Obscure Train Movies

In "Titfield Thunderbolt," the engine normally used on the branch line is wrecked by sabotage (a bus line that wants the commuter traffic) and at the last minute an engine from about 1840/1850 (the Titfield Thunderbolt) is hauled out of the local museum and pressed into service. It performs admirably with its two inside cylinders and is great fun to watch steaming along the branch to an interchange with the mainline train to London.

IIRC, Classic Trains magazine had a good story a while back on "Danger Lights". It was one of the first Hollywood sound movies to be filmed "on location", primarily in Montana on the Milwaukee Road.

Louis Wolheim (Dan Thorn) was an established star, having just been "All Quiet on the Western Front". The other two stars - Jean Arthur and Robert Armstrong - were still early in their careers, but would later become stars.

My favorite obscure train movie...no contest..."It Happened To Jane", 1959, starring Doris Day, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs and every classic character actor known.

Jane raises lobsters, railroad delivers dead lobsters to her customers ( because, well, it's a railroad in the late 50's) , Jane delivers lobsters operating the railroads' own steamer, Happy ending, roll credits. But oh! It is so much more!

Filmed in Connecticut pretending to be in Maine. I encourage you to seek this out and watch. A part of America that is gone forever,

John

I've seen that, it's great. Ernie Kovaks is the cigar-smoking president of the railroad that wants to drop service to the town from which she ships the lobsters, and there's a scene in his New York office that has some Lionel trains on display against one wall.

My favorite line in Danger Lights, from tough, old, Dan Thorn, said in a very commanding and authoritative tone was...

"Hold up the Olympian? Are you off your nut? Tell 'er to come through...I'll clear the track!"

That was followed by this line, said in a very disparaging and sarcastic manner...

"You office guys...put the Olympian in the hole."

Watch the clip. LOL!

I was surprised to see that ":Scalplock" with Dale Robertson was not mentioned.  Maybe since it was also a TV series< "Iron Horse", it didn't qualify.

Jan

A great clip from "Danger Lights," with tough old Dan taking a prodigious chew of tobacco at the end!

Von Ryan's Express

Another one you might enjoy, and it's quite timely:

Train of Life

Here's an obscure one for you - "The Emperor of Peru" aka "The Odyssey of the Pacific."  Stars Mickey Rooney who lives in the woods and keeps Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 #1201 hidden away.  Bunch of kids and a duck befriend him and they restore the locomotive and use it to escape.

Another one would be Steven Spielberg's amazing stories Episode 1 "Ghost Train" - kid has a Lionel set up on the floor that sets up the finale of a train literally crashing through the house.  I wonder if that's where the inspiration for this years Coors Light superbowl commercial came from with the silver bullet train crashing into the living room - there's a lot of similarities. 

Hello. I am trying to remember/find an old world war movie (and it's not The Train) that featured some great shots mostly in a train yard. The set up was that a bomb is on the train and if it doesn't get through the yard it will blow up in the yard. There is a lot of filming from the front of the locomotive that shows how it maneuvers through switches, goes back and forth , etc. etc. But it does get through the yard and blows up beyond. To be honest I think it would be WW1 era but I'm not sure. Of course there is a girl tied up somewhere. There is a plot to the story. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Jim K

"Taking of the Pelham" on TCM Tuesday night March 12th at 8pm est.

@Gregcz1 posted:

Von Ryan's Express

I saw it when it premiered in NYC.. Circa 1964...?

I saw a movie the other day with a brief train scene at the beginning.  "Leave Her To Heaven," 1945.   There are some interior scenes including a round end obsevation car. The exterior scenes have a train painted in greyish blue colors and lettered Santa Fe. What Santa Fe train was decorated like this?  Or maybe it is a Hollywood paint job.  Check out the first few minutes, link below.

https://youtu.be/xR6p5HcfCpc?si=r7drdkmYJJoBFNLG

@VistaDomeScott posted:

I saw a movie the other day with a brief train scene at the beginning.  "Leave Her To Heaven," 1945.   There are some interior scenes including a round end obsevation car. The exterior scenes have a train painted in greyish blue colors and lettered Santa Fe. What Santa Fe train was decorated like this?  Or maybe it is a Hollywood paint job.  Check out the first few minutes, link below.

https://youtu.be/xR6p5HcfCpc?si=r7drdkmYJJoBFNLG

Well, that's definitely not Santa Fe.  Santa Fe did have a medium grey with dark grey window band paint scheme for some -- not all -- heavyweight cars, and also for the smooth side Pullman sleepers.  Around 1960, it changed to all dark grey.  Google "Arizona Railroad Museum" to see what that looked like on a Valley series 6-6-4 sleeping car.  

But that's not what we see in the clip.  This could be SP equipment from the overnight Pacific Coast trains (Lark, Cascade, Owl) but the Santa Fe lettering is a Hollywood touch.  SP kept its passenger equipment clean and well-painted right to the end of passenger service, but this was filmed right after World War II and maybe the cars were still awaiting their first postwar repainting.  

It really is odd.  Railroads typically would not furnish tired-looking equipment for movie scenes.

"The Emperor of the North" with Lee Marvin and Ernst Borgnine. Great train scenes and senery.

"Oh Mr Porter!" 1937 Will Hay comedy.

  "Oh Mr Porter ! " Will Hay 1937 Buggleskelly vhs to HD ! - YouTube

Both the original 1952  “The Narrow Margin” and the 1990 remake “Narrow Margin” are both worth watching. Both take place on a train though the trains are not the stars, just the sets.

Pete

I like " The Train " 1964 with Burt Lancaster and "Breakheart Pass" 1975 with Charles Bronson

"Appointment with Danger" starring Alan Ladd from 1951 is a good one.  There are several train scenes including an NYC Pacemaker freight at the Gary, IN Union Station. 

Here are some obscure train movies that I've run across in the last year or so:  Switchback with Danny Glover; Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Finally, it's a bit campy, but Bullet Train with Brad Pitt.

Did they miss the Canadian Film Board shorts?

There are a few railroad oriented shorts as well as "Paul Tomkowicz Street Railway Switchman".

Classic CP rail stuff here:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/railroaders/

It seems that everyday on Turner Classic Movies there is movie that has scenes with trains it.  It just goes to illustrate just how much train travel was a part of our society back in those years.

Norm

Don't know if it would be considered "obscure": Chattanooga Choo-Choo. The plot seemed to present itself well, but as it was a comedy, it turned out to be just another "campy" 1980s movie IMHO.

Ok sleuths, help me with a cartoon I remember seeing in the 50s but I’m sure it was from earlier times. From what I remember, it’s a boy dreaming of running a real train, and he is in a rail yard with a number of streamlined steamers that have faces . He commandeers one and as he loses control he wakes up.

I've tried to find it on UTube but when I type in boy and train I keep getting the cartoon of the boy leaving his backyard and his dog saving him from harm.

The Thunderbirds - great monorail action.

Not sure if these are obscure but I enjoyed Union Pacific 1939  and  Canadian Pacific 1949.

As I write this,there is a somewhat obscure train movie titled "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Slayer".  The movie is currently playing on the SYFI Channel.

The train action will be coming up shortly!

Talk about obscure.

Norm

A few of my favorites, 'The Train' with Burt Lancaster, who did all his own stunts in his movies.   Not too many train movies where you see someone pouring babbitt metal for a bearing and filing it.  'The Railway Children', the original, not the remake, and 'Von Ryan's Express' that has been mentioned.  Sinatra had a big layout, and I remember seeing him on an episode of the Mike Douglas show, one my Mom liked, where drinks were being delivered behind an O gauge loco from his house to where he and Douglas were sitting out near his pool, via a raised roadbed.

@BRicch posted:

Ok sleuths, help me with a cartoon I remember seeing in the 50s but I’m sure it was from earlier times. From what I remember, it’s a boy dreaming of running a real train, and he is in a rail yard with a number of streamlined steamers that have faces . He commandeers one and as he loses control he wakes up.

I've tried to find it on UTube but when I type in boy and train I keep getting the cartoon of the boy leaving his backyard and his dog saving him from harm.

Sounds like Play Safe from Max and Dave Fleischer:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8k9jbPHAg1Y

Yes, Play Safe is the story of the boy leaving the backyard onto a train with his dog saving him.

The one I’m trying to find is the first story line with the boy taking an engine from a train yard.

Don't think anyone has mentioned "Runaway Train," a 1985 flick starring Jon Voight. I second Ted S.' mention a while back of "Switchback." Some good Rio Grande action in that.

Bogart, the movie you mentioned  takes place in a British railyard and starred I believe, Glenn Ford. Sorry, don't remember the title.

I remember a made for TV movie called Runaway!  back in 1973.  As a kid, it was a movie I watched severals time just because it was a train movie.  It's not great but it had trains!

Tony

587, the great train robbery.

How about "The Station Agent" (2003) starring Peter Dinklage? It's about a guy who works as a hobby shop repairman and, when the shop owner dies, finds out he's left him an old railroad station in rural New Jersey where he goes to live.

Love that movie. To get to the station he inherited he goes to Hoboken terminal and walks the tracks all the way out to the station.

Not obscure, although I didn't discover it until a year ago: "Bad Day at Black Rock," with Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan. A western about one man against a town with a dark secret, and it starts and ends with Southern Pacific diesels pulling a beautiful streamliner throughthe desert.

Mentioning it makes me want to see it again.

John

If you are interested in foreign trains, Netflix currently has a multi-episode show called The Railwaymen.  It's based on a true story about how the trainmen became heroes in saving people from a fatal gas leak disaster in India in 1984.  It is a foreign film with subtitles, (you can change that with over dubbing if you want) and I thought it was REALLY well done.  Lots of train action as well as twist and turning plots!