I was out sick for three days this week. There comes a point when you just can't sleep any more, so you turn on the TV. I popped in the DVD I'd just bought of Emporer of the North. I'd never seen it before.

What locomotive did they use for #19 in that movie? I'd swear she looks like Rockton & Rion #19 but I know that can't be. Same sort of smallish rigid-frame Mikado, though.

The movie does a better job than most Hollywood flicks at capturing the railroad culture. They even got most of the terminology right. I loved the scene where they kicked a burning stock car into a siding. The only major flaw I saw was calling a passing siding a "junction" and the close shave at said junction without even throwing the switch. Must have been a spring switch. :o)

The movie was filmed on the Oregon Pacific & Eastern RR in Oregon. They used OP&E's 2-8-2 19 (ex-McCloud River RR) and 2-8-0 5 (ex-Magma Arizona RR) in the film. Both are oil burners, but in an early scene of 19 you see her being fired with coal. A little hollywood trickery along with a set of butterfly firedoors borrowed from ex-Graham County RR 2-truck Shay 1923 (which was on the OP&E property at the time)! Also note that 2-8-0 5 wore several different numbers in the film to appear as a different locomotive.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

I've always liked how the engineer of the mail train makes no effort to slow down or stop his train. Just blow the whistle and tell that local to get out of the way! For those that don't have the DVD yet, I would strongly recommend it. It looks outstanding for something that was filmed in 1973.

I recently saw it for the first time and thought it was great. The "19" is still the 19, operating on the Yreka Western. Not long after seeing the movie, I stopped in Yreka at the yard and lo and behold, the water tower had new "graffiti" saying "A No. 1 to Portland on 19, 3-13-33." The date isn't what I saw, just made it up, but the rest was there. I was told one of the firemen painted on there.

I think the date in the movie was 10-25-33. I remember it was definitely a day late in October.

I wonder where they got all the freight cars? None were obviously out of place, and it was neat seeing cars where they could actually ride the rods.

The pin Shack ties to a rope to beat up the guys riding the rods puzzled me, too. It's too big for a coupling pin -- it looked almost like he pulled the drawbar pin between the engine and tender.

More information on the #19...Baldwin built her in 1915 (c/n 42000) for the Caddow & Choctaw Railroad in Arkansas. The locomotive then went to the Choctaw River Lumber Company before going to Mexico to work for United Mining & Smelting. McCloud River picked it up and brought it back to the states in 1924. She worked the next thirty years for the McCloud River, until Baldwin diesels ended her days. The Yreka Western bought the locomotive in 1953, and it worked in hauled freight and passengers there until 1970, when the YW leased it to the OP&E (the two railroads were part of the Kyle empire). The #19 came back to Yreka in 1988 and started powering excursion trains ont he WY in 1989.

I have some pictures of the locomotive at various points in its McCloud career on my website at the following link...

http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails/Lo ... -0019.html

While most of the movie was filmed on the OP&E...there were some parts filmed on the SP&S Vernonia branch.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Taken August 23, 2006:

http://users.snowcrest.net/photobob/aug27.html

I seem to remember hearing that most of the freight equipment was borrowed out of a local scrapyard and that after the filming, almost all of it went back and was cut up. A friend of mine worked for the OP&E during the filming and has lots of interesting stories about things going haywire and such.

Also, the rod that Shack beats the hobos up with I think is an old link and pin coupler pin. Or it's a window sash weight.

Thanks, Taylor