Name of movie

Emperor of the North.  Ernest Bourgnine, Lee Marvin.

Sounds a lot like that one, for sure (my favorite train movie), but a good many of the details in the above account are way wrong.

Nobody was shot in Emperor of the North, (Cracker, the brakeman died of a broken neck when he was slammed into the front of the cuploa when A-No.1 put the train into emergency by forcing a brake cylinder.) no canyons or tunnels as such, nor were there any wing-like arms on the OP&E caboose.  There was a river valley where A-No.1 knocked Cigarette off the train into the river at the end of Emperor though...

Rusty

I think you're doing a mash-up of Emperor of the North and Breakheart Pass. The fight on a car at the end of the train was in EotN between Borgnine and Marvin. Now I seem to remember that this movie when it was released was called Emperor of the North Pole. The scene of hanging on over a canyon in the winter was in Break Heart Pass. Now perchance was Burt Lancaster in it also on a train helping the French Resistance?

Thanks for the suggestions.  It was not, however, Emperor of the North.  The movie I'm trying to remember was not about trains per se, rather it had the described scene as an important part. 

And not Breakheart Pass (also a good movie).  The part that I think is unique are the long metal arms attached to the caboose that swing out.  I'm not sure what they are for.  The hero swings out on the arm (like Steve McQueen did on the El in Chicago in Hunter). 

Switchback w/ Danny Glover, and Dennis Quaid.  The "caboose" is (or is very similar to) a Jordan Spreader, except it is not located on the front of the train.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119210/

YES!  Switchback it is.  I would never have remembered it.  Thank you!  My mind is at peace now (for the time being). 

So were the wings for moving snow?  I tried to find something like that on the internet and couldn't.

Thanks again.

OK, here is another request.  Dwight Yokum song at the very end of the movie, I think, or was that just his video.  Western scene with the camera on board the train looking back. 

For a brief moment I thought it might be "Under Siege 2" but I don't remember any kind of caboose or spreader in that.  Some good train-action-sequences though!

- Mike

Maybe South of Heaven, West of ****?  I haven't seen the movie, but Yokum produced and starred in the movie and his songs are listed as the soundtrack. 

The movie has terrible reviews, but maybe the music was good.

Here's a list to the film's song list:

http://www.soundtrackinfo.com/tracks/switchback/

Yes, the movie "Emperor of the North" was originally released as "Emperor of the North Pole" (which is the term used in the movie to describe the 'King of the Hoboes'). Not sure why it was changed, maybe people were confused thinking it was about the arctic??

A-No.1 (the Lee Marvin character) was a real person, Leon Ray Livingston, who wrote a number of stories and books about his years as a hobo in the late 19th and early 20th century. The movie is based (at least to some extent) on his stories. The character of "Cigaret" (Keith Caradine) was based on author Jack London, who travelled with A-No.1 for a time.

Yep, that's it.  Thanks for the trailer.  I watched that movie a few years ago, and the train scene stuck with me.  I just ordered it along with Emperor of the North (which I have never seen) and a couple other "train" films I haven't seen (Runaway Train and the newer Denzel Washington one). 

A lot of Switchback was filmed in Colorado.  After y'all reminded me of what the movie was called, a friend told me the restaurant scene is at the wundervu cafe in Coal Creek Canyon.

What are those huge metal wings for?  I tried to find photos of them on actual trains, but didn't find any.  I'm not sure what they would be called.  

What are those huge metal wings for? 

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreader_(railroad)&sa=U&ei=gvbIT-LUFqiO6gHBke00&ved=0CBsQFjAE&usg=AFQjCNFndtiPaoAOGMEJ_AzbBO6so0zxFw

You mean these kinds of things?  They are called Spreaders.  A Google search will provide you with definitions, uses, and images.

Mark, that link doesn't work for me for some reason.  But I get the idea - for snow removal. 

Thanks Allan.  Quite an imposing piece of machinery.

I Googled "snow spreader railroad" and found lots of images, but none that appear to have the spreader wings on a caboose.  I'll have to watch the movie again (I ordered it) - maybe the spreader wings are on a separate car, but are still at the rear of the train, not the front as most snow spreaders are.

This is the closest to a caboose spreader that I ran across (from Railnet):