I once heard about this TV show from the late '70s. It was basically The Love Boat on a train. From what I’ve heard it was a streamlined luxury cruise train that actually ran on double tracks with the wheels on both sides running on the opposite rails of the different tracks. The producers actually had built these huge models that served as the “landscape” the train traveled through. Needless to say, it was a huge flop. Heh, has anyone ever seen this show? Has Trains ever done an article?
Supertrain, the t.v show!
[%-)][%-)]Please bear with me as I’m going on my “so called” memory. I was in high school.
[:D][8D]I saw the show. It was around 1978 or 79 when it aired. There was a brief article about Supertrain that appeared in Model Railroader of the year. The name of the man responsible for buildingthe train was Ned Parsons. Under pressure from NBC, Ned and crew built the train in a big hurry. Train was 7 or 8 cars long and by today’s standards, looked modern. Thinking about it, Supertrain resembled some of today’s LEGO streamliner’s except with a polished aluminum finish. I’m not sure about scale but the double deck cars came up to about between 3 and 4 feet in height. The first few episodes had the train running on two tracks but afterwards the train ran on track that looked like it was a scale 9 feet wide.
As mentioned above, It was sort of a “Love Boat” on rails with a few celebrities, but after the first 5 episodes, the plots were rather “Hollywood Sitcomish Cheese”[|(]. Ran for two seasons.
Football great, Don Meredith appeared in the first episode.
Two particularly good episodes worthy of mention:
First: A “goofy” hijacker who winded up delivering a passenger’s baby. Rue McClennehan (Golden Girls) played an annoying, nosy passenger who advised the hijacker. (The hijacker was the same actor that did the cartoon voice of Michael Angelo in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) [:)][:D][8D]
The Second:
*** Van *** portraying a well meaning crazed-psychopath who helps a couple with a troubled marriage reunite after the man thought Van *** was going to “take out his wife”. This was after the man had casually complained of his
Hey you two! I remember it too - it was screened downunder and us train nuts definitely watched it.
AntonioFP45 you have a very good memory!
One thing I noticed back then as a teenager, (I had already started in the model train hobby), was that the track curves were too tight, the one big thing that made it look fake.
There were regular shots of the supertrain running across counrty with a regular line and a slower freight train in the background. It looked quite reasonable…except for those curves. Or am I being too critical?
Kozzie
Yeah, SUPERTRAIN baby!
Way before my time, but it sounds like it was pretty awful.
Found some good info when I googled “Supertrain”
First Aired February 1979
Last Aired July 1979
Status Canceled/Ended
Running Time 60 min
Country United States
Network NBC
Robert Alda - Dr. Dan Casey
Edward Andrews - Harry Flood
Joey Aresco - Wayne Randall
Charlie Brill - Robert, the hairdresser
Patrick Collins - David Noonan
Michael DeLano - Bartender Lou Atkins
Ilene Graff - Penny Whitaker
William Nuckols - Wally
Harrison Page - George Boone
Nita Talbot - Rose Casey
Aarika Wells - Gilda
Check out the show on jumptheshark (TV Show Ratings Web Site - Lots of viewer comments)
hmmm! WAY before your time macguy[?]
It had it’s moments. At least somebody gave a train story a go…
Supertrain baby - not bad [^]
Kozzie
Can anyone find any pictures of the train?
Andyjay, [C):-)]
There is a picture of “Supertrain” in one of the MRR issues of 1979. Just can’t remember which one. Perhaps if you e-mail Andy Sperandeo or one of the guys or ladies from Model Railroader’s staff, it could be placed on this thread.[;)][8)]
Well it ran early in the year 1979, and I was born in 1983…
Can’t say I remember it… [:)]
You guys should mozey over to “Jump the Shark” at www.jumptheshark.com and read some of the comments about the show and its history, this lame show jumped the shark before it even premiered!
Thanks Vsmith,
I explored “Jump the Shark” and found a lot of shows that I had completely forgotten about. Worth checking out.
Was Amtrak involved in this?
Doggy,
I as far as I could remember Amtrak trains, personnel or stations didn’t appear on the show.
ok macguy…you’re definitely off the hook[:)]
oh boy…I think I must be getting older.[:0]… the seventies are receding fast…
I found a lot of good information about the show when I did a search for it and found this site: http://www.tvparty.com/emflop.html . There’s also some other interesting stuff about other shows that were flops on there. I also found a complete episode guide at http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/EpisodeGuideSummary/showid-2206/Supertrain/ . What I thought was especially interesting is that it said on the first site that the first model was built at a cost of $1 million and that when it was demonstrated for NBC executives that it crashed and was wrecked and a new one had to be built. A very good omen for how the show would do. I was born in 1986 and so obviously have never had a chance to see this show. I personally think that it would have been more successful had it just taken place on a regular luxury train. Not that it would have been a huge success or anything (but you never know), but probably a lot more people would have watched it. Having this gigantic train was way too far fetched and hard to believe for people to really take the show seriously and bother watching it.
In the 70s or 80s there was a show called Time Train.It was filmed using a solid gold F unit at LA Union Station.I never saw the show,possibly because it was on over a weekend when I was out watching trains.Does anyone remember this show?
I don’t remember seeing “Time Train” here downunder, although we get most of the tv shows made in the States.
I just checked the moviea nd television web site called imdb and it didn’t come up. Could it have been a locally made show for regional television only?
espeefoamer, do you have any more details about the show? e.g. actors etc…
Good grief - someone’s just stuck a purple star on my profile - I didn’t realise I was musing that much…
Guys,
Time Train was reported in a contemporary “Trains” magazine as a news item. They identified the loco used. Vincent Price was the actor with the leading role, and I think the heading in “Trains” was “An F-unit for Vincent”.
The locomotive and I think three cars were painted overall gold, and the locomotive may have had a snowplough pilot and had flat plates enclosing the trucks (so they didn’t have to paint them gold?).
It was shown in Australia at some time. The “plot” such as it was, was that the train took a character back in time to fix something they’d done wrong, and then brought them back again. It always ran at night, possibly picking up at midnight.
Peter
Thanks for reminding me of “Time Train” . I was trying to remember its name as I was paging through this forum. I could recall Vincent Price doing this show as the host. As I recall, it didn’t last very long. Jerry