Does the railroad assist movie productions when railroad signals in operation or moving trains are needed?

Question

Was wondering in scenes where you see a crossing signal activate if the railroad activated it for the filming of the movie or tv show or if they used an imitation device. Also for trains, does the railroad run lines soley for the purpose of filming?

Answer 1

Usually, railroad sequences are filmed on location, including operating crossing signals.

Railroads do work with film crews all the time.  Ones that deal with steam era settings, such as the movie "Stand By Me."  The railroad sequences were filmed not far from my house on the McCloud River Rail Road.  They have since stopped steam operations and sold their locomotives.

Another popularly used railroad for steam era movie scripts is the Sierra Pacific, operating our of Jamestown, California, north and east of Sacramento, for movies such as "The Long Riders' and "Emperor Of The North."  (By the way.  The latter is, in my opinion, the best railroad movie ever shot, with Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in an incredible fight scene.  I recommend seeing it.)

Class I railroads get in to the act as well with restored locomotives, such as SP's 4449, which was used in the final film made by Burt Lancaster, although the name escapes me at the moment.

But, today's computer generated scenes and railroad models are getting better all the time, so this too may become a thing of the past for long distance shots.

Answer 2

The amount of advertising that a movie gives makes most company work with the movie industry.

For the movie "End of the line" , Union Pacific provided several trains, crew, support personnel, miles of rail and a very large locomotive shop (Jenks in North Little Rock, Arkansas) to film the movie.  They got pictures of their name and logo in the movie in return.

Look what advertising did for Reeses Pieces in the movie ET.  I never heard of them before, after they was as big as M&Ms

Answer 3

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is the movie that Hoghead couldn't remember.  

The train wreck scene from "The Fugituve" and also the scenes on a train in "My fellow Americans" were shot on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad, which is a scenic tourist line.  Scenic railroads don't have a lot of commercial traffic, and they can sometimes have more time to monkey around with something like a train wreck.

Answer 4

Yes all things Rail Road are Rail Road. By the way walking across a railroad track is illegal and the Rail Road Police

[yes they have the own law enforcement] can and will give you a ciatitation [aka ticket] .

Answer 5

yes they assist and set scheduling for the running of a train for the specific purpose of filming.