Tag Archives: EMD FL9 locomotive

Disaster On The Coastliner 1979

ABC Television / Orion Pictures

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2024!

This is a LONG, but enjoyable review — at least it was for me! ;p

I previously wrote about this ABC Sunday Night Movie ten years ago. My summary of the All-Star Cast, pretty much covers the basics about what happened. Whoever wrote the script for this 97 minute potboiler, obviously had no idea how a railroad operates. The shortcoming of my first review is I only included two pictures!

That just won’t do when you have early-Amtrak equipment on both coasts (ex-Santa Fe Surf Line in California and ex-New Haven Shore Line in Connecticut) with lots of footage inside Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (LAUPT) as well. Thus, this review will be short on plot and long on pictures.

Oh, did I mention? William Shatner has lots of screen time despite being only 7th in the credits (an unforgiveable oversight) and is the hero of the day — as only Captain Kirk could do it. Engines ahead. Warp factor one.

I’m really torn about the ID of this locomotive in the opening credits. It’s too blurry to get the exact unit number (400 something). At first I thought it was an EMD FL9 locomotive, but AFAIK, those engines didn’t have nose lift rings. So this is probably an EMD E9 diesel selected from a private railroad, pre-Amtrak.

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Superman 1978

Warner Brothers

“More powerful than a locomotive!” I remember watching Superman in the theatre when it first came out. Great, fun film and quite a few train scenes to boot. It was a pleasure to get a copy on DVD then go back and research all the locomotive and train sets seen.

The movie would feature a GMD FP7, an EMD FL9 and 3 EMD SPD40F locomotives as well as a studio mockup of villain Lex Luthor’s (played by Gene Hackman) underground lair — done up as a flooded section of Grand Central Terminal in New York! It’s the late 1970’s, so there is plenty of pre-Superliner, “heritage” equipment to be seen.

Let’s take a trip on the Canadian Pacific, the New Haven and Santa Fe railroads, shall we? All Aboard!

The Kansas Star hurtles past the camera under a magnificent sky. This FP7-led passenger train would soon encounter a young Clark Kent racing alongside.

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