the movie train was even a steamer. I always wondered about the train crash in Back To The Future. Does anyone know if they made their own life sized train for the chase scenes? Or did they honestly get a nice little steamer and muck it all up with that time traveling crap.

On a side note, in 3:10 To Yuma they used a real live old time 2-6-0 steamer. It was the only working one like it in the country and they had to half way across the country. It also snowed 3 feet the night before the big last scene in Contention. They just covered it all up with dirt. Some things they do to make a scene in the movie is more interesting than the finished scene itself. Like how George Lucas and others built the Death Star model out of Battleship games for all the close up fly by shots.

I will agree though, they need to start making more movies with trains in them. 3:10 To Yuma and Phehlam 123 aren't enough. I mean I refuse to believe there wasn't enough train things that weren't good enough for a book or movie. They did it in John Wayne's Hell Fighters, a movie about a job, although I'm sure that was glorified a bit by Phonywood.