Railroad Movies


Does Bridge on the River Kwai count?
Paid a visit to that location in Thailand couple years ago. Interesting history, the reason and building of that RR.

Actually went to visit a town very near by that had lots of Thai style houseboats I was looking at designs/construction methods/materials.
 
Paid a visit to that location in Thailand couple years ago. Interesting history, the reason and building of that RR.

Actually went to visit a town very near by that had lots of Thai style houseboats I was looking at designs/construction methods/materials.
Yes, we have just been commemorating the building of HellFire Pass on that Rlwy today, among the many other nationalities that worked on that line were 9500 Australian POW's, of whom 2646 died in terrible conditions.
 
soubriquet 16Nov10 12:21pm 3
In reply to the comment by Angelo:- The rivers Kwai-Yai and Kwai-Noi meet at a confluence just south of Kanchanaburi, at which the combined rivers become the Mae-Klong. The Mekong is in Viet-Nam.
The section shown in the picture is not a part of the famous bridge, but part of the Whampo viaduct beside the river.
My father was one who came back, but many of his friends died as slave-labourers in the jungles around the railway.
The real Bridge on the River Kwai was nothing like the famous one in the film, it was an iron bridge on concrete piers. However, prisoners built numerous other bridges out of timber further up the line.
The reason the british did not build the railway when they first surveyed it was because of the predicted cost, not in money, but in human lives. The report stated that too many workers would die.
When the Imperial Japanese Army decided to build it, they used, to a great extent, the published british survey, but did not see the deaths of prisoners and natives, nor even their own troops as any sort of obstacle.
This is why it's said "a life for every sleeper" What you americans call "Railroad ties" we call sleepers.
 
Thai-Burma Railway

thai-burma-rail-map_en.jpg


The shipping lane through the Malacca Straits off Malaya was one such route. In order to reduce the requirement for naval escorts the Japanese therefore decided to construct a railway connecting their frontline in Burma with Japanese forces and supplies in Thailand and Malaya. In keeping with the goal of freeing up resources for other fronts, the Japanese military decided to use prisoners of war and local labour to build this railway.
 
I'd have to say that "Breakheart Pass" with Charles Bronson rates high on my list. I did have it on VHS, but the Spousal Unit gave all our VHS stuff away including all my Star Trek movie series! :mad:
 
If your into Steam and the Northern Pacific, Emperor of the North is a great railroad movie. I tend to go for films about specific railroads: The Durango and Silverton, The Northern Pacific, Steam Across America, The Rio Grande Southern, etc. Alas, some of these videos are in VHS and I can no longer play them!

So, Shirley, your a Treky then?
 
My favorite is "Emperor of the North" starring Lee Marvin as "A Number One", a legendary "Hobo King" who knows all the tricks of hopping freights and successful hobo living, and is the envy of all the other hobos in the trackside "Jungles". (Hobo camps were called "jungles" in the Depression era).

Earnest Borgnine plays "Shack", the cruel, sadistic Conductor of 2-8-2 Mikado "No. 19", who would rather kill a hobo than let him grab a ride on his train.

There are a lot of closeups and detailed operations of the locomotive and its short freight consist. It's also educational regarding the way hobos lived in the 1930's.

Watch it anyway you can!

Brakeman Hal
 
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I'd have to say that "Breakheart Pass" with Charles Bronson rates high on my list. I did have it on VHS, but the Spousal Unit gave all our VHS stuff away including all my Star Trek movie series! :mad:
I just checked the lilbrary. If I have Breakheart Pass or High Noon they are not in the catalog yet (which means not shelved yet). But I think we have at least three boxes of VHS yet to catalog. I do have all the Star Trek movies (including the HORRIBLE first movie) on laserdiscs.

I've been scouting the thrift stores for good VHS players to be certain I will always have a good one to use. Hopefully the tapes will rot before I don't have a player for them.
 
Orient Express train, HO Scale


How many different HO scale models exist of the steam engine that pulled the Orient Express?

I saw this one mentioned on the forums, as built by Roco,...

...Is actually a French Locomotive (Golden Arrow )
It made the connection of the Ferry Train from Great Britain: London - Calais - Paris... in less than 8 hours in 1950. The most Famous of them was the 'Chapelon' (Called after the famous French Steam Loco.Engineer) This 'Pacific' was produced in Ho by ROCO a few years ago.
 



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