Let's make and share our list of: TRAINS IN MOVIES.

[michealfarley]

Hmmm......

A whole bunch of railroad guys have yet to come up with "Fried Green Tomatoes". A beautiful steam engine.......A&WP I think?

Also the Disney movie "Iron Will" had a Duluth and Northeastern steamer from the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, MN.

[leighant]

When I was a kid, my favorite was Walt Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase. Had some great historic locos in it. Got to see some of those "stars" in the FLESH-- or rather in the steel that is, at the B&O Railroad Museum. When I got a video recorder a few years ago and started renting old movies I wanted to see again or missed the first time, The Great Locomotive Chase was at the top of my list to track down. Couldn't find it to rent anywhere, looked for Disney sales and couldn't find it there either. Finally found a copy. Apparently distributed now by some other video company, not Disney.

Looking at it after years of experience with railroads and film-making, I saw it wasn't quite as rough and rugged as I remember on the equipment. Lots of nice running shots and interesting OPERATION, as both sides in the chase have to work around the schedule of trains. The railroad action in Disney's Great Locomotive Chase is neat but not as wild as that in Buster Keaton's 1927 silent The General. I have a Paul Killiam 45-minute abridgement of The General in 8mm and I enjoy showing it and playing a live keyboard background music score with "Dixie" when the South is winning, "Yankee Doodle" in a minor key when the Yankees are threatening, "Hearts and Flowers" in the mawkish romantic scenes, etc. Great old silent movie.

I highly recommend Larry Jensen's book The Movie Railroads. (Burbank, California: Darwin Publications, 1981.) It documents what locomotives and railroad equipment was used in what movies filmed in what locations by what studios with what stars. Especially western movies (and TV shows) of late 1940s into 1970s.

Egotistically, I would invite you to go to the "Layouts and Layout Planning" site area, go down several pages of topics and see my design for a model railroad based on the MGM Studio backlot. Or click on my username to take you my list of posts and look for MGM.

[Anonymous]

the one where the track crew unbolted fish plates to derail the train into a large grassy area was called coastliner. I saw it in the late 70's and haven't been able to find it since

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by IronGoat

I think the best one, ever, was "Emperor of the North Pole" with Lee Marvin, riding old #19.

I'll second it on this one, This one was realy an "AWESOME" movie! Just scratch the word pole from the title though.

[Anonymous]

"Midnight Run" with Robert De Niro had some nice scenes from Amtrak and the Santa Fe.

-Matt

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by codyr

october sky has a 4-4-0 (at least thats how many wheels i counted)

It was actually a 2-8-2. (but how you can confuse a 4-4-0 with a 2-8-2 is beyond me[%-)][%-)])

[Anonymous]

There's some shots of Conrail and CNW trains in ROCKY II. The engineer even leans out the window and says "hey rocky" as Rocky runs past.

[AntonioFP45]

JKGP35,

GREAT TV MOVIE!! A must see for railfans!

I saw that movie back in the early 80s! It was called "Disaster on Coastliner". William Shatner was one of the lead characters. Played a "con man" who winded up trying to save one of two Amtrak trains heading for disaster caused by a grieving computer expert.

IN A NUTSHELL: An angry electronics technician named Mr. Waterman lost his family when a freight train from the "Trans Allied Railroad" derailed and the cars smashed into his house. When the crooked railroad executives were cleared, he decided to get even. He was able to get into the control center and sabotoge the electronics so that the switches would line up in a way that would result in two Trans Allied (Amtrak) passenger trains smashing into each other at high speed. He then goes to a train crew locker room, knocks out an engineer and is able to commander an F40. Topping it off, the First Lady was onboard one of the trains. Secret Service agents are going nuts! Raymond Burr stars as the new "good guy" executive that wants to set things right. The scene of the F40 crash was pretty neat. It was actually done with a large scale model, though ABC refused to reveal at the time what scale it was.

I remember a short article appearring in a Model Railroader mag back then.

Thanks for the reminder!

[Don Gibson]

A lot of good ones here, but ...

For ME the BEST 'Train Movie' of All time was 'The General' - a silent film with Buster Keaton. The 'General' was one of the locomotives in the Anderson's Raiders' Great Locomotive Chase. If you haven't seen this one, you've missed something.

WORST Train movie of all time: 'Tough Guys'. I waited over an hr. of drivel to see a running side shot of 4449 and a scale model copy plow into dirt.

BEST 10 minutes about a Railroad : Opening sequence of 'Once Upon A Time In The West' - A Sergio Leone Western with Chas Branson, Henry Fonda, & Jason Robards.

[fec153]

Disney cartoon/movie with Donald Duck and Jose Carioca/one more I can't recall-
The Three Caballeros. Had a train going all over south america.Up down all around.
The third bird was a crazy character.

[fec153]

Didn't Stalag 17 have a scene where the pilot showed how he used a lit cigarette
under the matchbook lid to start a fire in a train going the other way? They showed how
he managed to flip it into aboxcar.

[Green Bay Paddlers]

"The Journey of Natty Gann" has a lot of great railroading in the pacitic northwest. This was a Disney movie with John Cusack and Merideth Salenger. Great kids flick...

"The Train" with Burt Lancaster is FANTASTIC. Talk about a train wreck that puts "Greatest Show on Earth" to shame. (Although I love that one too).

"Runaway Train" is still one of my all-time favorite flicks.

"The Great Locomotive Chase" and "Von Ryan's Express" are two of my favorites as well too!

GREAT thread - neat idea!

[NHRRJET]

The New Haven "starred" in the following movies also: Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Crash Dive, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

[AntonioFP45]

NHRRJet,

Could you tell us about "Crash Dive", please. I hadn't heard of that one.

Thanks!

[ben10ben]

Back to the Future Part III had a 10 wheeler as well as a switcher. The 10 wheeler ran off an uncompleted bridge pushing the Delorean, and the switcher destroyed the same car.

October Sky had an ex Southern Railway Mikado(2-8-2) re-lettered for N&W. In the scene where they are pulling up rails, O.W. Link is at the throttle of this engine.

[Anonymous]

Stanger on a Train, Runway Train are two good movies

[Anonymous]

THE DUEL: From the late 70s early 80s. A guy gets chased by a crazy truck driver who trys to kill him many times. One of his attempts was trying to pu***he guy he's chasing into and SP freight while waiting at a crossing. Nice shots of 2 SP SD40T-2s, and 3 high nose SP Geeps, on a mixed freight with a Rio Grande caboose at the end.

[Dbcxyz123]

M.I.B.2

[Anonymous]

I know two in the first one: Tough Guys two criminals high-jack the Southern Pacific
GS-4 4-8-4 "Daylight". In the second one Von Ryan's express prisoner's of world war two steal a nazie train and escape back to the U.S.

[tatans]

Try: "The Greatest Show On Earth" a heaping helping of flapdoodle, a fried baloney sandwich of a movie with 155 of Hollywoods main actors as spectators in the crowd, a circus train (steam) hauls this bad dialogue group of misfits around the country BUT some great train scenes and the very best train wreck ever filmed (they used large scale models) this loser won an oscar. And the evil Lyle Bettger (Klaus) gets his, arguing with the front end of a speeding steam locomotive, aahhh justice .

[jguess733]

how bout American Outlaws, and the new around the world in 80 days that was released a few months ago.

[Anonymous]

the bridge over the river quay (how can we forget that)

[twhite]

NIGHT PASSAGE with Jimmy Stewart and Audie Murphy. Filmed along the Silverton Branch in Colorado in fall--incredible colors and a GREAT D&RGW narrow-guage train in the first half. Exciting robbery sequence, where water tower is tipped over on the locomotive as it pulls up a draw.
UNION PACIFIC with the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. DeMille's 1939 whopper about the building of the transcontinental railroad has authentic 1870's V&T equipment masquerading as Union Pacific trains of the 1860's. Lots of great railroad shots, the 'star' of the movie is V&T's "J.W. Bowker", a lovely little 2-4-0 that's currently at the Sacramento Railroad Museum.
DENVER AND RIO GRANDE--a very loud western with Edmund O'Brien and Sterling Hayden about the fight to build through the Royal Gorge in the early days of Colorado Railroading. The Animas River canyon stands in for the Royal Gorge, but the locos are authentic 1880's 2-8-0's, dressed up in "Bumblebee" colors. Great scenery, fine railroading shots, but unfortunately, the big 'money' scene--a head-on collision--involves two actual Rio Grande locomotives, rather than models.
THE TRAIN--already mentioned numerous times, but a GREAT action movie directed by the GREAT John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Schofield and a largely French cast. No models here, EVERYTHING you see is full-scale, and that includes a spectacular da***hrough a railyard being bombed, a couple of smashing collisions, and a very savvy eye for details of sabotage. A real winner!
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH--very large models (except for an opening shot of the circus train pulled by a GG-1), and I didn't know that the Rock Island ever had Hudsons on its roster (check out the model locomotive used in the train wreck), and overall an incredibly corny film, but deMille even outdoes his train wreck in UNION PACIFIC with circus cars smashing all over the place (even if one flatcar seems to keep its trucks on when it 'piggy-backs' onto another).
DODGE CITY--great Errol Flynn western from 1939 has its exciting finale on a burning train (filmed on the Sierra RR in Central California) pulled by #18, a 2-8-0 dressed up in ATSF livery. #18 was Sierra Railroad's 'movie star' for years, until displaced by the less-attractive (in my opinion) #5, the famous Rogers 4-6-0 of "Petticoat Junction" fame.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST--Hitchcock's famous film is set on the 20th Century Limited for much of its running time, some wonderful shots of the train along the Hudson River, though the closing shot shows the "San Joaquin Daylight" pulled by SP Black Widow F's heading into a tunnel. Hitchcock loved trains, but sometimes he was a little careless about who owned what (the "Coast Daylight" pulling into Washington Union Station in his great 'Strangers on a Train', for example).
WHISPERING SMITH--hard to find Alan Ladd western set in Wyoming during the 1890's, uses some great old V&T equipment that Paramount had bought for UNION PACIFIC, only this time in Technicolor. Ladd's a railroad detective trying to figure out who's wrecking and hijacking freight trains along the ficticious "Wyoming and Pacific" railroad. Turns out it's his best friend--natch--Robert Preston, of "Union Pacific" fame. Good train shots and a nifty wreck scene.
THE GENERAL--even though Buster Keaton does his own stunts as usual, the REAL stunt-crew in this exciting and hilarious Civil War silent adventure-comedy are the trains. Filmed in Oregon, using old Union Pacific equipment, Keaton's film is one big, exciting train chase interspersed with Civil War battles that look like they were directed by either John Ford or Matthew Brady. One of the greatest comedies ever made, it's also one of the best railroad films ever to come out of Hollywood. I understand that the locomotive that ends up in the creek at the end of the film is still there, somewhere in the wilds of Oregon.
THE IRON HORSE John Ford's early (1925) masterpiece about the building of the first Transcontinental railroad has some of the best railroad shots of any film I've ever seen. The original film runs close to three hours, and there's an awful lot of plot to get through, but scenes of mules dragging locomotives over mountains (an actual event during the building of the Central Pacific), the crowded rail-front towns and Ford's famous eye for detail are unmatched. The final sequence, with a train under attack from Indians sending Morse-code smoke-signals from the locomotive's stack to attract help from the Cavalry, has been done so many times since that one forgets that it's Ford who came up with that wonderful cliche in the first place. Quite a great film, but get lots of popcorn, because you'll be building that railroad for a long, LONG time.
ROCK ISLAND TRAIL B-studio Republic's answer to the Big Studios and their railroad epics is a smashing good historical film about the first railroad to cross the Mississippi River in the 1850's. Using authentic 19th century locomotives and cars from the Balitimore and Ohio RR Museum, and filmed in Illinois, the movie chugs along quite handsomely, thank you, even though in one scene, we see hero Forrest Tucker uncoupling a burning train from the locomotive by pulling the pin from a KNUCKLE coupler! Based pretty much on historical fact, ROCK ISLAND TRAIL even includes the courtroom fight between the railroad and the steamboat company, with a very young Abe Lincoln winning his first case (for the railroad, of course!). Big ending is lifted from Ford's IRON HORSE, but what the heck. Film isn't easy to get ahold of, but it's worth the effort, especially if you like handsome 19th-century steamers with big, BIG balloon stacks.
these are just a few train films that I've enjoyed over the years. there are lots more.
Tom

[Leon Silverman]

Who else remembers Frank Sinatra in "Von Ryon's Express". It even provided instructions on how to hand lay track.

[twhite]

Leon--enjoy "Von Ryan's Express" very much, especially those neat Italian locomotives in that beautiful Alpine scenery. Sinatra was a big train buff--he even had a Lionel layout in his home in Palm Springs that was a smaller version of Lionel's big display layout in New York City. It was featured on a recent "I Love Trains" segment on RFDTV. If you have satellite TV, it's worth looking up--there are also several other train shows on the network that are a lot of fun.
Tom

[PennsyHoosier]

WOW twhite. That is quite a list!

[cspmo]

Here's a list from very early in the movies from the inventor of the motion pictures Thomas A. Edison
The Great Train Robbery
Little Train Robbery
A Romance of the Rail.

if you want see the movies here's the link.
The Great Train Robbery
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?papr:5:./temp/~ammem_QKuC::

A Romance of the Rails
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?papr:2:./temp/~ammem_UzDW::

Little Train Robbery
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?papr:6:./temp/~ammem_bNMS::

[twhite]

Forgot another one, and dont' know why, it's a favorite of mine.
A TICKET TO TOMAHAWK--1950's western comedy from 20th Century Fox starring Dan Dailey and Anne Baxter. He's a 'drummer' (traveling salesman) in Colorado in the 1880's, she's a sharpshooting sheriff's daughter, they're passengers on the first train of the Tomahawk and Western railroad, that has to enter a certain town on a certain date in order to keep the railroad franchise. Only problem is that the track hasn't been laid yet, so they're hauling the locomotive by horses. Threat of hostile indians and a rival stagecoach line try to stop the train. Dailey takes care of the indians (seems he and the Chief went to Harvard together), Baxter helps take care of the stagecoach baddies, there's a lovely little locomotive (Rio Grande Southern #20) that has the best paint job I've ever seen from Hollywood. Director Richard Sales was a train buff, and he keeps #20 (re-named the "Emma Sweeny" for the film) in full, glorious view most of the time. Filmed on the Silverton branch of the D&RGW, also partially on the then-just-abandoned RGS roadbed near Lizard Head Pass. Great scenery, great little locomotive, great fun.
Tom

[Anonymous]

Throw Mama From the Train :)

To tell you the truth I never really think of trains in movies, but I'm sure there are tons of them.

The Bourne Identity - Bourne rides the TGV in the SNCF's current blue/silver scheme.

[cspmo]

QUOTE: The Bourne Identity - Bourne rides the TGV

The end of "Mission Impossible" Tom Cruies rides on top of the LGV.