Tag Archives: New York

Hello Dolly 1969

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20th Century Fox

Well HELLO, Dolly! Pennsylvania Railroad #1223, a D16sb class 4-4-0 stars in this splashy, lavishly-costumed musical. Built in 1905 at Pennsy’s Juniata Shops in Altoona, PA for passenger service, this Belpaire-fireboxed beauty was painted up as New York Central & Hudson River Railroad (NYC&HR) #15 for the movie.

Along with a string of passenger cars, the high-stepping PRR #1223 was borrowed from excursion service at Strasburg Railroad and towed to Penn Central’s ex-NYC Hudson River line (east bank) for filming.

In addition to the opening credits, NYC&HR #15 and train featured prominently in a musical number 34 minutes into the picture. More about that later. All Aboard for Yonkers!

NYC&HR #15 struts her stuff along the Hudson River as small boys wave at the fireman in this nicely-framed shot.

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Superman 1978

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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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Grand Central Murder 1942

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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Mostly filmed on the MGM lot in Culver City, Grand Central Murder is the tale of a Broadway stage actress who uses and discards people like Kleenex — until someone snaps and bumps her off. But who dunnit? And how? There’s not a mark on her. There IS a list of suspects a mile long.

And oh, what a set. MGM spared no expense using actual railroad passenger cars and a passable recreation of Grand Central Terminal’s underground high-level platforms and third-rail infrastructure. Southern Pacific Railroad’s subsidiary Pacific Electric served Culver City and you can briefly see SP EMD NW2 switcher #1315 shuffling cars around during a couple scenes.

As always, I’ll concentrate on the train bits, but the movie itself is well worth an evening’s viewing. All Aboard!

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Van Heflin (as “Rocky” Custer) checks out the heavyweight Pullman named, “Thanatopsis” for this picture. If you clink the link in the previous sentence, you’ll see it’s a not-so-subtle reference to what takes place on board.

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