In the film "Danger Lights", at about 30 minutes in, there is a railway employees social, and the highlight of the evening is a "push of war" between two locomotives. It appears maybe guests have placed bets on the winner.

Is there any factual basis to this kind of entertainment? Seems like it would be expensive entertainment, for the amount of wear it would put on the engines.

Who says you wouldn't just use two engines that were scheduled to be rolled into the shop for servicing the next day anyway? Besides like any successful event the profit is in the huge margin you make on serving plenty of cheap (on your end) food and drink.

Plus your talking about an era when railroads didn't mind losing the second hand resale value of locomotives to do stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHsuFaDBYE

Boy, this discussion derailed really fast. There is no comparison between a locomotive push-of-war contest and the staged head-on collisions that were popular at state fairs for a while, and employee picnics were not typically considered money making events.

That being said pushing contests were staged numerous times as PR events, showing off the latest and greatest motive power, or new technology (typically new electrics and the steamers they were replacing) so it's not outside reason that one could be staged for an employee event. What's the danger to the equipment? Engines slipped in service all the time; some railroads intentionally slipped newly shopped locomotives as a check of running gear at higher RPM's, and engineers knew that slipping was not the best use of pulling (or pushing) power. I can't recall the movie scene cited, but if one of the engines was thrashing wildly as it was pushed off the stage, that was done for the movie.

I haven't been to any company or end-of-season parties that had fun stuff like engine battles, but I know after a stressful year, the company party can do wonders to boost morale and camaraderie. I'd like to see more places offer demo throttle time and the like to the office, service, and other employees just as a reward each year. Imagine what good that could do for the company. Look at the sales of throttle time on the 611 last year. I've personally seen middle management staff get so excited about the railroad just getting a cab ride through the yard on a steam engine.

Milwaukee Road used pushing/pulling contests to demonstrate the power of the new electric motors. There are numerous photographs and some movies of the contests.

Back on topic, Danger Lights was obviously filmed on the Milwaukee Road.

Yep, the MILW did this plenty of times in various places in the steam era. I've seen lots of photos of that very thing being done at various events they put on.
It was probably one of many reasons their employees were so loyal to the company?