MOVIES OR TV SHOWS WITH TRAINS IN THEM.

One from the not so well known file......"The Miracle of the Bells", 1944, staring Fred MacMurray.....this movie was shot at various locations in Wilkes-Barre, Glen Lyon, and Naticoke,PA......I seem to remember a set of PRR PAs (I might be wrong as it's been awhile) arriving at the local station. For me it was likely the best moment of this film as viewed on TCM channel some years back. I'm not sure those engines could have made it down the Glen Lyon branch but Naticok or W-B is a possibility.

 

Anyone have any info on this scene......   

North by Northwest

Union Depot

Suddenly

Pal Joey

The Broadway Limited

Holiday Affair

The Quiet Man

Donovan's Reef

Mr Blandings builds his dream house

The Bishops Wife (watch for tinplate caboose in the middle of the train) in the opening sequence

Send me no Flowers

Tough Guys

Force 10 from Navarone

Strangers on a train 2 versions

Berlin Express

Wild Boys of the Road

Sullivans travels

Twentieth Century

Pelham 1-2-3

Pelham 1-2-3

 

 

If you don't mind a foreign film

It's a recent Russian film called "The Edge"

A former front line SGT in the Soviet Army during WW2 is sent to Siberia as his reward. 

Stalin usually incarcerated or killed off those troops of his that spent a lot of time in contact with German or American troops.

 

This Sargent is in Siberia finds an abandoned Steamer on a small island just off one of the lakes restores it fires it up and with a German woman who was one of many captives after the war makes a run for the Mongolian border and eventually makes it!!

 

This is NOT fiction it's a true story. He marries the woman and they eventually had 6 children. For a Russian film it is really well done and worth your time watching it. And yes it's in colour. AND the Russian main character is really a good actor, believeable and does a great job in the film. I watched it on U-Tube

TODAYS TIME!!!  RAILROAD ALASKA & **** ON WHEELS!

I just watched a BIZARRE train movie, so I thought I would add it to this list.  Its called Snowpiercer.

 

 

There were a few other movies that I didn't see on the list:

 

Tombstone.  (Especially the scene where Wyatt tells Ike Clanton to tell the rest of the cowboys that he's coming for them -- as a train backs up out of the station).

 

 

3:10 to Yuma. (Self explanatory).

 

The Lady Vanishes. (There are two movie versions. One from 1938 and one from 1979.  The BBC recently remade it into a TV movie ).

 

 

Don't forget that 1980's TV show on NBC called super train.
Also the great american hero had a train scene in one of its episodes on the SDA&E
Die hard III with the subway derailment under the federal reserve bank by wall street.
The movie "Seven ups"
The movie "The French Connection"
The movie "Blue Thunder" end scenes
Mission impossible II
The movie "US Marshals"
The movie "predator II"
James bond - Octopussy, From Russia with Love

Clockers, a mid 90's movie, about drug dealers.

 

Richie

Some I don't think have been mentioned:

Back to the Future 3

The Sting

Continental Divide (John Belushi in one of his less pure comedic roles)

Atlas Shrugged (don't think the movies had a big following)

2 episodes of the original Twilight Zone:

1: the episdoe where the drunk department store santa wants to be the real santa.  There is a Lionel layout in the opening department store scene and later when he's giving out gifts, a boy says he wants a train engine, santa asks steam or electric?, the boy says it doesn't matter, so santa hands him what looks like a brown lionel engine box

2: a couple wakes up alone in a deserted town where everything turns out to be fake, they keep hearing a child laugh.  they get on a train which takes them to the same town, in the end it's revealed some giant alien has abducted them and brought them home for his alien child's toy train set (i guess lionel is sold in space)

Also I recall an episode of either "are you afraid of the dark" or "goosebumps" where the kid loves trains and meets a mysterious old railroad man who gives him an o gauge passenger car (think it was a lionel madison car).  when he runs it on his layout the kid finds himself in the car on a train that is doomed to crash.  he finds out the old man is the ghost of the conductor from this old train and he pulls the emergency brake to stop the train.  it happens again, but the brake has been cut, so his brother saves the day by throwing the switch on an old stretech of track where the train had crashed years ago.  I think that's what happened, i'll have to see if i can find it on youtube.

Boxcar Bertha--An orphaned farm girl (Barbara Hershey finds romance and adventure fighting the railroad with union organizer Big Bill Shelley (David Carradine). Martin Scorsese directs this explosive story of America in the 1930s. Based on "Sister of the Road" by Boxcar Bertha Thompson as told to Ben L. Reitman.

 

and another vote for The Station Agent, great footage of NJTransit and it opens in a hobby shop, what more could you want.

Scotie

Gentlemen,

   The train movies go on and on, my 2 favorite Western train movies are John Wayne's The Train Robbers with Ben Johnson, Ann Margret, Rod Taylor, Bobby Vinton, Larry Gatlin & Ricardo Montalban and Break Heart Pass with Richard Crenna, Ben Johnson & Starring Charlie Bronson, in both of these westerns you get to see some great old trains.  Both good western movies.

PCRR/Dave

 

The short lived TV show Revolution had a Steam Engine in a couple episodes.

310 to Yuma

 

Yes, all good movie scenes, and a lot of the Western ones were of the Sierra Railroad, too, am I right?

The movies give me ideas that may or may not bear fruit, like f'rinstance;

- A vignette showing the place-the-body scene or the observation car scene from "Double Indemnity" (Fred McMurray)

- The circus train from the last Indiana Jones movie (The Crystal Skull?)

 

I dont think I noticed this!  Guess I'll have to go watch it again to see!

How about the TV show "That Girl" with Marlo Thomas. Some real neat rail footage in the opening scenes. Does anybody know where that was filmed at?

I have to second an earlier post about the opening music to Breakheart Pass, especially when it was originally released: the screen was black and the chugging started to fade in, the United Artists logo started forming (the one at the time was the blue gradual one for the Transamerica logo), chugging getting louder and then BAM! the reddish toned shot of the smokebox door with the big 9 on it!  What's cool is how the chugging formed the rhythmic basis for the theme!

 

A couple movies I like and I don't see them listed on first glance are British movies: The Titfield Thunderbolt and one that I saw that was part silent, part sound called Flying Scotsman, featuring a very young Ray Milland!

Ironically, the steam locomotive is cold and not running right now, they piped steam through places you wouldn't see it on a real running locomotive, then actually powered the train from a diesel which was disguised as a car right behind the tender (that blue thing in front of the yellow boxcars). They also filmed scenes on the Texas State RR for another episode with a running locomotive, and one scene I caught on youtube showed a running light on a tender, which is impossible from the premise of the show where all electircal fields have permanently been disabled and no electric lights are possible on Earth. I read it was a simple error on the part of the editing bunch for the show and the engine crew simply forgot to the turn the tender backing light off.

Frankly, I found the show's premise so idiotic that I couldn't bear to watch it.

Maybe why it was short lived!

Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford, currently running early in the morning on THIS TV often shows footage of the Southern Pacific Daylight. One episode is about a scheme to rob a Federal Reserve shipment, by throwing a switch from a Southern Pacific depot and derailing the Daylight.

Buster Keaton in "The General."  my all time favorite.

 

 

Thomas and the Magic Railway.

 

"Day the Earth Stood Still"  "..train with no tracks?"

Adams Family

 

 

 

"Our Hospitality"  Buster Keaton again.

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

 

The funniest train sequence you've ever seen!

 

Movies:

Water for Elephants

 Bound for Glory

 

Shorts:

 Buster Keaton in:

The RAILRODDER

http://www.nfb.ca/film/railrodder

 Steam Speed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4RIBmM2ZF0

 Four's a Crowd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKaJpzzr2O4

 

Dave

 

 

 

Mentioned earlier in the thread was "It Happened To Jane" but I thought it was Doris Day.

 

Another movie was "Narrow Margin" which had some great train scenes.

I 2nd "4's a Crowd" with Errol Flynn.Great prewar 700e and huge outdoor Lionel Layout throughout the movie .

Great Locomotive Chase 1956

The Train 1964

The Denver And Rio Grande 1952 with Edmound O'Brien and Paul Fix.

 

One of the best train movies ever.  VonRyans Express.

That was filmed on the PRR about were the Secacus Jct. station is. And if you look closely, you will see it is in reverse! The train was heading into NY but the film shows as if it was a engine view. Look at the cars on the NJ Turnpike...

"Joe Kidd" with Clint Eastwood

 

not the best acting, but oh those trains are great!

throw mama from the train. danny devito operates a lionel train.

grand central murder (1942) 

 

and the Higbee's department store window display from a christmas story had some pretty sweet lionel equipment

COOLEYHIGH.STREETSOFFIRE

Let's not forget "The Choo Choo Bob Show". It's been a long time favorite in our house. Qubo started airing episodes this month.

 

An interesting article on a Jon Voite film from the 80s using locomotives from the Alaska Railroad

 

https://cinetrains.wordpress.c...-runaway-train-1987/

The 2014 Valentine's Day episode of The Big Bang Theory features the Napa Valley train. Quoting the episode (approximately): "The 4-4-6-4 is the 4-10-4 that America never made!" -Eric (random guy on train). That was a great episode!

There are lots of good movies with trains in them.  But focusing on those where the train features prominently or is very important to the movie, I think my favorites would be:

 

The Great Locomotive Chase – The General, Union vs. Confederates, history

From Russia with Love - The Orient Express scenes make the movie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – The train itself isn’t seen too much, but the scenes on the train are important

Mission: Impossible – Climactic scenes of the movie on high-speed train

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory – Entertaining action film set entirely on a train

Strelnikov's train from Dr Zhivago: I think they used Spanish equipment, as Spain and Russia both had track gauge over 5 ft. Think Spain was 5' 6".

Several posters had mentioned, The Greatest Show on Earth, which was on RETRO last night. It won the 1953 Academy Award for best picture.  I remember seeing the movie on TV in the 1960s but did not remember much about it. Great movie for circus lovers, and train lovers.  This is a  link to the train wreck, hope I don't spoil the movie for anyone.. 

 

I also remember seeing a GG1 in the movie. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ITp_xSaxE

 

I found this description on the net: 

 

The trains used in the train wreck scene were elaborate models. The cars were approximately 6 feet long and highly detailed on the outside. They were built so that they would crumple realistically during the crash. Before the crash the same models were used several times to depict the circus train moving from city to city

Ski Train had Ben Johnson as an engineer trying to stop a runaway train that was coming down off a mountain to a station where the track ended.

 

also had the guy from Adam 12. Only saw it on TV once, many years ago.

 

Out of Africa neat train

!950's TV Show • I Love Lucy: "The Great Train Robbery"

  Click photo to enlarge. 

There are many Roy Rogers and Gene Autry films in which trains are part of the script. At the moment can't remember titles, but 2 Rogers film had a Challenger in the script. One early RR comic had a cover with Roy on a Big Boy catcher.

The train scenes in Dr. Zivago were filmed in Canada. with equipment "imported" for the movie.

 

Rusty