Nostalgia & History > 'Sierra Pacific' revsited (1973 TV movie Runaway)

Back on July 10, 2009 I posted pictures of the entire Sierra Pacific roster: 3 D&RGW units lettered for this made-up railroad created for the 1973 made-for-TV movie "Runaway". Two of the units (the rogue runaways) kept the D&RGW scheme, but lettered for the Sierra Pacific, while the hero unit, D&RGW #3081, was painted like the knight in shinning armour, ready to ride to the rescue.

A few days ago I was contacted by someone who told me that the D&RGW #3011 was now the property of the Colorado RR Museum in Golden, CO and asked if I had any more pictures of the filming. Well here's what I found, all taken in north Denver on April 5, 1973.

... but there's a p.s.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/11 07:53 by valmont.

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p.s. ... and just so there's no mistake, I do have a picture of another locomotive lettered 'Sierra Pacific', but as you can see it's Sierra Pacific, IND, only this one was not part of the movie ... it's actually a Quincy RR loco also lettered for, I believe, it's parent company

Alan Miller original taken at Susanville, CA on May 13, 1991



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/11 07:52 by valmont.

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where do the crews come from that do these TV railroad movies or scenes

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> where do the crews come from that do these TV
> railroad movies or scenes

The railroads use actual crews to do the operations of the trains. Commonly the job is bid for a period of time so those who want to deal with all the Hollywood hoopla can chose to. I understand the chow is really good.

In Switchback (DRGW), it was the Long Belt crew that ran the train with Sy Smith ( trainmaster) supervising and they all got movie credits at the end

In Runaway ( 1973), Road Foreman of Engines from Denver ran the Runaway train



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/11 09:09 by WAF.

I remember seeing that movie. There's a scene where one guy in the dispatch office asks another, "What's the horsepower of that new unit?" "3000." Then they decide to chase down the runaway with the silver unit. My impression was that it seemed realistic. More so than most of these type of movies.

I too remember seeing this movie but only vaguely. These are not only a great set of photos but fun to look at too. I love seeing movie train photos and am lucky enough to have many such photos in my collection from the Sierra Railroad.

Great job and thanks for posting!

Thank you for posting these interesting photos. I've certainly learned some new things about D&RGW 3011 over the past week that I didn't know. A few more projects need to be finished at the CRRM and then volunteers will start putting it back together and giving it a fresh coat of paint.

Thanks again!

Jim Barton

I wonder what the consist of the "runaway" train was. I see an ex-steam loco tender steam generator car (#250 or #251?) and an ex-Prospector combine (#1230 or #31) but it almost looks like a dome car peeking out behind the combine. Anybody know?