Danger Lights

[spokyone]

  I just viewed this 1930 movie on Turner Classic Movies channel.  CMStP&P engines sound great. Have they re-mastered the sound track? I noticed overhead wires, but did not see any electric locomotives, or did I miss them? I liked the part where the engineer serviced the trailing truck at track speed.

[dknelson]

Been a while since I watched the movie but I recall a pushing contest between a steam locomotive and an electric locomotive in that film.

Dave Nelson

[Zwingle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Lights

 From the link-

"Danger Lights features rare footage of a tug of war between two steam locomotives, actual documentary footage of the activities in the Miles City yard, and what is believed to be the only motion picture footage of a dynamometer car from the steam railroad era.

The portion of the film that was filmed in Montana was part of the electrified Mountain Division of the railroad, with the 3000 volt direct current trolley and the 100,000 volt alternating current "highline" plainly visible in several shots. Despite the fact that the railroad often touted the power and reliability of its straight electric locomotives, none are seen in the film."

Watch it or download here:  http://www.archive.org/details/danger_lights

[dknelson]

Ah I must have been remembering a photograph of a steam/electric pushing contest like this one and thought I had also seen it in the movie:

 

Dave Nelson

[wgnrr]

One of my favorite movies...

I love the Dynamometer shots, and seeing all the MOW equipment fixing up the line.

Phil

[choochoobuff]

I missed that one, however I did catch one named "Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone starring Marjorie Main and Spencer Tracy.  Not alot of exterior train shots, some horn action, probably early dielsel.  What did strike me was the portrayal of the porters. As important as engineers and conductors are, in the days of passenger service porters were the face of the railroads.  I wonder if porters get their due.  Also. I caught a Buster Keaton flick called "Our Hospitality". This film was funny and had a Stephenson Rocket involved.

 

[BaltACD]

Watch it or download here:  http://www.archive.org/details/danger_lights

Viewing it in light of today's railroading Safety and Operating rules and practices....Whew!

[erikem]

The portion of the film that was filmed in Montana was part of the electrified Mountain Division of the railroad, with the 3000 volt direct current trolley and the 100,000 volt alternating current "highline" plainly visible in several shots. Despite the fact that the railroad often touted the power and reliability of its straight electric locomotives, none are seen in the film."

Looks like Wackypedia strikes again - Miles City is about 200 miles east of Harlowton and thus well east of the electrification.

Will have to take a look at the movie sometime to see how much I can recognize of Miles City - having been there just over two weeks ago. 

[nanaimo73]

The Missouri River bridge at Mobridge, SD, also appears in the movie.

[Anonymous]

I believe the Missouri river crossing was filmed at the now ghost town of Lombard Montana.What is kind of funny though is that the train carrying the injured Dan Thorn isbspeeding WEST accross the Missouri river to get to Chicago unless for some reason Doyle took the Special down to Three Forks and hooked up with the old Butte Short Line went east and hooked up with the Northern Pacific at logan then went east over Bozeman pass to get to Chicago.But oh wll , just a theory.

[nanaimo73]

I believe the Missouri river crossing was filmed at the now ghost town of Lombard Montana.

The trestle at Lombard is a curved open deck.
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=46.105866&lon=-111.400434&z=17&l=0&m=a&v=1
 Photos

In the movie, the train crosses the Missouri on a straight trough truss bridge. The Mobridge bridge is similar to the three crossings of the Yellowstone in Montana, however they are all located on straight sections of track without the sharp curve at the end of the bridge shown in the movie.
CMSP&P Bridge, Calypso MT, abandoned 1982
CMSP&P Bridge, Tusler MT, abandoned 1980
CMSP&P Bridge, Paragon MT, abandoned 1980

[erikem]

In the movie, the train crosses the Missouri on a straight trough truss bridge. The Mobridge bridge is similar to the three crossings of the Yellowstone in Montana, however they are all located on straight sections of track without the sharp curve at the end of the bridge shown in the movie.
CMSP&P Bridge, Calypso MT, abandoned 1982
CMSP&P Bridge, Tusler MT, abandoned 1980
CMSP&P Bridge, Paragon MT, abandoned 1980

For the geographically challenged, Calypso is a few miles west of Terry, Tusler is a few miles northeast of Miles City and Paragon is a couple of miles west of Miles City. 

[Trainnut484]

Ah I must have been remembering a photograph of a steam/electric pushing contest like this one and thought I had also seen it in the movie:

 

Dave Nelson

Dave:

The shoving match in Danger Lights was between a Milw F-3 Pacific and a USRA Heavy L-3 Mike.  Amazingly, it was done with the crowd no more than 5 ft away.  

It is truly my favorite movie for steam action.  No piped in studio sounds, opening credits shot was done with a camera mounted on a flat car coupled to the front of the engine.  The hospital run to Chicago used the same technique.  Great MOW scenes.

The character I liked most was Dan Thorn (Louis Wolheim).  It makes me wonder if there were actual District Supers like him back then, or were they softer on the people skills?  Maybe some of the older generation who remember those days can fill us in.   

Take care,

Russell 

[erikem]

The shoving match in Danger Lights was between a Milw F-3 Pacific and a USRA Heavy L-3 Mike.  Amazingly, it was done with the crowd no more than 5 ft away.  

Thanks for bringing that up - I just remembered my dad telling me about that shoving match. Don't know if he was part of the crowd, but he would have been 7 years old when that was filmed.

Hmmm - looks like I'm going to have to get a copy of that movie. 

[MichaelSol]

The character I liked most was Dan Thorn (Louis Wolheim).  It makes me wonder if there were actual District Supers like him back then, or were they softer on the people skills? 

In BN's dispatch office in Seattle, back in the day, the Dan Thorn character had become a railroading icon of sorts, and when things went FUBAR, someone was bound to call out, "Oh, where's Dan Thorn?" after the identical, panicked line in the movie.

 

[BaltACD]

The character I liked most was Dan Thorn (Louis Wolheim).  It makes me wonder if there were actual District Supers like him back then, or were they softer on the people skills?  Maybe some of the older generation who remember those days can fill us in.   

Take care,

Russell 

Not only were there Super like his character back then....those same levels of people skills continue to some managers even today.  While they are continually dealing with the HR types account of their actions....they are getting the freight moved with the resources that are made available to them.

[MichaelSol]

[Anonymous]

Awesome photo MichselSol, Do you know where the photo was taken or which bridge that is?.Somehow I want to make a copy of it and frame it. Thankyou.

[MichaelSol]

Awesome photo MichselSol, Do you know where the photo was taken or which bridge that is?.Somehow I want to make a copy of it and frame it. Thankyou.

This is the Hull Creek Trestle on the west side of Snoqualmie Pass at Milepost 2130. The General Electric Company had done a very thorough photographic documentation of the Milwaukee Electrification, and this was a copy of a GE photo that Milwaukee Road had in its files. Fortunately, the link is to a high resolution version of the photograph (it will seem almost life size if you click on the photo) and you are welcome to download it and you can probably photoshop it into something useful.

[wanswheel]

[samfp1943]

And as for the "Younger Generations" that do not have any idea about what "Danger Lights" was all about ...

        Here is a link to You Tube, and a copy of the 1933 Movie...Enjoy!   

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUnVXqMiUWQ

[wjstix]

IIRC, Classic Trains a couple years back had an article on the making of the movie.

Louis Wolheim was a very well known actor, having just been in "All Quiet on the Western Front" as the German sergeant who eventually gets killed. It was an early movie for Jean Arthur, who became a big star later in "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", "You Can't Take it With You", "The Devil and Miss Jones" etc. Robert Armstrong, who played the itinerant engineer that falls in love with Jean Arthur's character, is best known for playing Carl Denham and saying the famous last line of the original "King Kong":

Police Lieutenant: Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.

Carl Denham: Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.

 

[ZephyrOverland]

The following is from another post I wrote concerning rail-oriented movies:

"Danger Lights is noted for another reason besides having great location footage on The Milwaukee Road.  Around 1930 the film industry was experimenting with various widescreen format technologies.  Fox released several films in its Grandeur process, Warner Brothers had Vitascope, United Artists had Magnifilm, MGM had Realife and RKO, the studio that released Danger Lights, had Natural Vision.  Danger Lights was the only RKO feature film that was relased in Natural Vision and this version played briefly in two theaters, one in Chicago and one in New York.  The rest of the country saw Danger Lights in a standard 35mm release.  Unfortunately, the widescreen version of Danger Lights has long since disappeared.

 

This link contains a frame from the widescreen version of Danger Lights:

http://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18182

This link contains an ad for the widescreen version of Danger Lights:

http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/2001/64/grandeur/

 

Ultimately, only 11 widescreen films were released in 1929-30 and, due to the incompability of the various widescreen formats, plus disinterest by exhibitors and public (who were still getting used to sound pictures), on top of oncoming problems emanating from the 1929 stock market crash, widescreen films would have to wait 20+ years to find general acceptance by the public and the film industry."

Myron Bilas

[wanswheel]

wjstix

Robert Armstrong, who played the itinerant engineer

Max O'Hara: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Joseph Young of Africa."

[erikem]

Talk about a thread being brought back from the dead...

I downloaded an MPEG file from the Internet Archive and had a bit of fun recognizing the stack of the Milwaukee shops in Miles City. The funniest part of the movie is watching the train speed westbound through Lombard "on its way to Chicago. Also funny was seeing a piece of Trans-Missouri division paperwork and the action in Sixteen Mile canyon - the TM division extended from Morbridge to Harlowton, Sixteen Mile Canyon was in the Rocky Mountain division.

 - Erik