Tag Archives: Schenectady Locomotive Works

Union Depot 1932

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First National Pictures

I think I heard the word, “swell” about a dozen times in this movie…which made me giggle. It’s kind of corny, but relevant slang for the times. Now, before I get too carried away here, I want to thank Danny at the Pre-Code.com blog for tipping me off about this movie. His review of this flick was a great inspiration and help in understanding what the heck was going on.

For a picture mostly filmed in the studio, Union Depot had a respectable train allotment including two Southern Pacific steam locomotives I could identify, a named Pullman 12-1 sleeper and the pre-LAUPT Southern Pacific Central Station to name a few. And let’s not overlook the enormous Union Depot set itself built in the studio — which would be re-used in many more upcoming movies.

Joan Blondell (Yowza!) plays chorus girl Ruth Collins alongside the rakish Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as hobo/bum Chick Miller who cleans up nicely (literally) before he meets his gal pal.

Let’s go down to the station and see what’s happening. All Abooooooarrrrd!!!

Joan turns on a dazzling smile as she and Doug discuss travel plans. In the background is the Union Depot soundstage which included offices, a cafe, bathrooms, waiting room with wooden pews, numbered gates to trains and columns. Lots of columns.

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Oklahoma! 1955

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RKO Radio Pictures
20th Century Fox

This is a train movie filmed twice! First, was in glorious CinemaScope, the Second in 70mm Todd A-O. Once they finished filming a scene in CinemaScope, they’d roll in the Todd A-O cameras and the actors would repeat their performance. What’s interesting about this process, is you get a slightly-different view of each scene. Double your pleasure, double your fun!

The star of our show is little Southern Pacific #1673, a 2-6-0 M-4 class Mogul, built by Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1900. For the movie, she was renumbered with a flamboyant #52 emblazoned on her tender with no RR reporting marks on the cab side.

As seen from this link –> Southern Pacific #1673 is still with us and on display at the Tucson, Arizona, Amtrak station.

Filming twice was fortunate as we see no front end close ups of #1673/#52 in CinemaScope, but get some great views in the Todd A-O version. More later.

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A Ticket to Tomahawk 1950

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20th Century Fox

I actually reviewed Tomahawk back in the early days of Obscure Train Movies — It just wasn’t much of a review. Today, I hope to do a better job revisiting A Ticket To Tomahawk in all its Technicolor glory. This is the movie that put the Durango and Silverton D&RGW narrow gauge line on the map. Not only did people come to ride the little train in Southwestern Colorado, moviemakers returned to film other pictures too numerous to list here.

The star of the show is Rio Grande Southern #20, 4-6-0 3-foot narrow gauge steam locomotive. #20 was originally built for the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad in 1899 by Schenectady Locomotive Works (Alco). For its movie appearance, RGS #20 was decorated in a colorful paint scheme and named “Emma Sweeny” as Tomahawk & Western Railroad #1.

Just look at all that detail! Red and gold paint accentuates the green Emma Sweeny signboard. Antlers on the headlight box and white “extra train” flags flapping in the breeze. In another view, Emma poses in good light near Silverton.

Apologies for the fuzzy screen caps. AFAIK, Fox never released Tomahawk on DVD, so I had to make do with an aftermarket product.

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