Model trains depicted in the Entertainment industry, Movie or TV. Good, Bad, and the Ugly?

[vsmith]

Which movies or shows, TV or Cinema, have shown model RRs, in any scale , and how well were they done?

I'll start off with most recently..

The Good: Superman Returns
..shows a HUGE layout using HO to G in a forced perspective to make it look larger than it was. Very nicely done as a prop, realistic buildings and scenery, not intended as an accurate model RR but as a prop to support part of the storyline. As such its very successfull.
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor is nuts, always has been, but if anyone didnt know that they've been living under a rock since the 50's, but he's also wealthier that sin, and that to me is what the layout depicts, what having no limits might produce[;)]

Tha Addams Family
...resurrected what had to be for me the reason I got interested in model trains in the first place. Gomez Addams O gauge layout he runs like a juggernaut while contemplating the fate of his brother Fester..great homage to the terrific, and IMHO much BETTER if smaller layout depicted in the TV series. I always thought that Gomez's character was a positive one, he, and his family, while being different, were always more open and free that their rigid uptight stodgy neighbors who were frightened of them just because they were different.....and had quicksand in their backyard.

The Bad: A Might Wind
...showed an O gauge layout poorly detailed and cheesily done, a real poke in the eye to model rrs of all gauges.

And the UGLY!
Now I dont know if theirs ever been a worse portrail of modell RRs that the creepy uber-geek husband in A Mighty Wind, was the guy supposed to be Autistic or something? I was really disturbed by that image because while I've met some real nuts, a-holes, and honest to goodness Characters...I've NEVER met anyone as tweeked as that....

Anyway what other depections do you remember...

[Anonymous]

Have not seen "Arthur" since it was in the theaters, but didn't he have a Lionel layout in his bedroom? And the guy in "Risky Business" had a layout if I remember right. I think the one in The Sopranos has been mentioned on here before, we don't have HBO so I've not seen the latest season yet. Anybody remember "SuperTrain?" That was a show based on a "real" train but was made out of a model train. There must be plenty more.

[vsmith]

I havent watched the Sopranos, but I have seen pics of the O gauge layout in their garage, and YES their is a Lionel tinplate toytrain layout in Arthur, I rememer it being pretty nicely done for what it was, namely a toytrain set up.

[Trainnut484]

"The Station Agent" had some Lionel stuff sitting on shelves, but I don't recall a layout. However, it was a decent movie that included model railroading and railfanning.

Take care,

Russell

[Anonymous]

OH! How could I forget? The American cinema classic "End Of The Line" had an HO layout in it. The president of the Southland Railroad had a decent sized layout in his office. The dude that sold oatmeal was in it as a carman, so he was given the chore of finding out why a train car wouldn't stay on the track. I think. Pretty nice layout all things considered, movie never got much recognition. Great music from Andy Summer (Summers?) from the Police.

[Vampire]

My nostalgic favorite is from "The Day the Earth Stood Still", where Bobby pulls his classic Lionel setup from under his bed for a brief run. It certainly wasn't elaborate but it was how so many of us got started.

In the family drama "Our House", grandpa Gus had an HO layout. It was in the basement originally but he moved it to the garage. There were only a few episodes where Gus was running trains. In one, his friend and neighbor took the controls and caused a big train wreck.

In "The Simpsons", the Rev. Lovejoy is sometimes running his trains when he gets those annoying phone calls from Ned Flanders on some religious crisis ("...*** Flanders..."). OK, so it's not a "real" layout, but it is kinda cool.

These were all small layouts, 4x8 or less. I can't think of any larger ones, other than the ones already mentioned.

[wjstix]

Can't think of the name now, but about 10+ years ago there was a movie that had a scene of a wealthy elderly guy giving an HO layout to his grandson. In the movie, he had hired professional model builders to do it, and in real life the movie producers had hired a pro modeller to build it. There was an article in RMC or MR about it, perhaps written by the pro model builder(??) It was a very nice looking layout, not the usual cluttered 'toy train' layout you usually see in movies.

BTW "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" starts out with a close-up of an HO train and follows it around the layout until it drops into a river because of an open drawbridge.

[wjstix]

p.s. Robert Newton, the guy who played Long John Silver in "Treasure Island" in 1950 ("Arrrrr ye swabs arrrrr"), starred in a 1949 U.K. movie called "Obsession" (in the US "The Hidden Room"). His character is a dentist (or doctor) who saves up small amounts of acid over a period of years and creates a room in his basement where he intends to kill his wife's lover and dissolve his body in the saved up acid.

Anyway, Newton's character is a model railroader (oops !! I mean "model railway enthusiast") and has a very nice elaborate OO layout. At one point, a detective investigating the boyfriend's disappearance intentionally claims that the tender is wrong on one of his engines and argues with him about it, just to see how he will react.

[vsmith]

I have to add this one of my favorites..."The Secret Policemans Ball" a live concert film

which had not a layout...but a O gauge train setup as part of a escape artist stunt that involved the artist being bound in chains to a chair...in his BVDs, a track loop and spur so the train can do a few loops before driving down a spur and towards the escape artists and his now rather vulnerable tender bits under his BVDs, and a locomotive with a very very large serving fork protruding from its nose....lets just say the escape artist only needed a few more seconds to escape but......[:O]

[1train1]

The layout in THE MIGHTY WIND might have been tacky -fantastic black humour movie though coining the funniest line ever.
The blonde says Ohh toy trains...that must be where they got the idea for the REAL ones

[ranchero]

IMO the guys from a mighty wind barely had to parody some folks i know... hehe

that layout you refer to wjstix was built by bob hayden. i cant recall the name of the movie either but it was featured in RMC. the super train serie was featured a couple of time in RMC too back when T K was editor. They showed the different size they used for filming close up and the likes.. i remember TK noticed that the background sounds used where steam noise while the serie was supposed to be the the future...

[dragonriversteel]

What was that movie about two railroad workers, who stole a locomotive and rode it all the way to company headquarters {the oatmeal guy...can't think of his name }. Just to get their railroad opened back up. Anyway in the company headquarters, the boss had a great looking HO layout set up.

Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}

[Ianita]

On Silver Spoons with Rick Schroeder there was a large scale railroad that Dad often rode around on. It came into their living room from the back yard! As a young train fan at the time, I would watch the show just to see the trains go by.

[Anonymous]

In the second Dirty Dozen movie the general played by Ernest Borgnine was demonstrating the mission for Major Reissman(played by Lee Marvin) with a train layout of some sort. I also remember in the movie UHF with Weird AL Yankovich where the kids' show host played by Michael Richards (Kramer from seinfeld) had a train layout too. The oatmeal guy some of you are mentioning is Wilford Brimley.

[CNJ831]

If one has been around long enough, it is quite clear that there has been a steady shift in the manner in which model railroads/model railroaders have been depicted by the entertainment industry over the years.

Up through the 1970's and to a lesser extent in the 1980's, modelers were usually depicted in a much kindlier fashion. Model trains were mainly either a kid's toy (tinplate), played with with at least some respect, or the hobby (scale) of perhaps an wise, elderly or grandfatherly character. Sometimes there was a air of comic relief in such scenes but for the large part, they were serious presentations. Occasionally, eccentrics were illustrated as the owners but this really wasn't typical.

Over the last couple of decades one increasingly sees model trains on the silver screen as the province of extreme eccentrics, megalomaniacs, and down right mental degenerates! Trains are not used for the fun of it or as an artistic expression but rather to create scenes of distruction and mayhem. The last kindly depiction I can recall was in a Wilford Brimley railroad film (in the late 1980's?) where he and his buddy commandere a locomotive and go to Chicago to see the company head in hopes of saving their jobs. In the film the company head has a nice, scale, layout operated in the conventional manner. Brimley assists the company head in a realistic and logical manner re-gauging the wheels on a car to prevent derailments.

Sadly, the common presentation, in fact almost uniquely so today, is seen in the new Superman, the Adams Family, and such other more recent films. Here the owner is played as suffering from some form of insanity. I'm not sure whether this concept derives from the film maker's view of the hobby or is actually how the general public sees us. Either way, this view is re-inforced in films today and is highly degrading. Who among teens or 20-something adults would wi***o consider our hobby after seeing it ridiculed in such a manner on the screen?

CNJ831

[cf-7]

In "The King of Queens", Doug's dad was an O scale modeler. His mom and dad came to visit for a weekend so his dad could attend a train show with the hopes of winning the "Brass Caboose" award. He didn't win it because Doug took over the controls of the layout at the show and started a fire... But, it was funny!

Chuck

[Anonymous]

There wasn't a layout in the movie, but there was a rather detailed model of "The Money Train" that Woody Harrelson stole off of Robert Blake's desk in the movie.
BTW, the movie is freakin' hysterical !

[dave9999]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Vampire



In "The Simpsons", the Rev. Lovejoy is sometimes running his trains when he gets those annoying phone calls from Ned Flanders on some religious crisis ("...*** Flanders..."). OK, so it's not a "real" layout, but it is kinda cool.

Also, in the episode where Homer visits Ned Flanders rompus room, Ned has a
layout as well. Dave

[Anonymous]

Soprano's, Bobby had an O-27 well done layout in the garage.

[Anonymous]

I didn't catch this one in the theaters but I saw it on the late, late, late, early, early, early show some years later;

I'm a little vague about the details but there was a 1960s comedy titled, if I recall correctly, "Somebody-Somebody, Please Come Home" about a Jewish U2 pilot who crashes in an Arabic country and this sheik has a palace filled with Lionel - the only railroad in the country.

There was a series in the 70s or 80s about a transcontinental railroad built to Herr Hitler's grandious plans for the Deutches Reichsbahn - broad gauged enough for swimming pools in the club cars - steam coexisted with diesel and my interest lasted just long enough for the first diesel to pull away from the station going "Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a" before I found another channel. One of the hobby mags had an article about the technical support behind this series - believe me, the article was more interesting than the storyline of the series.

[canazar]

There was the opening scene in Beetle Juice. A decent HO layout is used throught the movie. been forever since I have seen it, but the "Dad" who works on it, if I remember correctly, was protrayed as pretty normal guy.

[MJ4562]

There was a good movie with Cary Grant (the biggest male heartthrob of the 60s), IIRC it was the "Batchelor and the Bobisoxer". Cary Grant plays a respected pediatrician and one of his hobbies is operating lionel trains with his friends---other doctors and a judge. Of course this movie was made back in the sixties or so.

How about Mr. Rogers??? I always considered the trolley to be a model railroad. I don't think you could get any more positive than that, even if it didn't actually display prototype modeling.

[roadrat]

Although not a real model railroad, My 4 year old son has a DVD of some old Chip & Dale( 2 chipmunks ) cartoons and in one episode Donald duck has a large live steam layout in his backyard, The trouble starts when Donald uproots there tree because it's "not to scale".

bill

[CNJ831]

QUOTE: Originally posted by roadrat

Although not a real model railroad, My 4 year old son has a DVD of some old Chip & Dale( 2 chipmunks ) cartoons and in one episode Donald duck has a large live steam layout in his backyard, The trouble starts when Donald uproots there tree because it's "not to scale".

One might speculate that this particular cartoon's storyline was generated as a result of Walt Disney's own experiences with his backyard, 1/8th scale, live steam, garden railroad. Walt altered his backyard dramatically, even to creating a large hill for a 90-foot tunnel and valley crossed by a 46-foot wooden tressle, to meet the needs of his miniature railroad.

CNJ831

[Anonymous]

I remember a shot of vintage car traveling down the highway under a rail over pass during a movie that was making a credible earlier time period.

When that stack train started crossing behind the auto it totally added 35+ years to the film and destroyed the illusion.

[Anonymous]

didn't ALF play with the Lionel trains in the first episode? As far as Hollywood dipicting us as " wierd and mad", well , we are sort of.............

[johncolley]

There was a hospital series, can't remember if it was St. Elsewhere or ? but Mandy Patinkin used to run some of his huge personal Lionel collection on his office floor.

[Anonymous]

The Whos have a cool layout in How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

[NS2591]

How about the Large scale layout in Prehysteria i think it is. The layout from End of Line was pretty awesome. You want ugly, The latest Zorro movie crashes a train, of course its not real. Looked like a bachman 4-4-0 and some bachman cars that crashed

[aloco]

How about Roy Neary's layout in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? An Amtrak F7 plows into a DL&W 40' box car.