Nostalgia & History > Espee GP9 5773 Starring In "Lonely Are The Brave"

I saw the 1962 movie "Lonely Are The Brave" on YouTube the other night and there's a brief appearance of Espee GP9 # 5773 in black widow colors pulling a short train and blowing a really nice Nathan chime horn.  It looks like the scene was shot on the Santa Paula Branch and a three-digit milepost can even be seen, but I can't make out the complete number.  It's in the four-hundred-forty series and there's a small bridge right next to it.  If someone has a track chart of the line it would be easy to pinpoint the exact location.  Maybe aerial photos would do the trick.  

The film has some obvious technical errors in that Joplin, MO and Tulsa, OK are supposedly shown, but it looks like it was actually filmed around Saugus, CA or somewhere in that area.  Obviously, tight budgets and the "Thirty Mile Zone" of union contracts dictated that it be shot there rather than genuinely in MO and OK.  A big portion of the film was shot in the Sandia mountains east of Albuquerque and there are some incredible scenes on an extremely steep mountainside as Kirk Douglas' character struggles with his horse to achieve the summit as he's escaping the law.  Small boulders come tumbling down to within mere inches of the camera.

The film is based on a book by Edward Abbey, who also wrote "Desert Solitaire" and "The Monkey Wrench Gang."  I wish they'd make a movie of that last one because the storyline has some eco-terrorists sabotaging the Black Mesa & Lake Powell Railroad!

To see the film, go to YouTube and just type "Lonely Are the Brave" on their internal search engine.  The entire film was posted by some guy named "Josip."  The GP9 appears at the 56:16 mark.     

Well produced and acted film, Carroll O'Conner was the truck driver I believe. "Monkey Wrench Gang" one of my favorite novels, as good as many novels from John Steinbeck. MWG published in 1975, I think I read that Robert Redford was involved in possible film production but subject matter just too sensitive so nothing ever proceeded past the idea stage. Wonderful cast of characters and actual location descriptions in Utah, Arizona, like Tony Hillerman novels. Last few pages of last chapter are superb! Have to read it again now that you brought up the subject.  Thanks!

> I saw the 1962 movie "Lonely Are The Brave" on YouTube the other night and there's a brief appearance of Espee GP9 # 5773 in black widow colors pulling a short train and blowing a really nice Nathan chime horn.  It looks like the scene was shot on the Santa Paula Branch and a three-digit milepost can even be seen, but I can't make out the complete number.  It's in the four-hundred-forty series and there's a small bridge right next to it.

The bridge was over San Martinez Grande Creek on the Santa Paula Branch, 4 1/2 miles west of today's Interstate 5 along Highway 126.

(I determined the filming location years ago.  For this posting, I could either go home and check my notes or do a Trainorders search.  I did the latter, using the search words "Kirk Douglas" and came up with a post I made almost 13 years ago which had the info)

Yes, Carroll O'Conner was the truck driver.

John Sweetser



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/16 13:23 by johnsweetser.

Santa Paula is 414.7,
Fillmore is 424.5,
and Piru is 431.8,
if that helps.
G