Being a fourth generation railroader, and also a fourth generation railroad engineer, i found the movie very interesting, and by accident as it was stored away on an old beta tape in my grandfathers attic. It was simply wrote with the words "Danger Lights" 1930 railroad movie. Well that got me thinking about what was on it. So i dug around for the player but was told by my dad that it was long gone so i looked at local garage sales and such and finally found one off of ebay to actually watch the movie. I still do not know when the movie was recorded to the beta tape, sometime in the mid to late 70's as I'm 39 and remember the beta tapes but don't remember when they actually came out, all i know is that the VHS tape replaced them and later the DVD.
Since the movie was filmed in 1930 as the opening showed the RKO pictures and the date, i was like i'm probably not going to like this. Well right off there is a rock slide and all hell breaks loose as the superintendent fights to get his railroad open for traffic and even forcing hobo's to work towards that goal and taking one of the hobo's under his arm so to speak and the movie takes off from there. I was amazed by both the picture quality and, for the first in Hollywood how a railroad really operates. All the main positions were there, either part of the regular cast or as extras, like the Superintendent, General Manager, Trainmaster, Train Dispatcher, Roundhouse Foreman, even the Train order clerk was cast into the movie. Most Hollywood films have the conductor or engineer type running the whole railroad, far from the fact.Even they have a boss who answers to a boss who answers to a boss so on an so forth.
My only problem was the hundred mile an hour run to save the supers life at the end after getting hit by an express passenger train. The intentions were good since i'm sure the railroad hospital was the only one around and Chicago being the main hospital they had to get him there in a short time. No engineer would climb out the window going a 100 mph to cool off a overheated wheel bearing and keep going, they would have stopped repacked it re oiled it and then kept going, that would have been believable. But i will say it payed homage to a time when railroads were the king of industry and transportation.
Even today we haul over 38 percent of the nations tonnage, with the rest belonging to the trucking, barge and pipeline industry and over 150 years later we are still considered a monopoly, and have what is generally referred to as legacy contracts, some of the oldest contracts between two businesses in the U.S.A.
I grew up hearing about the steam engines that my Dad( in his early years on the railroad 1948-1957 retired in 1995) and grandfather (1920-1957 retired 1974) great grandfather( 1892 till he retired 1933) and great great grandfather ( 1878 till he retired in 1925)operated across the very rails that i operate todays most advanced dash 9's and 90 MAC diesel locomotives on. And this movie gave me a look into what it was like to be a railroader then, when the chances of getting killed on the job was higher than retiring from it. For anyone who loves trains this is a must see.
Since the movie was filmed in 1930 as the opening showed the RKO pictures and the date, i was like i'm probably not going to like this. Well right off there is a rock slide and all hell breaks loose as the superintendent fights to get his railroad open for traffic and even forcing hobo's to work towards that goal and taking one of the hobo's under his arm so to speak and the movie takes off from there. I was amazed by both the picture quality and, for the first in Hollywood how a railroad really operates. All the main positions were there, either part of the regular cast or as extras, like the Superintendent, General Manager, Trainmaster, Train Dispatcher, Roundhouse Foreman, even the Train order clerk was cast into the movie. Most Hollywood films have the conductor or engineer type running the whole railroad, far from the fact.Even they have a boss who answers to a boss who answers to a boss so on an so forth.
My only problem was the hundred mile an hour run to save the supers life at the end after getting hit by an express passenger train. The intentions were good since i'm sure the railroad hospital was the only one around and Chicago being the main hospital they had to get him there in a short time. No engineer would climb out the window going a 100 mph to cool off a overheated wheel bearing and keep going, they would have stopped repacked it re oiled it and then kept going, that would have been believable. But i will say it payed homage to a time when railroads were the king of industry and transportation.
Even today we haul over 38 percent of the nations tonnage, with the rest belonging to the trucking, barge and pipeline industry and over 150 years later we are still considered a monopoly, and have what is generally referred to as legacy contracts, some of the oldest contracts between two businesses in the U.S.A.
I grew up hearing about the steam engines that my Dad( in his early years on the railroad 1948-1957 retired in 1995) and grandfather (1920-1957 retired 1974) great grandfather( 1892 till he retired 1933) and great great grandfather ( 1878 till he retired in 1925)operated across the very rails that i operate todays most advanced dash 9's and 90 MAC diesel locomotives on. And this movie gave me a look into what it was like to be a railroader then, when the chances of getting killed on the job was higher than retiring from it. For anyone who loves trains this is a must see.