Steam & Excursion > Hello Dolly

Wife watching Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand....Holly Moly, what and where is the steam engine in that musical scene?? Stunningly beautiful!!

Looks like Strasburg RR equipment.

Jim Baker

The Garrison NY station was also redecorated for the filming. It's still a lovely commuter station on the MetroNorth (xNYC) Hudson Line.

The engine is PRR #1223 which in 1968 when the movie was made was leased to the Strasburg RR from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (across the street) The cars were from the Strasburg RR. The location was the Hudson River Valley in New York. Which lines escape me now. For years, Strasburg kept "Hello Dolly" the open air observation car, painted in the movie yellow. It has since been overhauled and painted back to red/brown to match the rest of the equipment. That particular car was built for the Boston and Maine in 1896!!!!

I hope somebody will add details, but I seemed to recall that the locomotive and train were put on flat cars and shipped to New York but maybe that was a different movie. Strasburg crews loved it, operating the 1223 on the NYC main line at speeds over 65 mph for a few times! It developed some bearing issues but still enough old heads around back then that the problem was easily fixed.

At Strasburg, a day or two before heading for New York. Photo by my father, WC Kepner.

Bill Kepner
Ft Collins, CO

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And a side view.

Bill Kepner

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My Dad and I visited the set at Garrison during the shooting; the railroad and the film's producers did a fine job of cooperating, considering a full schedule of regular trains needed to operate on time during the filming. If you have a chance to watch the film, look for the large freight house on the east side of the tracks; it was a two-sided mock-up, which carefully hid the then-small commuter parking lot and the commuters' automobiles during shooting.

The prop people also added some size to the existing passenger station. The work was so well done you literally had to tap on the building to discover where the real brickwork left off and the lightweight false structure began.

Art House
Gettysburg, Pa.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/11 13:06 by aehouse.

I absolutely loved the "Hello Dolly" passenger car when I was young - whenever I visited the railroad, I would always look to see if that particular car was on that day's train. I was disappointed, admittedly, when I saw that it had been changed and re-done to match the rest of the Strasburg's fleet. I miss that yellow car!

Seems like everyone here would agree, "The movie was better than the stage production"!

scottp Wrote:
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> Seems like everyone here would agree, "The movie
> was better than the stage production"!

Well, geez, people, it's a little difficult to get a live steam engine on stage for a cameo appearance in a Broadway production!! :-)
We have seen the movie but better yet, we saw Carol Channing in person on stage in Hello Dolly in San Francisco and it didn't need a live steam engine to make it any better that it was then!! :-)
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

CarolVoss Wrote:
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> Well, geez, people, it's a little difficult to get
> a live steam engine on stage for a cameo
> appearance in a Broadway production!! :-)

Not on Broadway itself, but at the Chicago Century of Progress fair in um, Chicago, they had an outdoor musical extravaganza that portrayed the history of the American Railroads from the first beginning up to that point. Had either reproductions or in a number of cases the original equipment historical locos, and did runbys across the stage. Staged the Golden Spike PR event in Act II, complete with both engines. If I recall correctly (and I may not) one of them was the real thing.

So you can do something like that if you want to, but you need a couple of acres for the backstage space, and it is best if you can have an outdoor stage.

The train set deadheaded via the Buffalo Line to Newberry Jct, then north on the Corning Secondary to hit the Chicago Line at Lyons. Then east to Albany then down the Hudson. I remember seeing a newspaper photo of the train as it passed through Corning, NY. By then the PRR and NYC had merged but the Pennsy fans must have been upset to see it lettered for the NYC.

Tominde Wrote:
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> For years, Strasburg
> kept "Hello Dolly" the open air observation car,
> painted in the movie yellow. It has since been
> overhauled and painted back to red/brown to match
> the rest of the equipment. That particular car
> was built for the Boston and Maine in 1896!!!!

I could have sworn Strasburg's book, "The Road to Paradise," claimed the open air car was built specifically for the movie in the Strasburg shops.

Most of the scenes were filmed at Garrison, New York, with the "Grand Central" scene filmed at Poughkeepsie.

JJAAMAPOU Wrote:
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> Most of the scenes were filmed at Garrison, New
> York, with the "Grand Central" scene filmed at
> Poughkeepsie.


Yes.

A well known video site has a video of the station used back then, as well as a northward look at the "tunnel" and its bypass track, a southward look as the tracks come together again, etc.

The station used in the movie is now a playhouse for a local theater group. MertoNorth has opened a new and much larger station with adequate parking nearby.

If you search terms like Garrison Landing NY (Yonkers NY) in the 1969 Hello Dolly, you'll likely find the video. You might even see a MetroNorth train at the very ending frames of the video