My favorite train movie is Emperor of the North with Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. This movie is completely involved with trains and their operation. Virtually every shot in the movie is of a train, yard or area just off the tracks. Also, there are so many fantastic shots of a steam train in action that it puts some of the railran videos to shame. The Train with Burt Lancaster is also very good. My favorite recent train movie is The Station Agent.
“Old 2037, are you saying that John Ford managed to get some kind of historical footage of Jupiter and #119”
Nope, I’m saying that one of the sources I’ve read about the making of the film claimed that they were the originals. That was only one, movie oriented (not really train oriented) source. If you have a serious railroad history that claims that Jupiter was scrapped in '07 (and that that could be confirmed) then I would tend to believe the railroad documents. Does it state that Jupiter was permanently scrapped beyond reclamation? Or simply taken out of service and parked on the rust line, or partially cannibalized. Perhaps parts of it were used… It’s Hollywood, man. Someone probably dug up the original bell and they built a working copy around it… The thing is, they pulled out all the stops to get it right.
One thing is claimed by multiple sources - that some of the elderly Chinese railroad workers in “The Iron Horse,” worked on the real deal some 55 years before the movie was made. I believe it - one guy looks 80, easy.
In any case, John Ford went to great lengths to make it as realistic as he could - and it’s a great movie. If you have the slightest interest in this sort of thing it’s a must-see. It’s on the Western channel regularly. Why don’t you check it out against your sources and let us know what you think?
Regards,
Another good movie that has a fantastic scene of a General hauling anthracite coal, then getting sabotaged is called The Molly Maguires. A movie from 1968-69 about the struggles of miners in the late 1800s. It was filmed near my home town of Hazleton, Pa, in a small mining town that is called Eckley. My father helped build the breaker there for the movie. It stared, Sean Connery, Richard Harris, and Samantha Egger.
Laz 57
All of the movies listed so far by other members are very good, especially The Train and Von Ryan’s Express. I must cast a vote for two more: “Disaster on The Coastliner” which was a made-for-TV movie starring William Shatner about a deranged railroad employee (not Shatner) who has two trains on the same track heading towards each other and one of my personal favorites: “Runaway Train” with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts (Julia’s brother) as escaped prisoners on a wide-open throttle runaway. Great movie.
Tony Sincius
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned “Holiday Affair” from 1949 starring Robert Mitchum & Janet Leight. It’s the one movie that highlights both Lionel toy trains (a made-over Sante Fe F3 set called “The Red Rocket”) and Christmas! If you haven’t seen it, watch for it on TV this holiday season or watch for the video on Ebay.
Cheers,
-iSpy
Has anyone mentioned “Dumbo”. It has a long circus train scene that Ward Kimball animated.
Buster Keatons “General” is great.
I kind of remember a sci-fi show in the 70’s called “Supertrain” about people on a bullet train. I think it was on NBC. It didn’t last long. I dont remember watching it. I am sure it was bad. But I have an old Model Railroader that listed the model for sale when the show was cancelled. I really liked the model. It was offered with 200 feet of track. It looked very wide gauged and streamlined in that boxy late 70’s way like the TGV.
Does any one know what happened to that model. I would love to know.
Took me awhile to find it, but here’s the article I was referencing - I remembered the date of transfer instead of the scrap date (1909) and, I must admit, the article doesn’t specifically say it was cut up but since it was an update to a history of the engine I find it odd that the writer didn’t mention the Ford connection. As you said, it could have been parts and pieces. As for actual Chinese railroaders working in the film I wouldn’t find that too hard to believe. In his book Nothing Like it in the World Ambrose notes, “A Liberty Loan was sponsored by the government to raise money to fight the war (in 1917). A group of about twenty San Francisco Chinese, who were the last of the original crew that helped build the CP, enrolled and purchased the bonds.”
pp. 165
Jupiter’s Fate
" The original Jupiter is of special interest to railroad fans and historians in east-central Arizona, and here is the rest of the story.
After its day of glory on May 10, 1869, Jupiter returned to the rails of the Central Pacific and worked there for the next 25 years. In 1894, Jupiter was acquired by the Gila Valley, Globe & Northern Railroad which wat then under construction between Bowie and Globe, Arizona. Jupiter became No. 1 on this road.
GVG&N No. 1 provided the motive power for the railroad’s construction train until the line was completed in November 1898. It then went into service hauling both freight and passenger trains on the 140 mile line.
In 1902, the locomotive was sold to the Arizona&Colorado Railroad. It was No. 1 on that line until 1907 when it was renumbered 90. Two years later the former Jupiter was retired and, without ceremony, relegated to the scrap yard. Unfortunately there were no railroad preservationist around to save the historic locomotive.
- Wilbur Haak - Globe, Arizona
-From a letter to the editor commenting on L&RP’s article on Promontory
January-February 1995 L&RP
The Ambrose book you speak of is full of falsehoods and lazy research. Part of it even seems to be based on the “Union Pacific” movie. His books may be entertaining but pop-nonfiction and not an authority to base further research on. A problem with how popular his books became is he let many others do the recerch for them.
Because of the popularity of his earlier books at the time he wrote this one he was writing multiple books at the same time. If you look at the begining of this book he thanks his researchers and lists his extended family. He was employing most of them and as a result the research is sloppy.There were several articles on this right before he died. So he never could really answer to these accusations.
I realize the Ambrose book is full of problems, however, the citation concerning Jupiter is from a completely different source and has nothing to do with his book. As to the specifically quoted statement concerning the Chinese, there are other authors, prior to the Ambrose work, who mention members of the CP workforce as still living in the second decade of the 20th century - all I was agreeing with was that it would have been possible for Ford to have had some original people in his movie. As Old 2037 noted “I believe it - one guy looks 80, easy.”
Sorry about that - I hit send before I had finished my last thought. If you want to do further research on what happened to Jupiter and No.119 just type in the word string " globe arizona jupiter locomotive" on Google and you will get the phone book. The first several site say pretty much the same thing - a reboilered Jupiter bearing little resemblance to her 1869 moment was sold to the scrapper in 1909 for $1,000. The site
http://www.nps.gov/gosp/history/everlasting_steam.html
also tells the fate of #119 - scrapped in 1903. She too had a scrappers price of $1,000.
Well I found another source that claimed that the original “Jupiter” was used in The Iron Horse. This one was John Ford, a biography by Andrew SInclair. Interestingly, this version also claimed that the original #119 was not used in the movie, but that a “twin,” #116, was used instead.
As to Jupiters fate, well, “sold for scrap” is not the same thing as “scrapped,” and if Jupiter’s engineer made any attempt to prevent it from being scrapped - as mentioned on the same NPS “Everlasting Steam,” - he may have communicated the locomotive’s historic status to the scrapper - who may very well have saw an opportunity to make more money on it than what it was worth in scrap. (Just 15 years later John Ford spent $280,000 making The Iron Horse, which might have ended his career but the movie made a cool $3 million. That was a lot of money in 1927 dollars.)
Unfortunately, none of these sources are stating their original sources. If anyone knows an original source, please post it here. I really want to know, now. And some of you “rivet counters” (you know who you are), ought to watch the movie to pick up a few clues for us… ;>)
Fun topic, guys!
Actually Old 2037, there’s another possibility for verification here. A couple of those sites have a picture of Jupiter in her final form. While I suppose one could re-boiler an engine for a movie, I don’t recall Hollywood ever going to that kind of trouble. If one of you has access to the movie, find a scene with a good shot of Ford’s Jupiter and see how it compares to those pictures on the web sites…don’t focus on the stack or headlight things like that are easily changed, rather, look for major similarities in hard to replace items such as the boiler.
I agree…interesting discussion.
mine has to be Von Ryans Express (1960s) with Frank Sinatra about WWII
bump for colin to see
Not a favorite but one to think about. Think it was Von Ryans Express with Frank Sinatra.
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas played in a comedy about two Train Robbers who are paroled and have trouble adjusting to life in a world forty years removed from their experience, so they decide to go back to what they do best - robbing trains.
It was no cinematic masterpiece, but had it’s moments. It was called Tough Guys.
The film Runaway Train was tip top.
There is one scene in Dr Zhivago where a fabulous train roars through the scene - a red and black streamed which completely over powers the screen - very powerful. It is a snow scene and all the Russians are outfitted in their heavy coast and whatever those hats are.
The best movie that has a train in it - but not necessarily about Trains is:
Midnight Run with Robert Deniro and Charles Grodin. The exchanges between those two are side splitting. They ride a passanger train early in the movie and jump on a freight train near the end. If you are one of the four people who has never seen it (get the DVD - the raw language makes it even funnier than the edited version you will see on tv) it it gets all the stars I can think of.
How about the movie “Arthur” Starring Dudley Moore & Liza Minelli.? He played a rich man who had every thing including a nice Lionel Layout with the Southern Crescent,Blue Comet,and General sets of the late 70’s…Keith
and then of course, there is:
here’s a great lin about scenes in movies featuring Lionel Train:
I saw more than I needed to of “Atomic Train” the other day. It is emphatically not a great train movie.