Happy National Train Day 2026

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.  It's the dining car as the train passed through the prairie.  There's a tale behind posting this, which I explained last year, but it bears repeating, since I’m still thrilled by it.  A few years back, for reasons I can't explain, all my photos from that trip disappeared.  I don't know if I accidentally deleted them or what -- but they were all gone.  But last year, I discovered that all photos I'd taken with my mobile phone had been saved in the phone's memory!  And so, I was able to recover them all!  And it's therefore with joy once again that I get to post this photo.
 
 
​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 doesn't actually appear 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 Mentions category.  And strict, too, is that the list is for feature films only.  Yes, I could have included TV movies and series, but I don't.  It's just where I chose to draw the line.  But that's why I created the Special Mentions category.

Since the list is fluid, we keep adding to it. And so we have two additions this year. 
 
Suddenly is a little-seen film noir thriller from 1954, with Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden.  It’s about an assassination plot to kill the president who is on a whistle-stop tour and will be arriving in a small town. Sinatra plays the psychotic character who kidnaps the family that lives directly across from the station, as he lies in wait. It’s a riveting movie, but Sinatra had it pulled out of circulation for many years after the Kennedy assassination.
 
Compartment No. 6  was the official Finnish entry in 2021 as Best International Film.  It was on shortlisted on the final 15, though not nominated.  The movie is about a young woman traveling to northern Russia and makes an unexpected connection aboard the train.

As I’ve noted, there are two other categories added a few years back:  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 later, I added a 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. 

This year, I've included two new Honorable Mentions – The first is Alfred Hitchock’s legendary thriller, The 39 Steps.  While not a full-throated train movie, the story is set in motion when Robert Donat’s character (wrongly pursued by the police) makes his escape on the Flying Scotsman train and crosses paths with Madeleine Carroll.  The other is the Oscar-winning Best Picture The Sting.  It has such a long and critical sequence on a train (where Paul Newman and Robert Redford set up their poker scam with Robert Shaw) that I came close to considering it a train movie – but clearly the core of The Sting is so much other than that and is one of the great con movies, so it gets Honorable Mention.
 
I’ve also added two Special Mentions this year, a category specifically not for movies, but other works that are significantly train related.  The two are both TV series.  The first is 1968’s Iron Horse, with Dale Robertson as a gambler who wins a small, unfinished railroad and journeys around the country on behalf of his company in an effort to complete the line. The second series is the current Hell on Wheels, that centers on a revenge tale amid the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.

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 (1957)
Around the World in 80 Days
Back to the Future 3
Bridge on the River Kwai
Bullet Train
The Commuter
Compartment No. 6
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
Suddenly
Terror on a Train
Tough Guys
The Train
Transsiberian
Twentieth Century
Union Pacific
Union Station
Unstoppable
Von Ryan’s Express
 
Honorable Mention
The 39 Steps
At the Circus
Berlin Express 
Cat Ballou
Go West
The Greatest Show on Earth
Murder on the Orient Express (2017 remake)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Some Like It Hot
Throw Momma from the Train 
The Sting
Trading Places

 
Special Mention
Hell on Wheels (TV series)
Iron Horse (TV series)
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.  I thought that this year, because I just added Suddenly to the list, most people are likely unaware of it and it's excellent, so I’d post the trailer for the film.  I suspect this is not the original trailer, or it may be but a distributer later added some music towards the end to “soften” the subject matter.  But the movie comes across regardless.