Happy National Train Day 2024
Although for years the celebration moved around the calendar a bit more than in the past and was therefore somewhat difficult to track down (no pun intended), today -- we are full of joy to announce -- once again is that most grand fest, National Train Day. At least it is here at Elisberg Industries, and that's good enough as a starting point. You won't find it on any calendars for any number of reasons, but the most important is that since Amtrak funding got cut back they stopped promoting it after 2016.
(And the reason for it moving around the calendar is that it was never a set day, but the Saturday closest to May 10. Why May 10, I hear you cry? Because that's the anniversary of the Golden Spike being driven in at Promontory Point, Utah, to complete the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.)
But whether or not it remains an officially promoted holiday by the government -- and isn't being celebrated here on a proper Saturday due to prior commitments, think of it as the train running behind schedule -- National Train Day (or as it used to be known around these parts once upon a time as "Let's Make Chris Dunn's Head Explode Day," but no more since he now, at long last, acknowledges Bridge on the River Kwai as a train movie) is nonetheless still one of the most joyous holidays of the year.
This is from a trip I took a few years back from Los Angeles to Chicago. Though the food on a train isn't high-end, there are few things I think are more ethereally enjoyable than eating in a dining car as the country sweeps past the windows of the train .
For our part here, we celebrate National Train Day on these pages by posting a list of the greatest train movies. These are films in which trains are absolutely central to the story. Where a train is the driving force of the tale, without which you can’t properly describe the plot.
(Think of it like the classic and beloved Santa Claus song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Santa Claus isn't actually in the song at all. He hasn't even shown up yet. In most ways, it's about "you" and what you should do -- or better not do. But even though there's not a hint of Santa Claus even appearing in the song, without Santa Claus...there's no song.)
We're strict about this. A friend once recommended The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3, and it was strongly considered, but that was a subway train or light rail. This list is for full-bore trains, the kind that either have sleeping cars and dining cars, or could if they were hitched on. But I've added it to our Honorable Mention list this year.
Since the list is fluid, we keep adding to it. The most recent addition is Murder in the Private Car, made in 1934 and starring Charlie Ruggles, Mary Carlisle and Una Merkel. It's hardly a classic, but if you accept it as not intending to be anything more than a light-hearted murder mystery aboard a train, it's fun. Especially if you love train movies as a starting point.
There are two other categories I've added recently: the just-mentioned Honorable Mention is for movies which you can generally tell their stories without using the word "train," but they have some connection to trains -- usually a great, standout train sequence, supportive to the story, but not essential in telling the plot -- that makes them memorable. And a few years ago I added a new category of Special Mention, for works that don't qualify as a train movie or perhaps even as a movie at all, but deserve a place of honor. But I didn't find any to expand the list with this year.
And as I noted in the past, though something I think is likely very obvious, I love train movies. Here is the current list of Great Train Movies.
3:10 to Yuma
Around the World in 80 Days
Back to the Future 3
Bridge on the River Kwai
Bullet Train
The Commuter
The Darjeeling Limited
Emperor of the North
The 5:17 to Paris
The General
The Girl on the Train
The Great Locomotive Chase
The Great Train Robbery
The Lady Vanishes
Murder in the Private Car
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Narrow Margin
North by Northwest
Northwest Frontier
Night Train to Munich
Polar Express
Runaway Train
Shanghai Express
Silver Streak
Snowpiercer
Source Code
Strangers on a Train
Tough Guys
The Train
Transsiberian
Twentieth Century
Union Pacific
Union Station
Unstoppable
Von Ryan’s Express
Honorable Mention
Throw Momma from the Train
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
The Greatest Show on Earth
Go West
At the Circus
Cat Ballou
Trading Places
Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Special Mention
The Railrodder (short)
The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3 (light-rail subway trains)
Murder on the Orient Express (TV version, from the series Poirot)
Great Railway Journeys of the World (TV documentary)
Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose (book)
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad by David Haward Bain (book)
I've also added another new feature in recent years -- a scene from one of the Great Train Movies, or another entry on the list. And this year we have the glorious sequence from Murder on the Orient Express -- the great version, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1974 -- when the train pulls out of the station. With near-perfect music by Richard Rodney Bennett. I wish the clip includes the full footage, about another 20 seconds with the train roaring across the countryside. But they chose to include only the material inside the station. Too bad, but understandable.
Sidney Lumet writes about the complexity of this shot in his book, "Making Movies'. He said that they only had one take to do this. They could only use the Paris rail station for one night. It required an extensive set-up with the lighting and camera blocking timed perfectly. When they finally had everything ready, by then it was 4:30 in the morning, and sunrise was in a half-hour. So, it was get it in one take or not at all.
That’s the actual Orient Express, by the way. The scene wasn’t filmed directly in the station, but the storage shed where the train was kept, not having been used in five years. During the preparation by the movie crew, a train crew was working to get the train in shape to run, specifically for this one shot. All the movie was shot on the real train, not sets. Train historians credit the movie with saving the Orient Express which eventually returned to service.
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