Movie train production

[Trainman203]

Restarting a conversation begun elsewhere about trains in movie production.  Terry, you have the book about Hollywood's Railroads.  Surely there is a lot of info about 2 of the best railroad movies ever made - Danger Lights in 1930 and Emperor of The North in the early 70s.  Fill us in. 

[Len]

Speaking of locomotives being pushed in movies, who can forget the crash scene from "The Fugitive" filmed on the Great Smokey Mountains Railway. The wrecks are still rusting away alongside the river:


ex-CSX U18B #1901 and ex-N&W GP-30 #536 were actually being pushed by GSMR GP-7 #777 at the back of the train. Even though it never actually appears in the movie, #777 got the same 'Illinois Southern' paint scheme treatment as the crash locos did.

Len

[Terry Toenges]

I'll look those up. The newest Lone Ranger movie isn't mentioned in any of them.
I rem seeing something about emperor Of The North. Danger Lights I'm not sure.
I'll check them later.
There are actually four books.
The first one he did in 1981. I bought that one off EBay some years ago.  That was a big hard cover book.
The others are from 2014, 2015, and 2018. Those are smaller soft cover ones. I just got the last three a few days ago.
https://www.cochetopapress.biz/

[Trainman203]

See if he talks about the great train up hold scene that opens 1949's "White Heat ", one of the last gangster movies made and a great one.  Great SP steam scenes.  Hint:  watch very closely the very last couple of frames where Jimmy Cagney's stuntman jumps down  from a tunnel portal on to the top of the Vanderbilt tender, and tell us what you see that the film editors tried to cut out, but didn't quite get it all.

[Terry Toenges]

There is nothing about White Heat or Danger Lights. Emperor Of The North used Oregon Pacific & Eastern's #19 as the main one and used #5 (which was purchased from Magma Arizona RR) as three different ones in the movie.
Danger Lights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlgOpYXmTJg
White Heat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNJQldHBntE

[Trainman203]

The first 5 minutes of White Heat is loaded with action scenes of SP 4-6-2 2440 pulling a train of Harriman heavyweights, beautiful. It appears that the SP crew was used as extras with bit parts, two lines at most.  The engineer is for real, the other guys look it too.

Danger Lights is a pretty corny early talkie, 1930, but the first 10 minutes is priceless golden steam age filmed on the long abandoned Milwaukee Road Pacific Coast Extension, both out on the line and in a working roundhouse, with a Pacific being turned on the turntable, the fireman putting out the extra flags, and all kind of other great detail.  The division superintendent is a classic bulldog suit kicking everyone around like I'm certain it was and probably still is.

If you can make it through the rest of the movie there are some other great scenes.  There is a tug of war between two mikados at a railroad festival, and a speed run with a Pacific pulling one business car rushing one of  the heros to a hospital in the city.  Unfortunately that run is sped up like stagecoach chases in old westerns but it is still great.  Sit through this and the reward will come.

[Terry Toenges]

I don't know if Larry plans any more books. I hope so. The books he's done so far have been about the more often used places and equipment or the "A list stars". Maybe he can do one with the "B list stars" like some RR's that weren't used much like in Danger Lights and White Heat.
I book marked those two movies for when I have time to watch them. I don't really like watching movies on the small computer screen so I use an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV.
He has a Facebook page that goes along with the books. He has articles and pics that didn't make it into the books that he puts on there.
https://www.facebook.com/hollywoodsrailroads/

[rogertra]

Speaking of locomotives being pushed in movies, who can forget the crash scene from "The Fugitive" filmed on the Great Smokey Mountains Railway. The wrecks are still rusting away alongside the river:


ex-CSX U18B #1901 and ex-N&W GP-30 #536 were actually being pushed by GSMR GP-7 #777 at the back of the train. Even though it never actually appears in the movie, #777 got the same 'Illinois Southern' paint scheme treatment as the crash locos did.

Len

It's been left there as a tourist attraction.

Roger T.

[dutchbuilder]

That is also a way to get rid of unwanted junk.
Abandon in place is something that would never happen in Holland.
The country is to small

Ton

[Trainman203]

The GP30 might be considered by some to be a historic piece by some.  I wouldn't be surprised if it is retrieved and restored.

The Illinois Southern paint scheme is actually quite attractive.  I wonder if anyone has ever modeled it.

[Trainman203]

How could we have missed Runaway Train from the 80s?  On apparently the Alaska Railroad.  As I recall, it was a pretty feasible incident.

[dutchbuilder]

Is that the one with an A bomb onboard?

What about this one, Unstoppable.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7LvM8G3kGs

Ton

[Terry Toenges]

Maybe he'll do a diesel book.

[Trainman203]

No bomb.  A 4 unit consist escapes a yard unmanned, out on to the main, against an opposing train.  However two stowaways are trapped in the 2nd unit, an old F unit, and can't get into the lead unit to shut it down.  No absurd shoot em up, blow em up stuff, no ridiculous computer generated stuff. But a great and plausible story.  Sub zero winter railroading at its coldest! ❄️⛄️🌨

[bbmiroku]

dutchbuilder, your link is broken.
Unstoppable 2010
VERY loosely based on CSX #8888 Incident (Crazy Eights), happened in Ohio.
The engine is still in service, but rebuilt and renumbered into a Dash-3, #4389.