Anyone care to chose the type of train (in other words, play director) that will lend itself best to action scenes and reasons why (e.g. particular technical features)
Location and terrain: the beautiful valley and mountains of Oregon - camera, action!
frankly one must be specific about the period of time a movie is being set. For example, if the movie is set in the 1800s, a Mikato, Northern, or Mountain locomotive would not have been invented. Then again, if a movie is set in the 1940s, an F40 diesel would not have been invented either. Nothing like uninvented ships and aircraft, and locomotives, being in movies set off my bs detector more…
My idea for a good train for a movie would be the transcontinental LA to New York sleeping car on the early 1970s Amtrak Sunset Limited/ Southern Crescent. “TIMETABLE FOR A TRAP”. It’s not so much the equipment as the railroad operation, schedule and connections that make the story. The hero has to go from LA to New York and needs several days to sort out a situation with the bad guys-- domestic leftist terrorists- while hiding out from the government which is after him-- of course mistakenly. He phones the bad guys with an ultimatim just before he leaves, telling them he is flying to NY. The bad guys phone a bomb threat to the airport to trap him there and he boards the train OK-- but the government snoops know he has actually called from the rr station and they put an agent aboard at Palm Springs. Of course, the hero meets a mysterious girl who somehow has to share his bedroom. Don’t heros always meet a girl aboard a speeding train? Is anything romantic going to happen? Maybe but it doesn’t get anywhere on the first night. The good guy uses a phone at a station stop to tell the bad guys to meet him at a certain location in Juarez at a certain time the next day to make a deal. Then at the last stop before Juarez, he phones the meeting point and lets them know to meet the train. Figures they will just barely make it but crossing the border unexpectedly will reduce the chances they can carry all their weapons. Somewhere during the night crossing West Texas, the hero starts to get somewhere with the girl but it is interrupted by a man who shows up unexpectedly-- not the main bad guys but the government agent who hasn’t yet revealed who he really is. Big action OFF the train at the overnight stopover in New Orleans. Hero finally gets the girl but also in fight with bad guys, carried off doped and knocked out and apparently misses his train ride and all his plans. When he finally comes to, long after time for the train to have left, finds out he has been put back on the train and traveled a hundred miles
The location and terrain dictate what train you choose. Since you’re shooting in Oregon, you might as well get SP 4449 out of Portland. And put together a bunch of lightweights, repainted in Daylight colors.
If your movie is set before 1947, you can get the 2 SP Pacifics and double head. The Illinois Railway Museum has a complete set of heavyweights for your train. There shouldn’t be a problem with versimiltude; only a purist can tell a L&N diner from an SP diner.