Sierra RR # 9 on film.

[Woody Elmore]

Clicking around the 100 plus TV channels I have, I came across a movie entitled "Kansas Pacific." Made in 1953 the plot is very silly - building the Kansas Pacific in 1961. It involves Quantrill's Raiders, cannons, pistols from the 70s and a locomotive probably built around 1900 - Sierra #9. There is also a 2-8-0 featured, probably another Sierra RR engine.

The film is worth watching for the trains but the plot - ugh.

So let's add this to the ever growing list of railroad themed movies!

[OkieRick]

Did anyone see EZTREME TRAINS on History Intl. last night?  4 hours of locomotive fun...

841 run from Cheyenne to Denver and back - annual rodeo run
BNSF for port in LA CA to Ft. Worth, TX - cargo
Bullet Train from DC to Boston - people
BNSF from Washington State to NYC - cargo


Rick
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[Johnson Bar Jeff]

Clicking around the 100 plus TV channels I have, I came across a movie entitled "Kansas Pacific." Made in 1953 the plot is very silly - building the Kansas Pacific in 1961. It involves Quantrill's Raiders, cannons, pistols from the 70s and a locomotive probably built around 1900 - Sierra #9. There is also a 2-8-0 featured, probably another Sierra RR engine.

The film is worth watching for the trains but the plot - ugh.

So let's add this to the ever growing list of railroad themed movies!

Mallory Hope Ferrell's book on the Virginia & Truckee includes a "still" from a real groaner called Train to Tombstone that was filmed on the V&T just after the shutdown of operations in 1950. The film used the V&T's Nevada Copper Belt 1920s consolidation and old Harriman-style RPO.

Eeew. ... 

[Woody Elmore]

Oh Wow -  Train to Tombstone - groaner is not the word! They made some pretty bad oaters in the fifties. I always liked the Audie Murphy cavalry pictures where the uniform pants he wears are obviously tailored and his uniform never gets dirty!

The Kansas Pacific film is supposed to take place in 1861 but everything in the film is just too modern. John Wayne fell into that trap when he did Comancheros - which was supposedly supposedly set before the civil war.

What would the Hollywood B movie producers have done without the Sierra Railroad or the Colorado narrow gauge? At least we didn't see a cowboy movie featuring a GG-1!

[Woody Elmore]

Here is the original NY Times review of Train to Tomebstone (1950):

Written and produced by its star, Donald Barry, Train to Tombstone was a low-budget version of the classic Stagecoach (1939). Once again a group of passengers fight among themselves as their mode of transportation -- a train en route from Albuquerque, NM, to Tombstone, AZ, this time -- is attacked by warring Indians. Author Barry was rather more fanciful than his predecessor, Dudley Nichols, however, and in addition to the inevitable saloon girl (Nan Leslie), the train also carries other characters: a pretty paraplegic (Barbara Stanley), whose illness may be psychological in nature; her indomitable aunt (Minna Phillips); a handsome doctor (Tom Neal); a comic relief women's undergarment salesman (Wally Vernon); a jittery conductor (Edward Cassidy); a marshal (Claude Stroud) guarding a shipment of gold; and, of course, Barry himself in the John Wayne role of the wanted but goodhearted outlaw. In due course, the train is attacked by what appears to be Indians, but what in reality is a gang of outlaws determined to get their greedy hands on the loot. Neither the marshal nor Barry are what they appear to be, the latter actually an undercover agent assigned to protect the shipment. The beautiful paraplegic is on her way to meet the fiancé she has never even seen and who, it is revealed, is in cahoots with the gang. Does the trauma of witnessing the boy killed right before her eyes cure the girl? Why, of course it does. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

[Yampa Bob]

"Kansas Pacific" is just starting on the western channel. Yeah, the plot is kinda thin, but I love the trains.  Imagine an Engineer called "Smokestack". 

[Woody Elmore]

The plot is no sillier than some of the new films being made today. You are right about the trains - lots of scenes with number 9.  I hit the "mute" button when I watched it - the corny dialogue was just too much.  Today the "smokestack" character would be called "exhaust stack" and would be in trouble for the carbon footprint of his engine!!

[Terry Toenges]

I've been watching the Cheyenne and Maverick reruns and have seen a few old timers on those.

[Yampa Bob]

Today I watched a movie titled "Man of the East".  The opening sequence showed a train winding through the mountains. I think it was a model train, a Rio Grande Mike number 478 pulling some yellow Overland cars.

It's possible they filmed the Durango-Silverton, but everything looked too perfect and clean except for the trees and rocks which looked like Woodland Scenics. 

[GN.2-6-8-0]

If I want to watch one of the Hollywood movies with trains my two favorites are THE TRAIN with Burt Lancaster or THE EMPEROR OF THE NORTH with Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine both which I have on DVD. 
Both are outstanding films....