"Train and Stations in the Movies":

Railway stations have provided a major setting for some memorable films including ‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘The Ghost Train’, ‘Knight Without Armour’, and ‘I’ll Never Forget Whatshisname’, (with it’s white ‘dream’ station). ‘Union Station’, ‘3.10 to Yuma’, ‘Last Train From Madrid’, ‘Bhowani Junction’, ‘Northwest Frontier’, ‘100 Rifles’, ‘The Mercenaries’ ‘Waterloo Road’, ‘Anna Karenia’, and Grand Central Station’. There was also ‘Under the Clock’, ‘Brief Encounter’, ‘Oh Mr. Porter’, ’The Titfield Thunderbolt’, ‘High Noon’, ‘In the Heat of the Night’, and ‘The Train’. Orson Welles made ‘The Train’ almost entirely within a deserted railway station, and Vitorio de Sica made ‘Indiscretion’, among the crowds in Rome’s Stazione Termini.

"There's So Many!"

The railway stations were brought to life in the films by the trains, which have above all served film makers as a splendid background for suspense thrillers. There are scores of sequences, all enhanced by the dramatic sight and sound of a passing train:

‘The Lady Vanishes’, ‘North by Northwest’, ‘From Russia With Love’, ‘The Narrow Margin’, ‘The Tall Target’, and ‘How the West Was Won’. Next came ‘Lady On a Train’, ‘Cat Ballou’, ‘Jesse James’, ‘Bad Day at Black Rock’, ‘’Night of the Demon’, ‘Time Bomb’, ‘Rome Express’, ‘Sleeping Car to Trieste’, ‘Northwest Frontier’, ‘Man Without a Star’, and ‘The 39 Steps’.

Next came ‘Secret Agent’, ‘Shanghai Express’, Number 17’, ‘Last Train to Bombay’, ‘Ministry of Fear’, ‘Von Ryan’s Express’, ‘Across the Bridge’, ’Double Indemnity’, ‘Strangers on a Train’, ‘The Iron Horse’, ‘Union Pacific’, ‘Canadian Pacific’, ‘Next of Kin’, ‘Berlin Express’, and ‘The Great Locomotive Chase’.

The miles, and the years passed by with ‘Terror by Night’, ‘Crack – Up’, ‘Rampage’, ‘Fool’s Parade’, ‘Breakheart Pass’, ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, in a list that could be endless.

"Made For Years":

Then we had the more serious films featuring trains such as ‘La Bete Humain’, remade as ‘Human Desire’, ‘Metropolitan’, remade as ‘’A Window in London’, ‘The Last Journey’, ‘Sullivan’s Travels’, and ‘Indiscretions of an American Wife’. Following closely was ‘Terminal’, ‘Night Mail’, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, ‘The Railway Children’, ‘Boxcar Bertha’, and ‘Emperor of the North’, We also had some spectacular train crashes, as in ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, ‘Hatter’s Castle’, ‘Seven Sinners’, ‘The Young in Heart’, ‘Mad Love’, ‘The Wrong Box’, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Crack in the World’, and ‘King Kong’. Then came the murders as seen from a train in ‘Metropolitan’, and ‘Lady in a Train’, (happening in a second passing train in ‘Murder She Said’), and through a train in ‘Twelve Angry Men’. The subway, elevated or underground, was featured in ‘Practically Yours’, ‘On the Town’, ‘The Batchelor Party’, ‘Boy’s Night Out’, Union Station’, ‘The FBI Story’, ‘The Young Savages’, ‘Underground’, Bulldog Jack’, ‘The Daleks Invasion of Earth 2150 AD’, ‘The French Connection’, ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’, ' and ‘The Liquidator’. The back platforms of American trains have become familiar, especially in political films, such as ‘Abe Lincoln in Illinois’, ‘Wilson’ and ‘All the King’s Men’; but also in ‘Hail the Conquering Hero’, ‘The Merry Monahans’, 'and ‘Mr Deed’s Goes to Town’. Comedy train sequences include The Marx Brothers chopping up moving carriages for fuel in ‘Go West’, and ‘The Palm Beach Story’. Then we saw Buster Keaton in ‘Our Hospitality’, and ‘The General’. Laurel and Hardy sleeping in the same bunk in ‘The Big Noise’. Hal Roach’s ‘Broadway Limited’, and John Barrymore in ‘Twentieth Century’, Peter Sellers in ‘Two Way Stretch’, and the western sequence of ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’; don’t forget the Pullman car sequence of ‘Some Like It Hot’!

"In the Musicals Too!:

Popular also were Monty Banks in ‘Play Safe’, Morecambe and Wise in ‘The Magnificent Two’, ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’, the whole of ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’, and ‘Oh, Mr Porter’. There were many sequences of stuntmen walking on top of moving carriages, including ‘Professor Beware’, and ‘Fancy Pants’.

Musical sequences with a train setting are to be seen in ‘A Hard Days Night’, ‘Monte Carlo’, ‘The Harvey Girls’(remember ‘The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe’), ‘At the Circus’, (‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady'), ‘Sun Valley Serenade’, (‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’), and Disney’s ‘Dumbo’, (‘Casey Junior’), ‘The Jazz Singer’, (‘Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye’). ‘Easter Parade’ gave us ‘When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam’, while ‘Forty Second Street’, tapped away to ‘Shuffle Off to Buffalo’.

Not forgetting television, with old favourites like ‘Casey Jones’, ‘The Wild Wild West’, ‘The Iron Horse’, ‘Petticoat Junction’, ‘Union Pacific’, and finally ‘Supertrain’.

"Still AroundToday!"

The movies brought us escapism,and the railways took us to places we thought we would never see. Here's my favourite railway:
'The Durango to Silverton'

THE END