So we all know about the railway themed war movie "The Train", but this one, "Battle of the Rails" was uploaded to Youtube in March 2013. Up until now I had never heard of it. It's in French, but there are English subtitles available. There's quite a few interesting scenes of various railway equipment, including boxcab electrics. I don't recall discussing this one in the various movie threads posted here over the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiWpolKBWXs

I had this up before, but it was only available in pieces then; this new version is in one piece.

Earlier thread, going back to 2010 (man, am I getting old?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiWpolKBWXs

For some reason there is a color (colorized?) version of the big derailment near the end of the film, labelled as taking place in Russia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHChp8WqVeQ

Anyway, thanks for finding this complete version of the film.

'La Bataille du Rail' (the original French title) was made way back in 1946 to commemorate the work of the French resistance in WW2. Apparently many of the 'actors' were those actually involved in the events portrayed. I suspect that this film may have inspired the writers of 'The Train' which surely has to be one of the best RR films ever made. I always thought that Burt Lancaster was very convincing as an engineer and only,many years later, found the explanation in that he started out as a U.P. fireman. If it's any help I was able to rent a copy of 'Bataille du Rail' from Netflix. Ray.

The train derailed by "Russian partisans" appears to have a made-in-USA "Pershing" type 2-8-0 locomotive. To the best of my knowledge, none of these were used by the Germans on the Russian front. The books I have of German railroad service to the "Ostfront" show a lot of WW1-era German steam locos (mostly former Prussian-design 0-10-0, 2-10-0, and P-8 4-6-0 locomotives) plus some WW2-era 2-10-0 "Kriegsloks" towards the end of the war. Therefore I suspect the colorized photo footage may well have been shot in France. This wouldn't be the first time old footage has been mislabeled.

- Doug Debs