Train being chased by Spitfire

[robertgift]

Required such timing an coordination. How many times did they shoot the aerial views to get it right?

Makes no sense to stop or reverse the wheels.

Keep them turning forward at a lower speed.

[jabbyjabjo]

looks like a mk 12 Lf 4c twin cannons

[obese1konobe]

Great film. Captures a moment in history. Right time. Right place. Real steam engines. Real crashes.

[Johnmartine63]

For a moment, I thought it was real footage! Does that ever happen with a modren film?

[PetulantFilth]

Quite possibly the best war movie ever made.

[mitsubishi109]

two train drivers did not like this video

[pyrofella]

The best train movie ever.....it's on DVD....I never get tired of watching it...great scenes!

[pincbit]

thought it was von ryans express but its really the train with burt lancaster

[rogerghill]

it is a spitfire mk vd, clipped cropped and clapped

[nathanandrews100]

steam train chased by the airplane

[megatwingo]

Amazing scene. So much better without computer animations. Thumbs up!

[Dhfalcon62]

A great scene...from a great film!!

[Ballsarama]

The DVD has a commontary by John Frankenheimer about making the movie and what was involved for all the shots. According to him, that is a Spitfire...I don't remember, but he gave the model type and number. All the "bullet hits" were special effects explosives that were burried next to the tracks or on the train. They would never use live rounds to fire on the actors or crew that were filming the medium and close up shots. Also, the long shots of the train most likely did not have the actors.

[papoocanada]

Its all real, Director Frankenheimer was given carte blanche by the SNCF to use all the equipment he needed as it was destined for the scrap yard anyway. It was shot on an abandoned branch line in Calvados, France. Great movie. Spectacular.

[5thSSVikingDiv]

One of the best WWII movies ever made.

[TheBrett59]

every ounce of steam to the cylinders

[bassfrontier]

2:44 is one of the angriest scenes in film history. Very beautiful.

[bassfrontier]

Best film ever

[LycoValleyRRFan]

I love this film I hope know one will NEVER redo this. agree anyone.

[ironpirites]

Further on in the footage, when the plane is diving, it appears that the camera is mounted at the rear of the air intake under the fuselage. I'm convinced that it is a Mustang. Only the appearance of the tailplane looks like a Spitfire to me. Some Mustangs had Merlin engines, i found out, so the sound would be very Spitfire-like in those cases, anyway.

[CJLinton]

Its a Spitfire with clipped wings not a Mustang, you can see its cannon as it passes.

The 20mm cannon of a later mark spitfire would have ripped a train to shreds, in fact one hit on the boiler would have caused an explosion due to the steam pressure... so the only thing that is wrong with this peice of fiction is that it appears from the sound and visual effects to be firing machine guns and not cannon. But considering only one in a hundred historical films are accurate i'm not surprised.

[ironpirites]

The aircraft is not a Spitfire. The wings are square at the tips. I think the plane is a Mustang, but it is hard to tell for an amateur, without advancing the footage frame by frame. I think there is an air intake under the fuselage that is visible. The engine sounds right for a Spitfire, but I bet the sound was done in studio anyway. Great movie in any case.

[staydput]

A great out-take from "The Train"....

[nehax999]

superb movie :) my father used to watch this locomotive making maneuvers when he was young , in eastern france

[MiLLwallpaul231258]

yhow much "driving" did Burt actually do in this film?

[nath10144]

Great! Steam - The Best! =) Amazing Video, thanks for uploading!

[chitlika]

Spitfire has two 20mm cannon ..........One Pass No train no question

[xwingclass]

@chitlika just to ask but wouldn't the fighter pilot have taken the train side ways on.

[chitlika]

@xwingclass  Lots of high trees at the side of the track he wouldnt get much chance for a good shot

[davesgcr]

Great bit of filming - using a WW2 spitfire ace.(Taffy something or other)

An engine without a train does not have great brake force ...

Note the braking technigue - full Westinghouse application , release - then a bit more , plus reverse gear when nearly stopped. Proper .....railway procedures- but he should have dropped sand also !!!

[TheBrett59]

Damn talk about Emergency stop

[a78thafa]

oh the damage he'd have done to those wheels, Form 1 in the morning !!

[H34D5H0T0WN5]

Wow I just saw the movie on military channel and i loved the movie even though i was born in the late 1990's

[TheDepotCat]

@H34D5H0T0WN5 Do you think movies wern't any good before the 1990s..??

[tprdfh51]

Man those wheels are going to be skidded flat - I see brownies for the engineer!

[trainagri]

I LOVE THIS MOVIE !!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you

[sean57]

damn i love this movie!!!!! the way that Frankenheimer edited this!

[3NUNS]

I would throw lots of coal on the fire

[crazyracer12]

Thomas And Friends Brakes! :D

[DASCO2136]

@crazyracer12 before the show was even thought of or made i should point out. The film was made during the early-mid 1960s

[Mr21tomy]

i have it on DVD

[lalune1999]

love this movie, thx for uploading!

[GoldenCreekValleyRR]

did this really happen?

[robertgift]

Doubtful this would ever have happened.

They would move the engine at night.

When I first saw the Spitfire, I would have opened throttle full.

Stupid for them BOTH to get killed by one bullet.

Should have allowed him to keep waving.

Should have waved jacket.

Very well done scene. Difficult to coordinate.

[H34D5H0T0WN5]

@robertgift Watch the movie and you'll understand why it's daytime

[DASCO2136]

The whole plot line of the movie did in fact happen in real life. The filmmakers added more dramatic action scenes to the movie to make it more theatrical. This scene for instance was added in to the original script at a cost of 500,000 bucks. Today a scene like this would cost at least 5 million bucks. Also as a tidbit, they shot this scene in two takes. First attack run was using strobe lights. The other two attacks they used live rounds.

[GoldenCreekValleyRR]

ugh european trains. tje whistles are the worst but when they go againat spitfire they win in defense. like a 100 mph tank.

[Fridomfry]

Tragic, splendid scene. The Spitfire pilot might be the brother of the locomotive man. Pierre Clostermann, a Free French who served with the RAF, wrote in his memoirs about the bitter feeling he had when strafing locomotives in his own country, to paralyze all traffic behind the Western front.

[CyberFur]

u gotta love the 4-6-0 calss there great for films and have the best sounds even the whistle

[nzzyvtr]

owned

[sean57]

john frankenheimer one hell of a director!, burt lancaster, one hell of a actor!

one great movie!

check out the making of THE TRAIN that Spitfire scene cost him one million dollars to shoot! back in 64!

[robertgift]

What an excellent scene!

The strafing looked so real.

(Wonder how many takes it took to get it just right?)

Loved the sound of the engine when full throttle was applied.

First saw this scene on the Johnny Carson show in 1964(?).

[muddydisco4]

a superb film,real atmosphere and intensity. so much better than most of today's recycled rubbish

[spottydog4472]

All real footage...no digital cgi non sence here!

[Butchuk2007]

I read somewhere that some RAF squadrons would make a dummy pass on a train in Germam occupied Europe to allow the crew to stop the train and jump off before letting rip with bullets, cannon and rockets/bombs.

Don't know if it's true or not.

[dwarflord812]

poor train i would be scared to death if it were me

[ualien42]

i would go AA on that Spitfires ass, but its an ally, so i would find a 20mm bullet in my head

[CoD4gmr]

This was one of my favorite parts of the movie :)

[danlefou]

Correction; the "Bostons" were Invaders.

[danlefou]

Gorgeous clipped-wing Spit! Weren't there four Bostons earlier in the film, too?

The sound of the accelerating loco echoing around the valley is magnificent, like all the sound in this film. You can't beat the real thing recorded in the real place.

A bugbear in so many films is the use of stock sound not matched to the wheel revolutions of the loco. I once counted about 13 cylinders, in full forward gear on a loco coasting into a station! None of that guff in "The Train", mercifully.

[edwardianeccentric]

Shame it was instead let down by the dubbing over the majority of the french actors.

[up4004]

I heard the sound of the brakes on thomas & friends.

[01276]

and... not that uncommon for trains to use their brakes...

[TheBrett59]

@01276 thats an e-stop

[skullcrusher301]

@01276 i think he ment that the sound of the brakes from this movie were used on Thomas and Friends, like some brake sounds from the movie emperor of the north were used on thomas too.

[ShaurntheSheep]

@up4004 yeh your right its where henry crashes in to the sea in something in the air they must of used it

[ghfdfhfdndxhcg]

@up4004 L.O.L., I recognized it too! I never knew all those sound effects on Thomas the Tank Engine were recycled from old movies with trains.

[catherinefan32]

the brakes affect sounded in the tunnel was so cool i mean almost all the parts in this film looks as if they were from the railwayseries books

[01276]

hah long before reched thomas was invented

[catherinefan32]

you know about the  railway series

[RocksNotDead101]

@01276 Actually if memory serves me correct, the books were first published in 1945 (?).

[01276]

to try and show the pilot he was french rather than german

[TheBrett59]

@01276 who would treat a perfectly good locomotive like that

[donaldengine9]

Was that one guy who blew the whistle trying to surrender?

[Engineer5344]

nah, he was just i think either pissed off or glad that they were not shot

[lennyos]

I vote on pissed that the allies shot at him.

[edwardianeccentric]

Outlay of adrenaline fuelled emotion I suppose- why scream when the engine can do it for you?

[coalb389]

Why scream at them if you could just blow out their eardrums

[earv79]

It was planes like the Spitfire that would Strafe supply trains

[stationendproduction]

i dont understand why a pilot would be going after a light engine, great film though

[jimmyp42002]

Thats one engine less to pull the supplys...

[heartlandrails]

the engine was considered a target of opportunity by the spit. after primary mission was complete, with whatever fuel was left in their plane, the pilots had instructions to attack anything that could be used in the war effort = engines. we've all seen the classic WWII clips of the P51 strafing the French train and the engine blows up like the USS Arizona did.

[MEJ3783]

Great Film, extremely impressive "stunts"- cant get that sort of gritty realism with CGI!!!

Cheers for posting!

[TheDarkFalcon]

Fukn aye

[ManenQ]

damn spitfire

[andyg3]

..........

tis one of the bets planes ever

[rboltt]

What a great film this is! John Frankenheimer was one of the most underappreciated directors ever. Live action sequences rule, CGI is "for the birds!"

[EtienneBalderston]

looks really interesting, what country are those trains from? surely not britain? no resemblence to ny of the big four or br?

[01276]

SNCF Frence or German locos

[Paraffinmeister]

Their French

[Engineer5344]

can someone put the scene up where the yard is bout to get blown up, and papa boul comes screaming thru. great movie.

[LatteLiberal]

Some people think this is a "war" movie. It's not. It's about the interpersonal drama, resourcefulness, pride, good vs evil and passion. See it.

[livesteam]

Ha! I remember this film: The Train;

Great movie! Thanks

[jeorge345]

Didnt a similar thing happen to a GWR passenger train during WWII? Where a German fighter plane Chased the train and driver stopped it in the Severn tunnel?

[gargh]

Thats right, and to my knowledge it was carrying children being evacuated from London.

[aeolus925]

I always thought this scene was implausible, until I learned its historical basis. What incredibly good luck!

[edwardianeccentric]

Yup- apparently the driver threw the 60mph blanket limit to the wind and was touching 90 before they stopped!

[coalb389]

thats a friggin fast train