What are your favorite movies which feature trains or model trains?
My favorite movie is Breakheart Pass by Alistair MacLean. Set during the Gold Rush, most of the story takes place on a steam train traveling through the California mountains on the way to the coast. This is an action movie with the action taking place in the passenger cars, troop transport cars, the engine, tender, and even on the roof walks. It might not be totally accurate but it is a fun adventure.
While not exactly a “favorite” there is a rather odd film called Track 29 with Gary Oldman, Theresa Russell and Christopher Lloyd that features quite a bit of model railroading in it. There’s even a glimpse of MR magazine and a national train convention in it.
As far as one some of my favorites to watch are:
North by Northwest, 20th Century Limited [tup]
Danger Lights, lots of Milwaukee Road action
The Train with Burt Lancaster and the whacky
Silver Streak with that great CP FP-7 crashing into the Toronto station scene!
Those are some of the ones that come to mind… Ed
My favorite train film is "The General " with Buster Keaton from 1926. Buster co-directed the film and did all his own stunts. This was all before cgi so they end up sending a real full size working steam engine off the end of a destroyed bridge. "The General " is listed 18th on the American Film Institute’s 100 best films.
Derek
My favorite train movie is the Cecil B DeMille epic, Union Pacific with Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck, hands down.
There’s another great train western movie called Denver and Rio Grande. I forget who’s in that one, but the Santa Fe are the bad guys. Who knew?!
I like the one where Denzel and New Captain Kirk are on the train because I know virtually every filming location they used in that whole movie.
Here are my top 3
Emperor of the North
Emperorer of the North with Lee Marvin, Keith Karadeen and Ernest Borgnine. Greatest movie ever made for steam train lovers.
Strictly for fun, check out “Ticket To Tomahawk” with Dan Dailey, co-starring R.G.S. 4-6-0 #20.
Tom
[*-)] Snowpiercer?
No actually, “The Train” with Burt Lancaster.
Runaway Tain
The Train…Emperor of The North…The Great Locomotive Chase.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
“The Taking of Pelham 123”,
“White Heat”
The 1930s cartoon “Play Safe”
“Von Ryans Express”
Denver and Rio Grande. Hands down.
jim
The Train…is my all time favorite.
Speaking as a former railroad professional, Unstoppable is a great action comedy…it just has too many flaws for me to take it too seriously.
Mark H
My favorite railroad movie is the Silver Streak (70s). I like the original half way through, the story dropped.
I also like Unstoppable.
What about The Lone Ranger?? Not the Mantua/MDC model but the real trains used/made for the movie. [C):-)] Actually, I just liked Johnny Depp!
-Bob
A long list of favorites, including Union Pacific, Denver and Rio Grande, Ticket to Tomahawk, The Train, Unstoppable, Breakheart Pass and The General among them. But one of the best I’ve ever seen is a 1946 French film directed by Rene Clement titled “La Battaile du Rail” (Battle of the Rails) concerning the French underground and their attempts to sabotage German railway movements in France just prior to the Normandy invasion. Some of it was actually filmed under the noses of the Nazi occupiers, and there’s a lot of tension and some great railway action (including probably the most spectacular train wreck I’ve ever seen. Real train, not a model). It makes a great historical “bookend” with the Burt Lancaster film “The Train”.
Tom
A couple more train movies to add to the list–“The Fugitive” with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones; and “The Wild Wild West” with Kevin Kline, Will Smith, and half of Kenneth Branagh.
I’m amazed that nobody has mentioned “The Harvey Girls” with Judy Garland.
There are plenty of clips on U-tube that show the opening number…
The first twenty minutes of the movie are basically just the first production number with odd bits of plot interspersed.
The end of the first number has virtually the whole cast marching beside the departing train until it draws away from them. you can see the steam from the cylinder cocks drenching the feet of those in the front row and nobody flinched.
This was clearly before occupational helth and safety…
There was one big coninuity problem.
The opening sequence under the titles was the train running through open country. The three cars are painted Tuscan Red. They then cut to the filming replica cars which are yellow, and when the train rolls into town, the real cars are yellow…
Another British movie is “The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery” where the Great Train Robbers encounter a local girls only school when trying to escape with the loot.
Filmed on the Longmoor Military Railway there are an amazing number of train scenes with Keystone Cops style actionwith three different trains and a handcar.
M636C