I thought this might be worth a dedicated thread. To start, I've just rewatched Runaway Train (1985) and still love it and recommend it highly. Top-quality suspense, two Oscar-nominated lead performances, and no Hollywood gloss to speak of. Plus, the train is a viable character in its own right. And for something a tad less serious, here's a train-based sketch from Dave Allen at Large, highlighted by Michael Sharvell-Martin breaking Dave's composure right on camera.
so this type of wagon still exists in my country, but a little more modernized, but in the same style in principle
Silver streak The Cassandra crossing Terror by night The last passenger Murder on the orient express....
Throw Mama From the Train Strangers on a Train A Hard Day's Night (well, part of it) The Brain The final fistfights in both From Russia With Love and Live and Let Die But the one real TRAIN movie not yet mentioned: Emperor of the North (Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, two hobos face off against a sadistic conductor)
Recommend all of these in no particular order: The Train. John Frankenheimer's cracking war film with Burt Lancaster and Paul Schofield. The Silver Streak. Arthur Hiller. Comedy-thriller with Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor and Patrick McGoohan as a satisfying villain. The North West Frontier. J. Lee Thompson. Kenneth Moor with the stiffest of upper lips leads a starry cast on adventures in colonial India. The General. Buster Keaton's over-indulgent but still great and beautifully made silent comedy. (Keaton's Our Hospitality doesn't have much to do with trains but there's an inventive and hilarious sequence of a journey near the beginning that is on YouTube.) The Ladykillers. Alexander McKendrick. Howlingly funny comedy-heist film with trains running in and out of King's Cross creating a sort of Greek chorus for the last act as Alec Guinness' gang starts falling apart and bumping each other off. The Narrow Margin. Richard Fleischer's atmospheric and pacey B-movie thriller from RKO. The remake isn't bad either. The Titfield Thunderbolt. Charles Crichton. The whimsy is contrived and there's no real enthusiasm but still funny and endlessly watchable. For curiosity value check out early talkies The Wrecker and The Flying Scotsman which are both terrible objectively but of interest and have lovely railway cinematography.
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - Steven Seagal is a jerk, but maybe wasn´t always. And a very young Kathrin Heigl as his nice ...... uhm. The Peace Maker - Nice train collision - never cross a red signal... Golden Eye - Sean Bean (the actor with most deaths died in movies) in Stalin´s armored train. He gets away (Bean, not Stalin)......... this time. Around the World in 80 Days (The Todd Version) - David Niven and Cantinflas riding on trains in India and the Wild West, these movies had another pace ... And, of course, Buster Keaton (already mentioned). Unforgettable...
Don't forget " North By Northwest " for some 1959 views of Grand Central and Chicago Union stations and brief views of NYC's Water Level Route. I believe I recently sat at the same table as Cary Grant in the Mount Rushmore cafeteria.
Haven't seen many films, but have seen this locomotive, not a good pic of her, but there's a good chance you've may of seen it in an old movie or TV show.
North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films, and probably his most purely entertaining one. That and Silver Streak are a great double feature.
I love the scene in Dogma where Silent Bob throws Ben Affleck and Matt Damons’ characters off the moving train, then he lights a cigarette, turns to a terrified passenger and coolly says “No ticket”.
Mugen Train? (The Demon Slayer Movie) Bullet Train is currently being pushed heavily - it looks awful and what is that CGI train (because I suspect JR told them to sod off)
U.S. viewers of a *cough* certain age have universally fond memories of the Schoolhouse Rock series of educational animated shorts that appeared between the main Saturday morning cartoons. One of the most popular from the Grammar Rock series, "Conjunction Junction", used trains to illustrate the concept.
Train to Busan (2016), Source Code (2011), and Snowpiercer (both film and TV series) are all worth a watch. Quatermass and the Pit (1967) is worth a mention too; it featured a fictional LU station setting.
Genuinely shocked no one has mentioned the iconic "The Railway Children" yet. Also "The Railway Children Return" just came out, and features on the poster and in the opening scenes of the film LMS Jubilee 45596 "Bahamas"- an engine that is drivable in TSW2. Both films were, err, filmed on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, and the new one also features an LMS 4F and (for some reason), and American S160 2-8-0. More or less the American equivalent of our 8F. Here's a less well known film- Last Passenger. This is a 2013 thriller film, set on a runaway train from London to Tunbridge Wells. It was filmed on board and features Class 421 EMUs (despite being released in 2013 it's set in 2004). It's been a while since I've seen it but I caught it on TV once and ended up really enjoying it. It's very much a more budget version of films like Taken. Plenty of action and things get pretty intense, especially towards the end of the film. Does a very good job of portraying the average commute out of London. The Ladykillers is a fantastic film. One of my Dad's favourites when he was a kid and I also love it. The shots of trains were taken at Belle Isle, between Gasworks Tunnel and Copenhagen Tunnel, immediately out of King's Cross. What's really great is that it's an uphill gradient so you see the engines working quite hard. One of Video 125's "Steam on 35mm" DVDs (I'm afraid I can't remember which volume) contains the full, unedited shots, including the ones not used in the film (i.e. most of them). It's great seeing and hearing A3s, A4s and V2s etc pounding up the line, in much better quality than other archive footage from that time. If I remember rightly that train is actually just a Class 20 with some casing over it. I believe that sequence was shot on the Nene Valley Railway, near Peterborough.
Runaway Train is OK. Go ahead- I can take it. The Taking of Pelham 123, the original of course, is a stone cold classic. At one point Steven Spielberg was in the running to direct but the studio decided it was director proof- not that craftsman Joseph Sargent is any slouch (though he did make Jaws 4) but it is the editing that really shines. The First Great Train Robbery from Michael Crichton (best known for tech' thrillers like Westworld and Coma) doesn't quite fulfil his ambition to, "Lovingly recreate Victorian England then use it as a setting for The French Connection" but is good fun with an extended robbery sequence on a vintage train (which is Irish- looks splendid but not quite right) and Sean Connery doing his own stunts.
Hey, I started the thread with Runaway Train. I've still never seen Taking of Pelham though and really need to remedy that.
Also, don't forget " 4:50 From Paddington " and " Night Train To Munich ". And how come no-one mentioned " Von Ryan's Express ". And " Brief Encounter "??? Shame on Y'all.
Just remembered Horror Express, which has the classic team of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (plus Telly Savalas!), doing battle with a murderous creature aboard a steam train. Don't want to link the trailer in case some of the imagery is inappropriate for the forum, but this is ace B-movie stuff.
Sure, sure. But they painted a nice, big, fat red star on it, no. Did somebody mentioned "Unstoppable"? Anyway, nice trailer ...
My dad keeps trying to get me to watch Brief Encounter. I will eventually, I've seen a few clips and I liked what I saw. As with the Ladykillers the shots of the trains are all featured uncut on Video 125s" Steam on 35mm", which is a compilation of archive steam footage taken for films from around the 1930s up until the 60s. The shots from Brief Encounter are beautifully atmospheric. Seeing as you mentioned Paddington... What about Paddington? Some great shots of London Paddington taken in around 2015 in the first film, and the second one features an excellent sequence towards the end of the film with 60163 Tornado.
Go West with the Marx Brothers from 1940. Very funny movie, where the highlight is the cutting up of the coaches to provide fuel for the loco and the train running off the rails and causing havoc before getting back on the rails again.
An amazing b-movie featuring some incredibly hammy performances from some big, big names. Has the wonderful line, "Better 1 day late to Paris than 40 years early to the grave!" Actor's name was OJ something, wonder what happened to that guy?
Lots of suggestions here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/train-movies.15483/ And here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/favourite-train-themed-film.42284/#post-336492
Call me an old fool but I have been going through 3 old sitcoms on Britbox recently: Fawlty Towers, Dads Army and The Royle Family. They are classics and I can't think of any modern sitcoms bar Not Going Out which make me laugh as much as these three do.
I may or may not have just got carried away and just read the post above mine and not realised which thread I was in. Come to think of it though wasn't there an episode of Dads Army where they had a tank engine in a station when the King was coming, they drove it away and were chased on a pump trolley. Series 6 I think.
I recommend watching Christmas with you now" (2021) is a sweet romantic story with a drop of humor. The acting is excellent, and it's an optimistic movie. However, the plot and everything is pretty predictable. But for the right atmosphere, the film is perfect, in my opinion. The character of Max's dog is incredibly charming. I adore animals in such films. I watched it on ดูซีรี่ย์ใหม่ล่าสุด, so it's very convenient if you want to go to your family for the Christmas holidays and don't have anything to look at on the train.
Just rewatched Runaway Train. Darn, what a great movie! An art film disguised as an action film. Oh, and some really nice in-cab shots of vintage EMDs (GP7s, F7, GP40). BUT..... Would that engineer really have started from a dead stop in Run 8 in the snow??? (Also, I can't imagine an emergency blow wouldn't have stopped a light MU only doing about 10-15 mph, full throttle or not).
Runaway Train is one of the things I have loved the most. I can never imagine something perfect than it. I am truly overwhelmed whenever I watch it.
Doctor Who has visited Barry Island several times since its return in 2005, most obviously in the episode "Flatline" which also had scenes filmed on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire railway
While not a train movie, Mission Impossible features a very rare train: a French TGV Reseau that apparently doesn't require catenary like they do in real life. One should always be careful being sadistic against Ernest Borgnine. He has a friend with a quite deadly attack helicopter.
The Signalman - Charles Dickens BBC GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS 1976 An absolute classic, though perhaps better for Halloween!
To anyone who's interested Von Ryan's Express is on BBC2 tomorrow afternoon (as I type- Wednesday 21) at 3:05. ...and yet somehow I missed The First Great Train Robbery on before it for a double bill. No doubt it would be "edited for content" (badly cut to a point where some scenes become incomprehensible) anyway because it's a 12 certificate and the alternative is to show it at a suitable time which would obviously be silly.
BBC must be taking a page out of ITV/2/3's book. They like showing Licence To Kill (the most violent Bond), at 3:00 in the afternoon, and end up having to cut the film up. Why not show it from 9:00 at night?????