Model Railroads in Film and TV

https://youtu.be/O_K8lCqvKiQ

I was just watching this last night.  Remember Fridays?

The original 'Day the Earth Stood Still' had a small oval under the bed of the boy 

In the 1981 movie "Authur" staring Dudley Moore there's  a scene in the bedroom showing a nice layout.

Close encounters of the third kind had an HO layout in the beginning where the "dad" tried to teach his son fractions with a car stuck in a 90 degree rail crossing.

Risky business with Tom Cruise had him playing his Lionel mpc trains

Here's a previous thread on it:

https://ogrforum.com/t...h-model-train?page=1

David

Still think the best was the Cary Grant movie people will talk from I believe 1944.

E-UNIT-79 posted:

Still think the best was the Cary Grant movie people will talk from I believe 1944.

What film with Cary Grant featured a model railroad?

Speaking of Cary Grant - don't want to detour my own topic - but I just watched North by Northwest, which I hadn't seen in years. Wow, they prominently feature the New York Central ticketing area in Grand Central Station and the 20th Century Limited, including the infamous Red Carpet on the platform (the origin of that expression), the passenger and dining cars (he walks along the outside of the two-tone gray Pullman cars) and even the locomotive, front and center in Chicago.  Never noticed all this before. 

There was a Errol Flynn movie called Fours a Crowd that has a great train race in it on a very large outdoor layout.....Paul

PJB -

There was an article in the August 2016 issue of Trains about the filming of "North by Northwest." The main concourse and ticket window were shot at GCT. Article says the shots outside the cars were done in Los Angeles, with Southern Pacific cars painted to look like NYC cars. And they did shoot at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago. Lots more interesting stuff.

So many good lines in the movie. And look for the kid plugging his ears in the restaurant.

David

A hard to find Independent producer Disney type Kids film Called "Train Master" had both real and model trains as main parts of the film. Train Master was filmed in Portland, OR, the layout scenes were filmed at the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club, which I am a member of. At least one of my trains made a brief appearance, a Lionel HO Challenger (the 3980) pulling a string of matching Athearn heavyweight passenger cars.

Doug

Fed Ex also did a Holiday commercial, shot in Portland, with the "Hobby Shop" scene filmed at the CGMRC as well, and the locomotive being shipped is a club painted Columbia Gorge Lines "E-6" as I recall.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wjB7DCfDvhU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sorry, I don't know how link/imbed, I tried, the title of the video on youtube is:

The Journey of a Model Train: How the Holidays Arrive - The Life of a Package - FedEx

Doug

PJB posted:

E-UNIT-79 posted:

Still think the best was the Cary Grant movie people will talk from I believe 1944.

What film with Cary Grant featured a model railroad?

People will talk was the name of the movie. He played Dr. Pretorius. Large Lionel layout on the floor. Beep beep. 

In Kevin James old sitcom "King Of Queens" - Season 7, episode 6 "Off Track Bedding" - revolves around Doug's parents visiting to attend the "Convention"

Early on he shows off a steam engine in a aluminum case...later around the 17:00 minute mark - Doug finally gets to run the trains - takes the handle of the ZW - and the layout bursts into flames!

Some funny train humor for sure...

Lots of Lionel merch in the background of the scene.

(this version is cropped a bit - so some of the stuff isn't showing like it might on TV or DVD - but one gets the idea)

PJB posted:

I just watched the Superman Returns film starring Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey that bombed at the box office.

If "bombed" is defined by earning nearly $400,000,000.00 then I'll gladly be a target.  Warners simply didn't get their desired half a billion box office.

Brian Olson posted:

PJB posted:

I just watched the Superman Returns film starring Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey that bombed at the box office.

If "bombed" is defined by earning nearly $400,000,000.00 then I'll gladly be a target.  Warners simply didn't get their desired half a billion box office.

Everything is relative and, given the success of other superhero films, even those of much lesser known characters, Warner scrapped plans for a sequel. Not to mention that it's poor performance resulted in the delay before we saw MOS in theaters, which was a total reboot. 

But much more importantly, its curious how you've picked up on the one teeny tiny thing in my post that really has zero to do with the point of this thread...

Back to the Future III!

Doc and Marty do "a little model railroading" in his 1885 blacksmith shop as they plan to"borrow" a locomotive to push the Delorean back to the future.

The "Beep, Beep, Beep" train scene from "People Will Talk."

The absolute BEST (ha) is the scene in The Black Scorpion where they attack the train - a Lionel steamer with the tender backwards!  Oh,  the mayhem...

starts about 0.55 into this trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sr0Y3mUZpM

chinatrain99 posted:

https://youtu.be/O_K8lCqvKiQ

I was just watching this last night.  Remember Fridays?

Heck, I never even heard of that show before now. Now I know why.

Grampstrains posted:

Brian Olson posted:

PJB posted:

I just watched the Superman Returns film starring Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey that bombed at the box office.

If "bombed" is defined by earning nearly $400,000,000.00 then I'll gladly be a target.  Warners simply didn't get their desired half a billion box office.

Hollywood bean counters use different math than the rest of us.  Superman Returns cost 271 million to make and earned 391 million.  For reasons only known to the bean counters, they lost money on the film.  That figure does not include Pay per view, HBO & DVDs.  I wouldn't mind losing a little myself.

People never take into account the crushing costs of promoting a film, which rarely gets counted into the cost as often they only count the production cost. Nobody thinks of how much it costs to promote a movie, which sometimes can cost more than the movie itself.

If a movie doesn’t make an substantial amount well and beyond the actual bottom line, it’s considered a failure.

Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet: "The Lionel Electric Trains"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zc4anw3EU

They visit a Lionel Train Shop and run some Classic Lionel Trains

Gary

NBC Mystery Movie -- Banecek. A prototype safety car is traveling by flat car on a train. During the trip, the car is stolen, flat car and all from the middle of the train. In the end, Banecek demonstrates how they did it using a Lionel train. Of course, they didn't factor in who air brakes work on a train.

Leave it to Beaver TV Clip • Play time one minute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCM9r9idKR4

Clip of American Flyer Trains from an episode of the Leave it to Beaver TV show.

Gary

I'm with C Sam.  If I had an alien living in the same house, with his spaceship double parked down the street, I would pull out my Lionel train layout and run trains.

I wouldn't be counting rivets either.  I would double clutch the smoke pellets and relax.

Sheldon's Model Trains • With the famous line…….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCTzWZulcwg

Sheldon finds the HO scale model trains more entertaining than the O scale models.

Gary

King of Queens had, as posted above, a full episode with Lionel trains. But many episodes had O scale trains. Spence's apartment always had trains on the shelf......most time in the background. Someone on the show liked trains.

p51 posted:

chinatrain99 posted:

https://youtu.be/O_K8lCqvKiQ

I was just watching this last night.  Remember Fridays?

Heck, I never even heard of that show before now. Now I know why.

Grampstrains posted:

Brian Olson posted:

PJB posted:

I just watched the Superman Returns film starring Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey that bombed at the box office.

 

 

 

I have to admit that I enjoyed the show...I was 14 or so though.  Battle Boy went on to a better gig.   Kramer in Seinfeld.   Wife never heard of Friday's either but had to say "he plays the same character ".  Not a lot of depth there.  

Matt - as I recall from the "Banacek" episode, there was some mighty quick throwing of a switch, too. Hadn't even thought about the brakes.

David

Admittedly, I think this one may have been mentioned in previous threads on movies (which seem to pop up every 6 months or so), but I recently saw The Godfather (Part 1) and saw a train scene that I had never noticed before. And this is after countless viewings.

In the scene where Tom Hagen is "kidnapped" on the street while Christmas shopping there's a store display window in the background with train running. It's only a few seconds but you can clearly see a nice PW display with buildings, signals and accessories.

Don't forget the Sopranos!

NKP Muncie posted:

PJB -

There was an article in the August 2016 issue of Trains about the filming of "North by Northwest." The main concourse and ticket window were shot at GCT. Article says the shots outside the cars were done in Los Angeles, with Southern Pacific cars painted to look like NYC cars. And they did shoot at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago. Lots more interesting stuff.

So many good lines in the movie. And look for the kid plugging his ears in the restaurant.

David

Thanks for the tip - I'd like to get that magazine. Wonder where I might find it...

There was a nice Lionel layout on the I Carly kids TV show a few years back, nice layout train club for boys, and "Sam" a visiting girl got a couple of engines running at high speed and doing a head on at speed with explosion!

I have rented out my O Gauge trains for TV shows in the past a few years back for some sort of Vampire show where a vampire crushed one of the train cars. And last fall I took a van load of O gauge stuff in for a TV shoot on a set at a warehouse they had set up for various TV  productions. They put stickers with a fake train name over the real train names on the models. I set up a lighted village scene in front of a set with a fire place and Christmas tree. Spent a couple of days there for a few seconds of a shot of a boy getting out of bed on Christmas morning to a model train steam engine circling a little village with lighted buildings and room really dim it looked pretty good on the camera. Made a lot of $ to buy more trains with! I used an Lionel Lion Chief steam engine and various freight cars. Had to have lots of extra stuff in case something did not work or got damaged with the mass of crew running all over the set for set up. Was lots of fun. Never did see either of the shows.

I always like these discussions on various forums of toy trains in the movies, etc.  Each time I read new one, something I hadn't seen before is mentioned.  In that spirit, I offer a couple production stills from two scenes showing toy trains in the 2015 widely acclaimed movie, Carol, which garnered six Academy Award Nominations in 2016 and starred Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.  When I saw the movie, I had no idea that toy trains would play a pivotal, if very brief, part in the movie.  No lengthy scene of trains running here, but they were, in a way, responsible for the two main characters getting together.

Cheers!

Alan

Right now on "Leave it to Beaver" on MeTV, "Beaver's Electric Trains" episode. (Eastern time).

David

I am watching it too.  Beaver just said about the trains "At my age, that's really kid's stuff".  I turned it on too late to catch the trains.

Brendan

The Day the Earth Stood Still - 1951

"Remind me later I'll tell you about trains that don't need tracks"

There was an epsiode of touched by an angle.The show had an autistic boy who loved trains.It had a mth nyc hudson set.

Mandy Patinkin (as Dr Geiger on Chicago Hope) built a great floor layout

Brendan posted:

I am watching it too.  Beaver just said about the trains "At my age, that's really kid's stuff".  I turned it on too late to catch the trains.

Brendan

Last night's second episode of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." Captain Holt and Sgt. Jeffords design competing layouts for the kids' room at the precinct. Realism vs. whimsy. Holt examining locomotive: "GP40 diesel locomotive with sprung drive wheels, Rule 17 lighting and full underbody detailing. You're gonna be the belle of the ball." Looked to me like a Southern Pacific, but with no lettering. Cab No. 7662.

David