Railroads in the movies

Besides "North By Northwest" and "Strangers on a Train", another HItchcock train movie is "The Lady Vanishes".

His "Shadow of a Doubt" has a couple of train station scenes.

Surprised nobody has yet mentioned "Some Like It Hot" !

I just remembered this one today. Fandango...it is about 5 guys who are drafted into the Vietnam war and who go on one last fling/road trip in a '59 Cadillac. Out of gas in the desert, they end up near the ATSF railway. When the train passes one guy lasso's the caboose with some steel cable, gets into the car and WHAM! The entire front body section is ripped off and goes "skiing" down the track.

Great shots of late 60s/early 70s Sante Fe geeps (GP30 or 35) and red offset cupola caboose....great soundtrack, too.

james1787 wrote:I was watching "Back to the Future III" this evening.. they had a pretty nice Steam Engine and wood cars that they used during the final scenes when they were in the 1800's. Were these movie owned locomotives and track? Or were they owned by a museum / railroad?

the special features on the DVD explains how they did it- larger scale models (G) and a hill with trackage leading off of it

A few more:

"Fool's Parade", a seldom seen film starring James Stewart in a Depression era story.

"Matewan", starring James Earl Jones about coal miners in Appalachia

"October Sky", with O. Winston Link in a cameo as an engineer!!

"How the West Was Won", a Cinerama epic with a slam-bank finale on the Magma Arizona RR.

"The Wrong Box", an Engish comedy with Michael Caine, which has a hilarious head-on collision between two trains.

"Bite The Bullet", a western about a cross country race, with Candace Bergen.

"Around the World in 80 Days", another epic film of the era.

"Funny Face", with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, showing a beautiful SNCF 4-6-2 in a brief scene in Paris (plus some great TWA Constellation airliners).

I'm sure this list can go on and on...

Does anyone (besides me) remember a made for TV movie titled "The Long Summer of George Adams"? Made in 1981 (or 1982, depending on your reference) and set in the late 1940's/early 1950's, this movie starred James Garner as George Adams, a railroad worker who is upset with the way things are going: the railroad is replacing steam with diesels and things in his personal life aren't going well. Supposedly set in Oklahoma, the railroad scenes were filmed on the Texas State Railroad that runs between Rusk and Palestine, Texas. (A great tourist operation if you're ever in the area.)

For more on the movie, check out:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0084265/

For a list of other movies, television shows and commercials filmed on the Texas State Railroad, try:

http://www.texasstaterailroad.com/newsa ... ovies.html

what CSX line is used in "Striking Distance" halfway through the movie, it shows a CSX train going over a bridge the movie takes place in Pittsburg, it is w/ Bruce Willis and Sarah jessica Parker

Aa3rt wrote:"...the loco in question is a tender type 0-4-0. The listing at SteamLocomotive.com says this is 40" gauge. Don't know if this is a typo or if I was incorrect about it being 48" gauge. Anyhow, here are links to the SteamLocomotive.com listing:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/lists/NJ.html

And a couple of links to the Pine Creek/New Jersey Museum of Transportation site:

http://www.njmt.org

Finally, a photo of what I believe is the loco in question. If you do make the foray there to photograph the loco, I'd appreciate some feedback on what the gauge is. Either way, it is incompatible as is with the Pine Creek's 3-foot gauge.

http://www.njmt.org/NEWPICS/locomotives ... 1.jpg.html"

Went to the Pine Creek Railroad's "Railroaders Day" on September 11 and asked about the loco in question. They indicated it is "a real oddball - 4 ft gauge." So if you had made a bet, you're the winner! (It's amazing what one little missing apostrophe can do - it's 4'0" gage, and not 40" gage). Immediately behind the engine and its tender are two passenger cars that the Pine Creek folks also said were in the movie "The Molly McGuires." The whole train sits on its own track in the yard, and this 4-ft gage track is not connected to the rest of Pine Creek's 3-ft gage track.

Another great movie is called "The Train of Life." It is a foreign film with english subtitling. I know most people don't like these kinda movies but I highly recommend it. Great steam footage. You can probably rent it at your local Blockbuster outlet. That's where I found it.

Like I said, it has great train footage and is a very funny movie. Basically it's about a jewish village in WWII about to be taken over by the Nazi's. The group acquires a train and remodels it as a prisoner train and they escape through Nazi lines. But the funny part is that the group fragments into 3 different social groups. One Jewish, one German and the other is Communist. Each tries to influence the others by which social group the id with. It's a great movie.

See here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0170705/

Another movie set against a World War II railway backdrop, this time Czech:

Closely Watched Trains
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060802/

My Favorite RR movie is the Silver Streak My Favorite part is when it Crashes into Union Station also what railine was it filmed on?

AmtrakFan

This afternoon I was watching part of a fine movie called "This Land Is Mine". It's about WWII France and the resistance and a railroad yard is central to the story. Top notch cast and Charles Laughton gives one of his best performances... Anyway, in the railroad yard scenes something was not right and it took me a minute to figure it out. Then it hit me... All of the rolling stock had "Bettendorf" type trucks, knuckle couplers and American style roofwalks and doors... Not France at all but good ol' US of A rolling stock! Movie made this side of the Pond! Worthwhile flick though...

Link to Internet Movie Database for this film:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0036431/

hoharold wrote:This afternoon I was watching part of a fine movie called "This Land Is Mine". It's about WWII France and the resistance and a railroad yard is central to the story. Top notch cast and Charles Laughton gives one of his best performances... Anyway, in the railroad yard scenes something was not right and it took me a minute to figure it out. Then it hit me... All of the rolling stock had "Bettendorf" type trucks, knuckle couplers and American style roofwalks and doors... Not France at all but good ol' US of A rolling stock! Movie made this side of the Pond! Worthwhile flick though...

Link to Internet Movie Database for this film:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0036431/

Yeah, well, since the movie "This Land Is Mine" was made in 1943, it would have been da** difficult to get French railroad equipment in the picture. Remember, there wasn't a lot of freedom of movement or freedom of the press - as in none at all - in Nazi-occupied France. The movie had to have been made here in the States then to be made at all!

AmtrakFan wrote:My Favorite RR movie is the Silver Streak My Favorite part is when it Crashes into Union Station also what railine was it filmed on?

AmtrakFan

I admit that Silver Streak was my favorite,,,,,,and the crash was one of my favorites as well.LOL

"hello Chicago, I'll drink to that" says the porter as he drinks his booze.


However there were three things that are in the ovie that were simpy for dramatic effect: 1) if I recall correctly, the engineer was seated on the fireman's side 2) the deadman's pedal was made to appear to be the equivalant of an accelerator 3) when George pulls the cut-lever to seperate their coach from the runaway loco, the air dumps on their coaches, but not on the coaches ahead.


by the way, another thread on here mentioned that Silver Streak was recently released on DVD.

Remember, there wasn't a lot of freedom of movement or freedom of the press - as in none at all - in Nazi-occupied France. The movie had to have been made here in the States then to be made at all!

I remember watching this movie a couple of times on American Movie Classics, when they still showed "classic" movies. Yes, that was American railroading at it's best. I think I remember being able to discern the Southern Pacific logo on some of the freight cars although the producers did their best to hide the identity of the railroad.

Using footage of American railroads to represent French railways wasn't as unrealistic to me as seeing the young (and very attractive) Maureen O' Hara romantically involved with the obviously older Charles Laughton-that onscreen relationship really strained the credibility of the movie.

Let's add the movie "Witness," with Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford.

There is a seen where the Amish woman (played by McGillis) and her son take a train from Lancaster PA to Philadelphia PA. They board an Amtrak train for the trip, and get on the train from a ground-level platform. Then the boy marvels at the sights you can see from a moving train. In Philadelphia, they wait a while for their connecting train in the cavernous 30th st station. Reminds me of the old NY Penn Station before it was demolished for Madison Square Garden - wooden benches, high ceiling, ancient tile floor, and marble walls.