Best Movie With A Train In It

[AztecEagle]

A Couple of Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis Movies From The 50's:#1:"Living It Up".Jerry Lewis Is A Small Town Simpleton Who Thinks He's Been Exposed To Radiation,So He's Shipped To New York For Treatment.Great Scenes of The ATSF In The New Mexico Desert.Really Great Footage of FUnits in Both Freight and Passenger Liviries.#2:"Never Too Young".Jerry Witnesses A Murder,So He Dresses Up As A Kid And Hides Out On A Train.Great Scenes of Espee Steamers in The "Daylight"Scheme.Also,A Little Blooper Involving Trains and Movies/TV:"The Fugitive"With David Jannsen as 'Dr.Richard Kimble'.at The Beginning,You See What Looks Either An EMD E or F Unit.(It's Shown In The Dark,So You Can't Really Tell.).Then The Train Derails.If You Look Close Enough,You See Some Model train Wheels Start Sparking And Jumping The Tracks.Then In The Next Scene,You See The Overturned Train Car With A Crew of Rescuers.Look Closely and You'll Make Out The Lettering and Car Style.Turns Out That It's Lettered For "The Orient Express".

[eolafan]

Heard today that Clint Eastwood is making a new movie called "Flags of our Fathers" that will have a scene with BN1 and BN2 along with a bunch of heavyweight passenger cars. More later.

[AztecEagle]

The Lovely Catherine Zeta Jones Douglas Would Definitely Blow My Whistle!!WhooWhoo!!

[Anonymous]

I saw a wonderful movie several weeks ago; it was called THE NARROW MARGIN and deals with a woman who was witness to a murder and is accompanied, more or less against her will, from Chicago to Los Angeles on the train for testimony. (Not unlike NORTH BY NORTHWEST, but as the gangsters shot to kill, not funny.) The train was never called the Chief but the route was pretty evidently the old ATSF main line, including a top in New Mexico to buy Indian warbonnets and the like(!).

This noir is not a movie for people who value consistency, because the engines hauling all out west vary quite a bit, including some great (altho' B&W) photograpy of the "most beautiful engine in the world," apparently footage of the Coast Daylight. About eighty percent of the movie consists of the train trip, and the film captured reasonably well the routine of life on a long-distance train and the look of a diner, etc.

THE NARROW MARGIN dates from around 1950 but is available as part of a "Film Noir" collection that my friend ordered thru Amazon. Pretty good movie in its own right, too.

[oskar]

Rat Race has a train in it and its a pretty good movie also a funny one




kevin

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by chad thomas

One of my all time favorite movies is Tough Guys with Kirk Douglas and Bert Lancaster. Great scenes with the SP 4449 in Taylor yard and out on Kiser's Eagle Mt mine RR.

I'll second that one.....'tough guys' is among the best of the bunch

[mersenne6]

The Professionals
Heat of the Night
Toccatta for Toy Trains
Charade

[The Block House]

The opening secment of Biloxi Blue and Fried Green Tomato.

[GP-9_Man11786]

My Favorites: 1. Silver Streak, 2. Von Ryan's Express, 3. Runaway train

Speaking of Silver Streak, you can find the DVD for about $10 in Target.

As for Runaway train, what's with the GP-7s running on Alco trucks?

[csxengineer98]

my list...
1..empore of the north...
2.. silver streak (but not so much for the trains as for the actors... genie wiilder and richor pryor...hell of a team)
3... von ryans express..
i cant remember the name of it..but it was about some little mom and pop short line that was going to close up ..and the crew "borrowed" the locomotive and went to the main office to speak with the board of directors about not shutting the road down... it stared the old guy that dose the adds for diabies supplies sent to your house...it had alot of incab footage...but overall it was an ok train movie... but it was a hell of a lot better then atomic train...the only thing atomic train had going for it at all was krisin davis... and she was only in bit parts... hummmmmm krisin davis.... now thats good food...

csx engineer

[Anonymous]

[:)][wow] So many movies where trains have been showcased! It's hard to chose a favorite as my list would be a long one. To make things short and sweet, I gotta go with the following:

1) Emperor of the North [bow]
2) The Train
3) Von Ryan's Express

[chad thomas]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oskar

Rat Race has a train in it and its a pretty good movie also a funny one




kevin

The locker room scene was filmed at the historic Nevada Northern station in Ely, Nv.. I was there just after they filmed it.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

my list...
1..empore of the north...
2.. silver streak (but not so much for the trains as for the actors... genie wiilder and richor pryor...hell of a team)
3... von ryans express..
i cant remember the name of it..but it was about some little mom and pop short line that was going to close up ..and the crew "borrowed" the locomotive and went to the main office to speak with the board of directors about not shutting the road down... it stared the old guy that dose the adds for diabies supplies sent to your house...it had alot of incab footage...but overall it was an ok train movie... but it was a hell of a lot better then atomic train...the only thing atomic train had going for it at all was krisin davis... and she was only in bit parts... hummmmmm krisin davis.... now thats good food...

csx engineer

I think that's "End of the Line" with Wilford Brimley.

[bnsfkline]

Atomic Train? U crazy? That was one of the WORST railroad movies EVER!

Since when does a boxcar have handrails on it?

My favorite would be.....

The Mark of Zorro...In theaters know.....

Line looks to be active......shot in Arizona/New Mexico....and by the looks of it....on the Southwestern Railroad. But Concrete ties in 1850? Some scenes use model trains, and there GREY ties in some of the shots. Nice head on shots. When the train wrecked...I said this to my Girlfriend

"Somebody better get HAZMAT and some blue flags over here...we have one hell of a clean up to do!"

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jarubel

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

my list...
1..empore of the north...
2.. silver streak (but not so much for the trains as for the actors... genie wiilder and richor pryor...hell of a team)
3... von ryans express..
i cant remember the name of it..but it was about some little mom and pop short line that was going to close up ..and the crew "borrowed" the locomotive and went to the main office to speak with the board of directors about not shutting the road down... it stared the old guy that dose the adds for diabies supplies sent to your house...it had alot of incab footage...but overall it was an ok train movie... but it was a hell of a lot better then atomic train...the only thing atomic train had going for it at all was krisin davis... and she was only in bit parts... hummmmmm krisin davis.... now thats good food...

csx engineer

I think that's "End of the Line" with Wilford Brimley.

ok..yes that is his name... i had it on the top of my head..but it just didnt want to come out when i was typeing the first post the other night..or morning..or when ever i did it.. and thanks for the name of the flick...
csx engineer

[overall]

An interesting movie I saw on showtime a while back was the Festival Express. It had some good sequences of Canadian National passenger equipment circa 1969. It was about a group of Rock Stars traveling across Canada giving concerts. Janis Joplin, Sha na na and Grateful Dead were some of the acts in it. I was never a Janis Joplin fan, she screams "baby" too much. In between the concert and train footage you see the stars drinking and partying constantly. This is definitely NOT a family film. Send the kids to bed.

George

[Anonymous]

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but trains.com has a huge list of movies that have scenes of trains or are railroad related.
http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/003/669nitlt.asp

[greyhounds]

Well, "Emporer of the North" is really great. Lee Marvin is an arrogant hobo determined to show up Ernest Borgnine, the conductor, who won't let "Bo's" on his freight train. Really railroad theamed, lots of good steam action, and reasonably realistic. "I want a good 20 MPH under me when I leave this yard".

Or try "The Battle of the Bulge". Army Transportation Corps railroaders (they were big in WWII) try to roll heavy artilery "Up Front" to fend off the Germans only to be shot to Hell by a Panzer Tank.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tdearborn

Risky Business. The 'L' scene.

ill give you a big "Roger" on that one[:p]

i liked Back to the Future III. havent seen it in so long, dont remember what kind of steam engine it was.

and a decent shot of the "Q" Pioneer Zypher in A League of Their Own. Ive walked through the train myself.... very nice!!

[cpbloom]

TIE:

Conrail "Pittsburgh Line Blues"

Santa Fe "Across the Heartland" aka Countdown to Merger 1

[8D][:)]

[M636C]

Nobody has mentioned "It happened to Jane", in which the last NH Mikado 3016 numbered as "Eastern and Portland 97" runs out of steam on a crossing blocking two trains hauled by FL9s also lettered for "E&P".

I do like "the Train" and "North By Northwest"

M636C

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Soo6058


i liked Back to the Future III. havent seen it in so long, dont remember what kind of steam engine it was.

That was the Sierra Railroad's #3, a 4-6-0 built by Rogers in the late 1800's. Supposedly the most filmed locomotive. Used in numerous films and TV series. The one that was wrecked (off the unfinished trestle) was a 1 inch scale model.

One I don't think was mentioned, (two films with the same title) was Silver Streak (the original, with the streamlined diesel Burlington Zephyr). All B&W but great shots of a classic train. A good bit of background of the development of the locomotive, but I don't know how much was history and how much was Hollywood. The newer one of the same name was OK as a comedy, but not really good as a train movie.

Somebody mentioned one of my other favorites "Breakheart Pass." I took exception to the review that was done in (I believe) Trains magazine a couple years ago of a bunch of train themed movies. Their reviewer obviously didn't do his homework as well as Alistaire McLean did when he wrote the story. Charles Bronson is a Secret Service agent tracking down some stolen Army rifles, obviously post Civil War era. The Secret Service was formed right after the Civil War (but didn't exist according to the reviewer) under the Treasury Department. The Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ie. rifles) was under them from the start, so yes, a Secret Service agent WOULD investigate a large scale theft of firearms.

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by erikthered

I like "Tough Guys" too- wasn't that Doyle McCormack running the Daylight?

Erik

Yes it was. IIRC, the preview in the Railfan magazine said that they decided to use him instead of an actor because it was easier to train him to act than to train an actor to run the 4449.

[bondjamesbond]

The Great Train Robbery with Sean Connery from 1978.

[M636C]

"Shanghai Express" with Marlene Dietrich (B&W, about 1940) had some nice scenes in it. The "Chinese" locomotive was an SP 4300 2-8-2 with chinese characters in the number boards and it headed out through a crowd of marker stalls almost touching the train (not unlike the real situation in Manila recently at least), with chickens and dogs running away in all directions.

The "Great Train Robbery" mentioned above had an inside cylinder, inside frame 0-6-0 masquerading as an outside frame 2-2-2, more appropriate for the early period. You could just see the coupling rods flicking into view in the aerial action shots. It was fimed on the CIE in Ireland.

There was "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery" which was one of a series of British comedies about a mythical girls school with unbelievably dangerous pupils. The Train Robbers , and the Police are outsmarted by the pupils. It was filmed on the Longmoor Military Railway using a British Rail Diesel railcar set and steam and diesel locomotives belonging to the British Army. There were train chases and last minute diversions at crossovers avoiding collisions, in a "Keystone Kops" style. Crazy plot but a lot of rail action.

M636C

[mhurley87f]

How about "Brief Encounter" starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson - plenty of post War LMS trains rushing through Carnforth (and I believe Watford Junction)?

But the daddy has to be "La Bete Humaine (spelling??) " starring Jean Gabin, which has long scenes on the footplate of a Chaleon Express Locomotive.

[spbed]

Von Ryans Express[:)]

Originally posted by AztecEagle
[

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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