Tag Archives: Great Northern Railway

Project Phoenix 1972

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Universal Studios

Banacek! George Peppard stars in this NBC Wednesday Night Mystery Movie. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” fans will remember him as the courtesan to Patricia Neal and companion of Audrey Hepburn.

This train-laced movie (both prototype and model) features 4 character actors from Star Trek TOS and Batman 1966 and includes overhead (helicopter) scenes of railroads in Boston, Massachusetts.

Banacek is brought in when an expensive, experimental sports car vanishes from a non-stop freight train. The solution to the mystery is so preposterous, you just HAVE to come along for the ride (no pun intended). Let’s roll…

Would you believe an Atlas O scale (two rail) Great Northern, Big Sky Blue box car is a key exhibit in explaining how they done it? Read on…

42 years later, this is what Big Sky Blue fades to, in Sandpoint, Idaho.

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Empire on Parade 1957

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Empire Photosound, Inc.

We sing the song of a railroad! Narrator Roger Krupp waxes poetic during this 40 minute film extolling the history and present day operations (circa 1957) of the Great Northern Railway.

Empire on Parade features the westward journey of freight train #401 from Minneapolis to Seattle and the industries and agriculture it serves along the way. We also get many views of the GN’s flagship Empire Builder passenger train.

It’s a festival of first-generation diesel locomotives including representatives from EMD, Alco and Baldwin.  In color.  So let’s take a journey during the hey-day of the post-war Big G.

The Empire Builder is about to drop a semaphore signal somewhere in the Montana Rockies. Note the 3 short Great Dome coaches and 1 large Great Dome lounge car which helps date the film after late 1955.

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Emperor of the North 1973

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20th Century Fox

Filmed along the Oregon, Pacific & Eastern short line, this movie treats us to TWO operational steam locomotives pulling an eclectic mix of rolling stock past the cameras. The train scenes are sublime although the actors employed frequently go way over the top in the overacting department. Shatner-level carpet chewing. Anyway…

The real stars are OP&E #19 (2-8-2 Baldwin-built 1915) and OP&E #5 (2-8-0 Alco-built 1922) and happily, both engines are still with us. #19 is being rebuilt at the Age of Steam Roundhouse and #5 can be found at the Galveston Railroad Museum (renumbered to 555).

Many thanks to James Tiroch’s Cine Trains Project for helping me identify the heritage of these locomotives. The link includes an exhaustive history of both locomotives.

Oh, the actors? Well, filmmakers brought on board three ENORMOUS hams, Borgnine, Marvin and Carradine, but I’ll be ignoring them for the most part. There’s far too much steam locomotive pulchritude to savor instead. Highball!

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OP&E #5 on a passenger train overtakes OP&E #19 in the siding with a freight. In the background, we see a lumber mill featuring one of those cool, old-time wood waste burners. OP&E #5 (appearing here as #27), also was seen as #4 in the movie.

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