Best Railroad Movies (topic rehashed)

[Anonymous]

I just saw Oh Mr Porter lastnight. Great fun. You can see where Monty Python get their patter!

[Anonymous]

I just saw Oh Mr Porter lastnight. Great fun. You can see where Monty Python get their patter!

[AztecEagle]

Okay.Here's a few from the vaults:
"Grumpy Old Men".Opening scenes of a C&NW Freight roaring through Wabasha,Minnesota in a Minnesota winter.

"Tombstone".Great opening scenes of Wyatt Earp arriving by train in Tuscon,Arizona circa 1880.The only real error is the train is lettered for the Western Pacific.

The "Feather River Route"Didn't exist in 1880,let alone go through Sothern Arizona.

"Streets of Laredo".Official sequel to "Lonesome Dove"with James Garner and Sissy Spacek.Great scenes of Texas State Railroad equipment on the former South Orient/Texas Pacifico line between Marfa and Presidio.

Hour of the Gun".Overlooked Wyatt Earp saga from 1967 with James Garner and Jason Robards.

Good scenes of NdeM Steam Engines and Equipment painted for the Southern Pacific.

"Firewalker".Enjoyable Chuck Norris/Lou Gossett "Raiders of the Lost Ark"knock off from 20 years ago.Some pretty goood scenes of NdeM Equipment in Southern Mexico.

"Fried Green Tomatoes".Overlong Southern Chick Flick about the friendship between a Middle Aged Housewife and a Kooky Old Lady.Couple of good shots of Norfolk&Western 2-6-6-4 hauling  freight.

"Hour of the Gun":MGM/UA DVD.

"Streets of Laredo":Hallmark DVD.

"Fried Green Tomatoes":Universal DVD.

"Grumpy Old Men":Warner DVD.

"Firewalker":Not really sure about.Should still be available on VHS.Not sure about DVD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AztecEagle]

"Hart's War"with Bruce Willis and Collin Farrell has some scenes of a POW Train under attack by P51's as well as scenes of a train on a siding going to a Concentration Camp.

"Enemy at the Gates"with Ed Harris and Jude Law has some scenes with WW2 era Soviet Equipment pulling troop trains as well as former East German locos and cars in a scrap yard.

"Rough Riders"with Gary Busey and Brasd Johnson has a few scenes on the Texas State Railroad.East Texas stands in for Florida and Cuba.

Availibity:
"Hart's War":MGM/UA DVD.

"Enemy At The Gates":Paramount DVD.

"Rough Riders":Warner Home DVD.

[Anonymous]

I haven't looked through all 25 pages of comments on this thread (so forgive me if this has been asked before), but is there a website or Internet location that makes a list of all the locations on RR lines where RR movies have been shot?  I ask this b/c it's fairly common, I believe, for "movie" locations and  real ones to be different.  There was one that was filmed somewhere in BC, but was set on or around the Willamette Pass on SP's Cascade crossing (they had their distances and arrival times way off, too, but that's another thread...)

Riprap

[eolafan]

Yesterday I watched an old Jimmy Stuart movie from the late forties or early fifties named "Anatomy of  A Murder" and it took place in the city of Iron Mountain, MI up in the Upper Penninsula of MI.  There was one scene I recall where a prisoner accused of murder was brought into Iron Mountain on a C&NW train and the inside shot of the depot showed lots of C&NW posters, pictures, etc. and if you looked very closely at the cars passing by the depot you could see the C&NW markings.  Also, if you listened beyond the speaking parts you could hear the train had diesel locomotive(s) pulling it by the sound (likely F units). I wonder if this would have been the Penninsula 400?  As passenger service has long been out of the U.P of Mi this movie evoked lots of memories.

[Murphy Siding]

     It seemed better to reanimate an old post, than to start a new one......

    The other night, while doing Christmas cards, I got to watch the middle 1/2 of Breakheart Pass.  Can anyone tell me what railroad it was filmed on?  Mountains, and a steam engine-Colorado perhaps?    Thanks

[spokyone]

What was the name of the film with Gene Hackman and AnneArcher? He's trying to get her to a town for a trial or something. There's a bunch of bad guys trying to killer her on the train. Good fight scene on top of the train with Hackman and a bad guy.

Just don't remember the name of the flick. Anybody?

It's not too old.
Best of All : Emperor of the North!

The film was "Narrow Margin" Gal was wanted by the Mob and DA has to get her into protective custody. She did not want to cooperate.

[Poppa_Zit]

     It seemed better to reanimate an old post, than to start a new one......

    The other night, while doing Christmas cards, I got to watch the middle 1/2 of Breakheart Pass.  Can anyone tell me what railroad it was filmed on?  Mountains, and a steam engine-Colorado perhaps?    Thanks

Easy one, Murph -- it is a road now partially abandoned:

Camas Prairie Info and More Camas Prairie Railroad info

We see three of Camas Prairie's smoky old diesel locomotives come into Eola Yard each night off the former CB&Q's Fox River line from Streator and Ottawa, Ill. bringing in the daily evening mixed freight off the Illinois RailNet. They soon depart, taking outbound freight and empties back south.

[Murphy Siding]

                                                                                                                  We see three of Camas Prairie's old locomotives come into Eola Yard each night off the former CB&Q's Fox River line from Streator and Ottawa, Ill. bringing in the daily evening mixed freight off the Illinois RailNet. They soon depart, taking outbound freight and empties back south.

    Thanks for the info.  Now, you have me confused(quite easily done, actually).  Camas Prairie also had diesel locomotives as well?  I thought from the website that  it looked like a narrow gauge line?

[Poppa_Zit]

                                                                                                                  We see three of Camas Prairie's old locomotives come into Eola Yard each night off the former CB&Q's Fox River line from Streator and Ottawa, Ill. bringing in the daily evening mixed freight off the Illinois RailNet. They soon depart, taking outbound freight and empties back south.

    Thanks for the info.  Now, you have me confused(quite easily done, actually).  Camas Prairie also had diesel locomotives as well?  I thought from the website that  it looked like a narrow gauge line?

Nope. It was 1435mm. The sisters of this loco (11, 4, 2) are now in Illinois.

[Anonymous]

emporer of the north is a classic lee marvin & ernest borgnine two great actors

silver streak Richard pryor and gene wilder very funny

a hoboes christmas that old guy from the tv show Major dad a good actor and the really old guy from Natl lampoons christmas vacation the one with the kooky wife aand smokes an ole stogey was in tis movie about an old hoboe who comes to salt lake city to spend christmas with his chief of police son and his family very good

there are many others i cant remember one with john wayne

[spokyone]

A great movie was "100 Rifles" with Burt Reynolds, Jim Brown, and Raquel Welch. The Mexican RR was impressive. One of the best scenes was MS. Welch taking a shower by the water tank. And for the pervs, Soledad Miranda in the hotel.

[spokyone]

While surfing channels last night, I found "Boxcar Bertha" Horrible movie set in 1930's USA. Gal helps free chain gang prisoners. Then they put the car on the tracks. Train hits car. Fireball goes 100 feet in air. Cons hijack train. I could not bear to watch any more.

[rixflix]

The Train, La Bete Humaine, Danger Lights, Closely Watched Trains, Emperor of the North in that order, The rest...seeds and stems. Well...I do watch Silver Streak (the earlier RKO version) pretty often. These all get you into the trenches of REAL railroading, It's too bad that these are mostly European efforts. I don't think they love trains more than Americans, but they sure do film them better!!!

 RSVP

 rixflix

[Railfan1]

WHY ARE THESE POST DUPLICATED????????

[rixflix]

The Train, The General, La Bete Humaine, Danger Lights, Closely Watched Trains, Emperor of the North, in that order. The European stuff has been represented on film a lot better than American.

Why? RSVP

rixflix

 

 

[eolafan]

WHY ARE THESE POST DUPLICATED????????

Something is definetly screwed up with this system.

[Datafever]

WHY ARE THESE POST DUPLICATED????????

Something is definetly screwed up with this system.

There are some threads duplicated because there is a table in the database that contains thread numbers and has duplicate entries.  The queries that extract information from the database do not use the UNIQUE keyword, probably because it is expected that the table would never have duplicate entries. 

[eolafan]

WHY ARE THESE POST DUPLICATED????????

Something is definetly screwed up with this system.

There are some threads duplicated because there is a table in the database that contains thread numbers and has duplicate entries.  The queries that extract information from the database do not use the UNIQUE keyword, probably because it is expected that the table would never have duplicate entries. 

WHAT THE HECK DID YOU SAY?

[Datafever]

WHY ARE THESE POST DUPLICATED????????

Something is definetly screwed up with this system.

There are some threads duplicated because there is a table in the database that contains thread numbers and has duplicate entries.  The queries that extract information from the database do not use the UNIQUE keyword, probably because it is expected that the table would never have duplicate entries. 

WHAT THE HECK DID YOU SAY?

I'm saying that the database upon which this forum is built has data integrity errors.  Those errors would never happen if table keys were properly established with unique indexes.

In other words, "Something is definitely screwed up with this system!" 

[Tharmeni]

My top three:

Phantom Express

October Sky

Union Station

 

 

[spokyone]

 "Something is definitely screwed up with this system!" 

OK. We can understand that.

[Anonymous]

I didnt go through all pages, so forgive me if its been mentioned, but what about Steven Spielberg's "Duel"? Lots of good Southern Pacific goodness in it.

Seeing as I'm a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fan, I have some of the episodes on DVD. One of the really bad movies they review is "Red Zone Cuba". Written, directed, and starring one Coleman Francis. The opening scene is a small SP passenger/freight depot, with a high nose SP GP7/9, with its Gyralight juast-a gyra'ing. The movie involves much more SP goodness, all the way to Cuba!

Link to what mst3k is:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0094517/

From the Dirty Harry series, "Magnum Force" has a bit of Western Pacific action in it.

EMERGENCY! I know, not a movie, a 1970s television show that was about Los Angeles County Fire Dept Paramedics in the "squads". Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD. Some of the episodes had them in Western Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe yards performing various rescues. There are scenes were the firefighters jump into a switcher, and pull a bunch of at risk of exploding tan cars away from danger, after the crews refuse. One episode dealt with the rescue of some tank car cleaners/inspecters who are unconcious inside tank cars.

[spokyone]

A few RR's scene's that come to mind:

Magnum Force (1974)Clint Eastwood and Robert Urich(sp?) Dirty Harry vs. the bad m/c cops in a SP yard in one scene.

Damien (The Omen): Gregory Peck vs. the Rock Island Line yard switcher

The Good Bad & the Ugly- Again Clint, the Union Prisoner train.

The Out of Towners - Jack Lemmon and the New Haven/New York Central RR, 1970 South Station in Boston

The 7 Ups - Roy Scheider playing hopscotch with the Penn Central

The Wonder Boys _ Michael Douglas, Conrail trains keep going in the background

Superman the movie. Once in Grand Central and once Clark Kent racing an F-7 or GF-9 diesel.

Midnight Run - Deniro and Grodin hopping the Santa Fe RR and Amtrak

"The heat of the night" it was nice to see a GM&O passenger train. I think it was a N&W freight during the car chase scene. 

[cnwfan51]

     The Traun and Non Ryans Express are great along with Union Pacific and IT Happened to Jane    Denver and Rio Grande and Danger Lights are also great   Has anyone seen the movie The Rock Island Trail with Forrest Tucker   Just asking   Larry

[Kingman]

see full reply

[Kingman]

[quote user="eolafan"]Yesterday I watched an old Jimmy Stuart movie from the late forties or early fifties named "Anatomy of  A Murder" and it took place in the city of Iron Mountain, MI up in the Upper Penninsula of MI.  There was one scene I recall where a prisoner accused of murder was brought into Iron Mountain on a C&NW train and the inside shot of the depot showed lots of C&NW posters, pictures, etc. and if you looked very closely at the cars passing by the depot you could see the C&NW markings.  Also, if you listened beyond the speaking parts you could hear the train had diesel locomotive(s) pulling it by the sound (likely F units). I wonder if this would have been the Penninsula 400?  As passenger service has long been out of the U.P of Mi this movie evoked lots of memories.

 

Actually it was filmed at the old Ishpeming C&NW depot . A few years after they did the movie they tore it down and moved the station stop to some lousy prefab structure in the rail yard throat if I remember. Some of the other scenes are from Ishpeming and the court house I think was in Marquette.They rented the train set for the shots for $500 a day You can Geta. tour of film locations if you go up to Ishpeming. The Thunder Bay Inn in the movie is still up and running originally built by Henry Ford , the bars and the house that was Jimmy yew arts office is still up and was actually the home of the author ex lawyer that tried the original case up there then wrote a book about it.

 

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