The Superman train (this is a job for... ?)

rock island lines · **Joined:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:20 pm **Posts:** 487

Some light content for the weekend. Moderators, you may condemn this thread to the Railfanning black hole if you wish.

Some screen grabs of the train used in the movie Superman (1978). The scene was filmed in Alberta, Canada, to represent Kansas.
A commenter said the loco is CP FP7 #4037. As for the rest of the cars, I have no idea.
Anyone?

Sources:
Train scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSlTtr5NVUg
Making of Superman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_8cOrbE7lA

rock island lines · **Joined:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:20 pm **Posts:** 487

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Attachment:

Superman_man-of-steel_train-run.jpg

Rainier Rails · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 9:15 am

rock island lines wrote:

As for the rest of the cars, I have no idea.
Anyone?

The 2 baggage cars and 2 coaches are also CP, built in 1947-1948 by either National Steel Car (NSC) or Canadian Car & Foundry (CC&F) as shells and completed by CP.

M Austin · **Joined:** Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:05 am **Posts:** 488

Wasn't it "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive....." or some derivative thereof?

Rainier Rails · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 7:51 pm

Rainier Rails wrote:

The 2 baggage cars and 2 coaches are also CP, built in 1947-1948 by either National Steel Car (NSC) or Canadian Car & Foundry (CC&F) as shells and completed by CP.

Checking "Streamliner Cars Vol. 3", by 1978, the 10 baggage cars built as shells in 1947 (#4212-#4221) had been retired, along with other Lots of baggage cars, meaning that the 2 seen here were from the Lot of 90 baggage cars (#4700-#4789) built by CC&F in 1952-1953 in CP Order #3735.

Checking the coaches, 1 of 2 seen here is the #2257, which was 1 of the 99 coaches (#2200-#2298) delivered as shells in 1947-1949 in CP Order #3587, which were completed by CP through 1950 as 68 seat chairs (16 of these seats were in the smoking end). "RPC Annual Vol. 6" (1984) lists that VIA retired the #2257 in 1982, along with the 10 other remaining coaches from this Lot; 4 others had been retired the previous year.

rock island lines · **Joined:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:20 pm **Posts:** 487

Thanks for the info, Ted. I just spent a while on Jerry L's passenger car site reviewing these 2200-class coaches. I didn't find a photo of Superman coach #2257, but did find some nice roster shots of sister cars:

#2260: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=1814093
#2293: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=1814094

davew833 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 10:37 pm

There's also a New Haven FL9 in that version of Superman, as well as an Amtrak train later in the film.

rock island lines · **Joined:** Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:20 pm **Posts:** 487

davew833 wrote:

There's also a New Haven FL9 in that version of Superman, as well as an Amtrak train later in the film.

Yes. I found a video of the Amtrak scene and noticed an NP monad (!) inside the dome car. When I originally saw this movie in the theater as a kid, I didn't catch that. I wonder if the tinted dome glass was installed by the NP or if it was an Amtrak mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5u1xq9MJyw

ctjacks · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2015 10:51 am

Note that there are two quite different versions of this film out there: the one shown in theatres, and the two-part version shown on network TV. I think the two-part version has more footage from the train scene in it. The two-part version does a better job explaining what's going on in the scenes: for example, in the train scene, the family eating dinner in the diner is Lois Lane and her family. That isn't clear in the original version.

Chris.

davew833 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:03 pm

It's curious to me that an actual New Haven FL9 (or perhaps a model of one) was used to represent the train running under GCT that kills the agent following Otis to Lex Luthor's lair later in the movie, and Superman is shown saving an actual Amtrak train, but this passenger train is a fictional train from a fictional railroad. I wonder why they didn't paint it up for ATSF or even KCS or Frisco or something.

p51 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:23 pm

davew833 wrote:

I wonder why they didn't paint it up for ATSF or even KCS or Frisco or something.

Probably safety considerations, as he races the train to a grade crossing, jumps across the front end, and it keeps going.
I'd think most RRs wouldn't want their names associated with anything like that, even if the kid grows up to be Spuerman...