Coal Miner’s Daughter 1980

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Universal Studios

This movie review was inspired by one of my favorite monthly publications. Kalmbach’s Trains Magazine (October 2021, page 28) published an article about the steam locomotive used in 1980’s, “Coal Miner’s Daughter”. I picked up a DVD of this excellent movie, but WAS disappointed in the lack of train screen time in the actual film.

Fortunately, the Trains article and a little web-searching revealed a bounty of pictures and information on our locomotive d’jour: Canadian Pacific Railway 4-6-4 Class H1c #2839 “Royal Hudson” built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1937. At the time of filming, the #2839 had been restored to operation and was used in the Southern Railway’s steam locomotive program. In addition, Southern provided a series of 3 bay coal hoppers and passenger cars for use in the picture.

Railroad filming locations included Pardee, Virginia and Blackey, Kentucky. Moviemakers even built an authentic depot to represent Van Lear, KY. This station was later moved to Duffield, VA where it exists today in private ownership.

Let’s visit deepest, darkest Appalachia and watch Southern #2839 star in a pivotal scene of Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Southern #2839 is briefly seen during the opening credits as Loretta Lynn (played by Sissy Spacek) canters along on horseback.

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Terror on a Train 1953

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Metro Goldwyn Mayer

This started out as a movie I was reviewing on YouTube. Halfway through grabbing screen caps, they took the video down, so I went out and bought the DVD. MUCH better scans that way. The title is rather misleading. The original name, “Time Bomb”, is more accurate as this movie evokes suspense rather than terror.

Filmed in Great Britain, Glenn Ford stars as the Canadian bomb expert Peter Lyncort, recruited to (hopefully) find and disarm a saboteur’s incendiary device on a trainload of mines headed to the Royal Navy at Portsmouth.

Even in the misty murk of a black and white picture, I was able to identify no less than four English steam locomotives. French actress Anne Vernon plays the saucy wife of Glenn Ford, “Janine”, so the movie is not a complete weinerfest. Diffusing a bomb has got to be a perishable skill. Let’s see if ol’ Peter still has what it takes…

Here’s a movie poster for the original title. It looks like Glenn Ford is throwing a football; LOTS of interesting detail on the EXPLOSIVES placard.

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Loves Labor Won 1948

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20th Century Fox
Terrytoons Studios

Here I come, to save the daaaay! Yes, it’s Mighty Mouse once more battling Oil Can Harry for the affections of lovely Pearl Pureheart.

This train-laced, Terrytoons animated short, is done in a wonderful, fake-opera, melodramatic style with MM (our hero) belting out tenor, OCH (our villian) singing bass/baritone and PP (our damsel in distress) warbling soprano.

The art work is right up there with Warner Brothers for quality and the animators did a great job with backgrounds and interiors. Lots of action and enough asides and adult-gags to keep it interesting.

On with the show!

Wonderfully-detailed coach interior right down to the red-plush seats and pot-bellied stove; Standard old-fashioned steam locomotive about to change into an anthropomorphic object at the hands of Oil Can Harry.

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Western Pacific Agent 1950

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Lippert Pictures, Inc.

What better way to showcase Western Pacific Railroad’s spanking new streamliner (the California Zephyr) than shoehorning train footage into a Noir B picture?

The opening credits and first three minutes of this movie feature the CZ both inside and out with location shooting on Altamont Pass, Feather River Canyon and the WP Sacramento station.

This 72 minute potboiler tells the story of WP Special Agent Rod Kendall (played by Kent Taylor) who is tracking down the mad killer Frank Wicken (played by Mickey Knox).

All Aboard!

Is that Jack Benny talking to the statuesque blonde in the Vista Dome? ………WELL! Nah, no idea who he is, but his gal pal is actress Vera Marshe; Led by WP #801, an EMD A-B-B set of 1947 F3 locomotives worth 4500 hp, the California Zephyr glides into Sacramento. Quite a crowd on hand ready to board.

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Cole Younger and the Black Train 2012

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Forbesfilm

Dreadful. That’s how one IMDb.com reviewer described this 2.5 stars out of 10 stinkeroo. This is undoubtedly the WORST obscure train movie I’ve ever watched, bar none. The cinematography is out-of-focus or ridiculously close-up and the acting is wooden. I only reviewed this movie because it promised 3 former Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge locomotives in shot.

As compensation, dear reader, I will offer clear, nicely-framed pictures and details of the three locomotives and rolling stock. All train scenes were filmed along the Durango & Silverton tourist railroad in Colorado. Since the film is so wretched, I will not bother to I.D. any of the principals involved. As a group, they need a refresher course in filmmaking.

How I suffer for my hobby. OK, Let’s go train spotting!!

Well, there’s ONE guy I WILL identify. I gave this mug the pet name of “Dude”. It helped me get through the movie. Here we see Dude shuffling alongside D&S #486. More about the locomotive later.

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Station Master 1954

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National Film Board of Canada

This film was recommended to me by Pete! It’s the third National Film Board of Canada movie I have reviewed on my blogs and the first to mainly feature Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). This is the story of CP station master Dalton Henry and his crew in little Finch, Ontario. The Canadian Pacific had a crossing here with a New York Central (NYC) branch line to Ottawa.

Steam was still active in Eastern Canada at the time and there is a nice mix of trains on both railroads. The CP rails still exist through Finch, but the NYC branch was abandoned shortly thereafter in February 1957.

This black & white short packs a lot of railroad action into its 15 minutes and is a poignant look at the way things used to be on the railway. Highball!

Out in front of the depot, a section gang is busily shoveling snow from switches and the crossing diamond. Up in the interlocking tower, Charlie lights up a Player’s and checks his pocket watch. Note the nearby telegraph key and dispatcher’s phone on a scissors arm.

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Santa Fe 3759 — 2004

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Pentrex – Santa Fe 3759 – Video DVD
Seymour F. Johnson Enterprises – Farewell to Steam! – Audio LP

This is the story of the final run of Santa Fe Railway steam locomotive #3759 in 1955. A 4-8-4 Northern built by Baldwin in 1928, this oil-burning behemoth was saved from the scrapper’s torch and placed on display in Kingman, Arizona where it resides today.

Today’s movie review was inspired by an LP from my father’s record collection — which I literally wore out playing, as a youngster. Loved that record. It wasn’t until later in life that I discovered a great deal of color film footage had been taken of the fan trip and put out on DVD by Pentrex. I had to get a copy.

The harder part was getting a good audio CD to replace the original LP. Apparently, there are two versions out there. The first was the original 1955 sounds put out by Mr. Johnson (see above). The second, more common, was a 1958 remixed album which had the reverb turned up to 11. Awful recording. As someone said, “It sounds like the listener was at the bottom of a steel drum”.

Anyways, Trolley Dodger to the rescue! Offered for sale on his website (see link at the bottom of this review) is an audio CD of the ORIGINAL mono non-reverbed LP. Fantastic sound quality and frequently playing as I drive along in my truck. ;p

For this video review, I created over 200 screen captures, but I’ll try to whittle that down to 65 or less, as #3759 makes it way from Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (LAUPT) to Barstow and back. Let’s watch big steam in action over Cajon Pass! In color!

Climbing towards Summit, the Farewell to Steam special passes a beautiful set of A-B-B-A F units on a downhill freight. With the San Gabriel mountains in the background, AT&SF #3759 blasts through a cut during a photo runby.

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Murder is my Beat 1955

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Allied Artists Productions

I first heard about this B noir picture from reader Tony Wilson. As I researched, I discovered a good copy on both archive.org and YouTube. The film features at least 3 different Southern Pacific Railroad steam locomotives pulling various heavyweight and streamlined passenger equipment.

It’s a relatively short flick at just 77 minutes, but there are two train sequences at the 31 minute and 70 minute marks packed full of onboard and train exterior goodness. I had a great time discovering the equipment used — made harder by B&W night-time footage. And there might just be a little cheesecake in there for our more mature readers.

Let’s go ride “The Friendly” Southern Pacific!

Churning, spoked drivers roll along an impeccably-groomed roadbed…which segues into this shot of a steamer pulling a 5 car passenger train down a weed-choked right-of-way.

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Switchback 1997

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Paramount Studios

I first heard about this movie from a blog! Many thanks to James Tiroch and his Cinetrains site for providing a wealth of information about the two locomotives used in filming AND their disposition afterwards.

Despite the snazzy “Grande Gold” graphic (see below image) splashed across their flanks, these are NOT Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) locomotives! At the time of filming, Union Pacific owned D&RGW and would not allow use of their equipment. Movie makers simply leased a couple locomotives and painted them up the way they liked.

And WHAT a couple of engines they are! Two former Southern Pacific EMD-built (1970) SD39’s #5319 & #5325 dressed up in Rio Grande “speed lettering”. Let’s check out this film on the “Main Line Thru The Rockies”.

A pair of Rio Grande diesels is about to enter a tunnel deep in a Colorado canyon. These Espee SD39’s in disguise were frequently renumbered to represent different trains. Notice the cabside number location has been painted out. Here the lead unit is “2010” and the trailing unit is “234”.

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Incident on the Road Back 1961

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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.

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