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I ran across an old 1950 movie last night on YouTube  "A Ticket To Tomahawk"  about building a narrow gauge railroad through the Colorado mountains.   Just happens to be the first movie Marilyn Monroe was in. She is uncredited and appears for only about five minutes. The movie is a bit campy but I thought someone on the forum may like to watch it.                   j

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CyT4Q53Lds

Last edited by JohnActon
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JohnActon: Thanks so much for the post! My wife and I just watched this fun movie! Yes, Marilyn is in it as well as an interesting old train and actors. Walter Brennan is always fun and the bad guys got it in the end!

Any movie with an interesting story, at least one pretty girl and a happy ending has a very good chance of being a winner. This one even has a train!

 

I remember them having to dismantle the engine and even at age eight found that hard to believe they could actually do that! More fantasy than usual, even for Hollywood!

Everything was bolted gas or electric welding had not been invented. So if you had wrenches you could unbolt most of it. However that is not the part which I find hard to believe.  It seemed to be rolling as the mules were towing it. If you actually tried to tow a locomotive in dirt or sand the weight on the small contact patch of the locomotive wheels would cause the loco to sink into the dirt up to the frame. If you look closly at the wheels as it is being towed the ground under them is perfectly flat.  Looks to me they covered track with sand and raked it flat.  I try not to dissect movies as I watch them it is hard not to find some imperfection in any movie.          j

@palallin posted:

In this vein, you might wish to read up on Stonewall Jackson's theft of 18 engines from the B&O and moving them 38 miles cross-country:

http://civilwarscholars.com/20...les-1861-early-1862/

Certainly not to diminish the accomplishments of these men which was super human or at least super horse. Macadam is a much different surface than what was the pretense in the movie.   Macadam is an engineered surface with layers of stone and the grit and dust produced in crushing the stone mixed together with a layer of bitumen on top for water resistance.  Macadam was essentially the super highway of the nineteenth century common well into the middle of the twentieth century.   Never the less one heck of an accomplishment.  Thanks for showing that to us, well worth the read.  Probably a better read than the movie was a watch. I'm glad I saw both though.          j

Last edited by JohnActon

If it runs, like on the CBS Sunday night movie, l would definitely watch it, for the favored subject matter...not for one of many, although hopefully more lucky, starlets of the day.

It wasn't CBS, but one of the over the air/free specialty channels aired it about a week ago "MOVIES!" . I didn't watch, but noticed her and the movie name.

They may rebroadcast it a few times in the next month or two.

Thanks John!  I am going to watch it tonight. 

I did a little research about the film and it looks like it was filmed in the Silverton area of Colorado.  Now if I could just get the George Eastman House to restore and re-release the silent film "White Desert".  Filmed up on Rollins Pass in the winter before the Moffat Tunnel was built.

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