Step Inside the 13 Most Iconic Trains Ever Captured on Film
Who doesn't love trains? Before planes, they were the primary means of traversing long distances, their cars designed to provide the basic creature comforts as passengers watched varying landscapes pass by.
Though not as prevalent in the contemporary United States, classic steam engines evoke a sense of nostalgia for simpler times. Hollywood knows this and is sure to speckle some movies with memorable locomotives.
Some trains used in movies stick with us for a long time. This list will contain 13 of the most famous of those trains, purely based on their fame and the films they were in. We've been sure to include a mixture of more modern trains and historic steam locomotives.
Harry Potter Series (2001 – 2011)
The modern era of cinema's most notable movie train is the Hogwarts Express. This famous steam train takes the titular wizard and his friends from Platform 9 3/4 at London's Kings Cross to Hogwarts via Hogsmeade station.
In reality, the steam engine, known best as Hogwarts Castle, is a British GWR Hall class locomotive No. 5972 Olton Hall. The Harry Potter crew painted the ex-GWR locomotive Crimson Red and plastered it with a Hogwarts Railways logo on the side of the tender. The locomotive is displayed at The Harry Potter Museum at Warner Brothers Studios in Leavesden, near Watford, England.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, one of the best films from the Indiana Jones franchise, features an epic chase across a circus train as Jones engages in a showdown with Fedora's gang over the unearthed Cross of Coronado. What follows is one of the best scenes from the Indiana Jones films, made even better with the classic steam engine at the front.
The train itself is called the Dunn & Duffy Combined Circus Train, hauled by 1925 BLW 2-8-2 Class K36 No. 484. The producers shot the chase scene on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, and the locomotive itself originally worked on the Rio Grande Railroad system.
The General (1926)
The iconic 1926 film The General by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman might be among the most famous films in the world to use a steam locomotive. Based on the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862, the movie involves real-life steam locos Western & Atlantic Railroad No. 3 The General and Western & Atlantic Railroad No. 49 Texas.
The film utilized some of the most expensive cinematic photography ever used at that point. At one point, a real steam engine fell from a bridge into a Texan river. Neither the real The General nor Texas is used in the film, and both engines are currently preserved immaculately in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia, and the Atlanta History Center, respectively.
Paddington 2 (2017)
In 2008, the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust finished building the first brand-new mainline steam locomotive in Britain since 1960. This was the Peppercorn A1 Pacific No.60163 Tornado, which has gone on to become a movie star.
The loco appeared in the 2017 movie Paddington 2, which is about the famous abandoned bear that became synonymous with many childhoods. Using the A1 Pacific was a real coup for the filmmakers, and Tornado is still in service today, recently emerging from a $1.3 million (£1 million) overhaul in the UK.
The Polar Express (2004)
The 2004 film The Polar Express is one of the weirdest to feature a train, thanks to Robert Zemeckis' unusual choice of animation style. However, it remains a popular Christmas film with the steam train leading the cast.
Set in the late 1940s, the Polar Express locomotive is an American 2-8-4 Berkshire type, modeled after the Pere Marquette 1225 steam locomotive. There are subtle differences between the two, such as the headlight mounted inside the smokebox and the lack of marker lights and number boards.
The Train (1964)
Directed by John Frankenheimer, the 1964 war film The Train is one of the most evocative and impressive war films of its day. It stars Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, and Jeanne Moreau and loosely takes its plot from the book Le front de l'art by Rose Valland.
The film is set in August 1944 and pits French Resistance member Paul Labiche (Lancaster) against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Scofield). The core narrative follows the German general as he attempts to move stolen art masterpieces from France to Germany. Inspiration for the events came from the real Nazi train No. 40,044. Locomotives used in the film include iterations of the Chemins de fer de l'Est Series 11s 4-6-0.
Union Pacific (1939)
The building of the Union Pacific railroad in the United States is one of the most historical events in the country's history. In 1939, director Cecil B. DeMille decided to immortalize this story with his Western film Union Pacific, which addresses the building of the Union Pacific across the American West.
The film also recreates the famous Golden Spike ceremony on May 10th, 1869, commemorating the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. This event took place at Promontory Summit in Utah, and the film even uses the original golden spike from 1869.
Runaway Train (1985)
Runaway trains are near the top of the list of things you don't want to happen while riding along any railroad, whether heritage or national network. The 1985 epic Runaway Train, starring Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca De Mornay, conveys this terror well.
Directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy, the film tells the tale of two escaped convicts and an assistant locomotive driver, with the three finding themselves stuck on a runaway train. The train in question is barreling through Alaska's snowy and desolate landscape with seemingly no means of stopping.
The Great Locomotive Chase (1956)
Buster Keaton's 1956 epic starring Fess Parker is based on the Great Locomotive Chase, a military raid during the Civil War. The actual chase unfolded on April 12th, 1862, in Northern Georgia. Volunteer Union Army soldiers stole The General and left behind a trail of damaged Western and Atlantic Railroad tracks to slow their Confederate pursuers.
Locomotive Texas was one of the Confederate engines that chased the raiders. The film brilliantly portrays this event, with the producers using working replicas of The General and Texas to make the film as authentic as possible.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023)
The most recent Mission: Impossible film is arguably one of the best. It features a dramatic scene involving Tom Cruise and his enemies on board what looks like a standard, no-name steam train. In reality, though, this locomotive is a very faithful replica.
Loosely based on the British railways Britannia-class locomotives, the replica was powered by a diesel engine with a smoke generator. The locomotive is filmed plunging off a cliff in Derbyshire to its fate. The producers recreated a typical steam locomotive cab in minute detail, making it one of the very best cinematic replicas.
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman star in The Darjeeling Limited. The trio plays estranged brothers who agree to meet in India one year after their father's funeral for a spiritual journey through the country on a luxury train.
The train takes the brothers through the Indian countryside, where they visit various Hindu and Sikh temples as their tension builds. There is a happy ending (spoiler alert!) as the trio buries the hatchet and heads off on another train, the Bengal Lancer, for their own joyous journey.
Oh, Mr Porter! (1937)
This film, starring 1930s comedy star Will Hay, tells the story of Hay's character, William Porter, one of the most inept railway workers on Britain's railways. Hay is given a job at a fictional, remote Northern Irish railway station, Buggleskelly. The film sees him try his best to whip his new work-shy station staff into shape and bring the station up to its former glory.
Along the way, Porter and his new friends get involved in an unusual gang plot and various other escapades in one of the best comedy movies of the early 20th century. It has become a cult classic, and British film critic Barry Norman CBE included it on his list of the 100 best films of the century.
The Ladykillers (1955)
While not directly utilizing a particular steam engine or train, the Ealing black comedy crime film The Ladykillers uses some of the best railway footage in any film. The film focuses on the house of Mrs Wilberforce, situated above the Copenhagen railway tunnel in Belle Isle near Kings Cross in London.
The footage shows various ex-LNER and eastern region steam locomotives, such as A3s, A4s and various tank engines. Kings Cross was the hub of the Eastern Region in London, and it remains one of the world's most famous and beautiful railway stations.
