CBS Television

Rawhide! “Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’…” Who can forget Frankie Laine howling those opening and closing lyrics…especially after the Blues Brothers reintroduced the show to a newer generation (me) in 1980?

According to my research (Hat tip to Larry Jensen – Hollywood’s Railroads, Volume 2), the production company of Rawhide spent a month in Tuolumne County filming bits of various shows for Season 3. Today’s review features Sierra Railroad #3, “shorty” passenger cars #5 & #6 as well as several stock cars borrowed from Southern Pacific Railroad.

In addition to the iconic 1891 Rogers 4-6-0, feast your eyes on one of the screens most recognized actors, Clint Eastwood, in his breakthrough role of Rowdy Yates. Two classics in one. Let’s get started…

Clint Eastwood (Rowdy) poses with co-stars Paul Brinegar (as Wishbone) and Eric Fleming (as Gil Favor) alongside Sierra #3.

Do ya feel lucky? Well do ya, punk? Rowdy waits for the train, sporting his now-famous annoyed grimace. Note the stock car on the siding and water tower in the background.

“Chicken Feather Siding?” O-kay. Standing in for “the middle of Missouri” is the Sierra Railroad location of Quinn. Rowdy is nervously stomping along trackside (check those spurs!) waiting for the train bearing their trail boss, Gil Favor.

Rowdy chats up Wishbone on their chuckwagon as well as a couple trail riders trackside. Why is everyone so glum? It turns out all of them lost their money AND their horses in the nearby town via the usual vices: games of chance, drinking and painted ladies. As a group, they’re trying to figure out how to tell Favor.

6:17 into the episode, here comes the train spewing a fine plume of black smoke. As the boys watch, we get a good view of the siding switch behind them.

Puffing into the station is Sierra #3. Note the entire train is lettered, “C.M. & W. RR”. This honors the show’s creator-producer Charles Marquis Warren.

Rowdy and the gang greet Favor as he steps down from coach #6.

It’s cheesy grins all around as the cowpokes try to explain themselves.

The conductor waves a highball and the train pulls forward.

Switching move! As bad guys watch from the moo moo cow stockade, C.M. & W. #3 prepares to set out the two stock cars on the siding.

Nice 3/4 view of the C.M. & W. stockcar. Notice the end markings, “T. & N.O.”. That stands for Espee subsidiary, Texas and New Orleans Railroad.

What’s this? Rowdy has drawn his revolver behind Favor!

It all a big misunderstanding. Favor purchased 50 horses in the two stock cars and brought them along for them to wrangle, as a herd, to San Antonio, Texas. (The horses are much cheaper to purchase back East per the trail boss). The boys begin to unload the critters.

Meanwhile, we get a dandy sequence of the trainmen cutting off the stock cars and pulling ahead with the passenger train.

Time for some comic relief! Wishbone needs a couple pails of water. Foolishly, he stands directly underneath the railroad water tower spout and winds up getting a tremendous dousing. This ends the railroad scenes at the 16:30 minute mark.

If you’d like to view the episode I reviewed, it is on YouTube (albeit a fuzzy print):

Here’s what IMDb has to say about Rawhide – The Incident on the Road Back:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0683127/

If you have ANY information about this movie you’d like to share, please contact me at: Lindsay.Korst@gmail.com, or leave a comment.  Thanks and enjoy the blog!

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