Trains on TV & in the Movies


JazzDad

Gandy Dancer
Post your pictures of trains from your favourite shows.

I'll kick it off with a grab from Wrongfully Accused (1998).

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When I was younger I thought this was pretty cool, now that I'm older not so much. I like the idea of it, but I find the design lacking now. They could have used a design more akin to the TGV, but on a grandeur scale to suit what the show was about.

Super Train(1979)
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Well my favorite scene is likely the baptism scene, (cough cough), but here's a good shot from "Emperor of the North".
Easy on the ketchup Ernie! LOL
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Didn't Emperor of the North use a tiny 2-8-2 and a larger 2-8-2 for the passenger loco?
 
Certainly. Probably my favorite, and one of the few "grown-up" movies I was allowed to watch as a kid (probably because my parents knew I was interested in trains): Silver Streak. This film is likely the main reason for my fondness for F-units.

Here's AmRoad FP7 #4070 overrunning the track bumper, seconds before plowing into Chicago's "Central Station." In the movie, the locomotive was played by CP 4070, and the crash scene actually used a full-size mock up.

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Here's the train a bit earlier in the film.
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Here's another one: Disaster on the Coastliner (1979). It's a made-for-tv movie, and the railroading accuracy is...way off (like no one can hand-throw a switch?), but it's got lots of late-70s Amtrak footage. And some of the stunts are not bad for the pre-CGI era. Plus, there's nothing else like scraping a bunch of slightly past-their-prime actors together for a TV movie like E.G. Marshall, Lloyd Bridges, Raymond Burr, and Pat Hingle. Oh, and William Shatner's there too.

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A 4-6-0 seen in the 1940 Lloyd Nolan "Mike Shane" movie "Sleepers West". Toward the end of the movie the engine/train hit an oil tanker truck on the track.

Also the movie "The Train" had a nice European Stem loco.
 
And ONE MORE...Other Men's Women (1931) lots of trains and Jimmy Cagney as a Fireman who is partially blinded but still manages to take a 2-8-0 w/Vandy tender and park it on a bridge during a flood.
 
Ok, and since it hasn't been mentioned yet, if you haven't seen "The Train" (1965), directed by John Frankenheimer, you simply must. WWII movie, about the French Resistance trying to stop a train full of priceless art being stolen by the Germans, as the allied armies approach. Lots of great footage of steam locomotives from that era, with full-size special effects, including wrecking several real trains. Based on a true story, although the movie is a bit more dramatic than what occurred in reality.

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"Von Ryan's Express", with Frank Sinatra.
A group of POW's trying to escape from Italy into Switzerland in WW2.
Lots of good RR scenes!

As mentioned above, "The Train" -- perhaps the best train movie of 'em all !
 



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