Tag Archives: Model Trains

For All Time 2000

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CBS Television

Remake! As promised last month, I have reviewed this TV movie re-do of the classic Twilight Zone episode, A Stop at Willoughby 1960. For train exteriors and some interiors, filmmakers traveled to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Featured trains included the CTrain light rail system (present day) and steam locomotive with short train at Heritage Park (1896). THIS LINK was a tremendous help in identifying the Heritage Park equipment.

How about that gazebo? This above scene is lifted directly out of “Willoughby”. Hey, that’s Mark Harmon! (Playing burned-out advertising exec Charles Lattimer.). Every time I see Mark Harmon, I can’t help but think of his wonderfully-psychotic performance as Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger.

New Train / Old Train – Calgary’s downtown stands in for “Saint Louis” as an inbound CTrain rumbles by in the background; The 1896 train rounds a curve and disappears into the mist at Heritage Park. More about that high cupola Canadian Pacific caboose later.

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The Greatest Show on Earth 1952

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Paramount Pictures

The circus traveled by rail as demonstrated in Cecil B. DeMille’s Technicolor masterpiece of 1952. Winning the Oscar for Best Picture, this is the film that made Charlton Heston a star.

For this review, I concentrated on circus scenes that had trains in the background. Some highlights include an Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) steam locomotive and caboose, a Pennsy GG-1 electric and a elaborately-detailed scale model of the two circus trains.

Our review begins 19 minutes into the movie as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (RBandB&B) prepares to leave its Winter Quarters in Sarasota, Florida.

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It took hundreds, if not thousands of people to operate the circus. As wagons of equipment are loaded piggyback-style on the left, performers and support staff prepare to board the passenger train on the right.

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