Songs and Movies with Trains in...

[MichaelGreenhill]

THE worst train-related movie has to be Atomic Train

Basically this dude smuggles a russian nuclear warhead (jeeze, thats original) onboard a train headed by a couple of D9's. Well, about 20 mins into the movie, the air hose breaks, and guess what? the train just continues to gain speed travelling out of control down a mountain and into denver

now, call me stupid, but when a brake hose breaks, then dont the breaks come ON?

well anyway, the nuke goes off, poisoning thousands of people and destroying the city of denver.

[dforrest]

For a "song" (album) what about "The Ballad of John Axon". Anyone remember this? I have it on CD.

[markw]

Going left field for a mo, the worst song with a train reference has to be "I Treni di Tozeur", Italy's 1984 Song Contest entry which came 5th, God knows how. It's a dirge. Translated lyrics are

In the frontier villages, they watch the trains pass by so slowly
And roads are deserted in Tozeur

From a house far away, your mother observes me
And she remembers me for my very special ways

Then, for just a moment, my longing to live at another pace begins to waken in me
Still they pass, still very slowly, the trains for Tozeur

In the churches, God-forsaken, shelters are being prepared
And new ships for trips among the stars

In an old empty mine, vast stretches of salt
And a memory of me, like into a magic spell

Then, for just a moment, my longing to live at another pace begins to waken in me
Still they pass, still very slowly, the trains for Tozeur

Mmm...
Day do da bo day day do day day doo da ba da ba da day...
Do da da day day da da...

In the frontier villages, they watch the trains pass by for Tozeur

So, the first recorded incident of a Eurovision song about trainspotting. Keeping the Eurovision theme, Imaani's second placed UK entry "Where are you" from 1998 has to be my favourite as I was in the audience at the time. Contains the lyric:

"Riding along on an empty train"

Well, she was from Derby, so must have been referring to the Matlock branch.

Films? Brief Encounter (lots of LMS goodies) and the episode of the Avengers "A funny thing happened on the way to the station" which has some early electric AL6 scenes, together with some spectacularly bad carriage mock-ups. Also the early Ealing disaster movie "Train of Events" with Jack Warner features some nice ex LMS scenes, but a not too convincing model for the crash. Watch out for the strings on the model Stanier coaches....

[Goingnorth]

Here’s another couple:

Oasis (again), Right here, right now

Step off the train on a lonely dawn
Back to the home where I was born
Sun in the sky never reasoned after me
Blood on the tracks and it must be mine
Fuel on the hill and I feel fine
Don’t look back cos You’ll know what you might see

Sounds more like a punch-up on the southern during rush hour to me rather than getting of a Arriva 158 at Burnage. he he

How about, Madonna, Justify my love

I wanna run naked in a rain storm
Make love in a train cross-country

MMMmm....wondered why those Voyager bogs were so large...

[bjdick]

How about "The Indian Pacific" By Slim Dusty.Who?? Mike should know.

[madmardy]

best film with trains in that i like is silver streak with richard pryor and gene wilder.

also did anyone see that episode of the detectives where they are carrying a prisoner on a train which was supposed i think to be modern day yet it was some preserved railway with i think crimson coaches.
(maybe the north york moors railway?)

[MikeM7044T]

Thomas and the Magic Roundabout

the magic roundabout, are you sure?!

[jklnonesuch]

For a "song" (album) what about "The Ballad of John Axon". Anyone remember this? I have it on CD.

Used to have a version of it on vinyl and lost it. An album by (?) Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl called 'The Angry Muse'.

I also know that the lyric was used in school poetry anthologies in the 60s/70s

[jklnonesuch]

Going left field for a mo, the worst song with a train reference has to be "I Treni di Tozeur", Italy's 1984 Song Contest entry which came 5th, God knows how. It's a dirge. Translated lyrics are

In the frontier villages, they watch the trains pass by so slowly
And roads are deserted in Tozeur

From a house far away, your mother observes me
And she remembers me for my very special ways

Then, for just a moment, my longing to live at another pace begins to waken in me
Still they pass, still very slowly, the trains for Tozeur

In the churches, God-forsaken, shelters are being prepared
And new ships for trips among the stars

In an old empty mine, vast stretches of salt
And a memory of me, like into a magic spell

Then, for just a moment, my longing to live at another pace begins to waken in me
Still they pass, still very slowly, the trains for Tozeur

Mmm...
Day do da bo day day do day day doo da ba da ba da day...
Do da da day day da da...

In the frontier villages, they watch the trains pass by for Tozeur

So, the first recorded incident of a Eurovision song about trainspotting. Keeping the Eurovision theme, Imaani's second placed UK entry "Where are you" from 1998 has to be my favourite as I was in the audience at the time. Contains the lyric:

"Riding along on an empty train"

Well, she was from Derby, so must have been referring to the Matlock branch.

No offence meant, but how the hell do you get to know this kind of thing?

[markw]

Exactly the same way as you learn anything about railways. By being interested in a subject and reading about it.

I'm proud to be a Eurovision fan as it allows me the moral high ground when others start sneering at it because it's not trendy according to some magazine full of Shitegeist. I actually have a recording of "I Treni di Tozeur" on a CD which is how I know it's a dirge. The lyric translation comes from one of the many Eurovision websites (plus a little Italian translation myself). There are sites on the Contest's history, scoring, alleged voting preferences, lyrics, MP3's of the songs, discussion boards that make the most flame debate here seem like a damp squib, just try typing in "Eurovision Song Contest" into Google and see what comes up.

Simple, really.

[Goingnorth]

Thing is about Eurovision is everyone sneers at at, but everyone watches it! I know I do...he he..Not cos of the musical content but because it's cult viewing and flippin good fun.

[jklnonesuch]

Exactly the same way as you learn anything about railways. By being interested in a subject and reading about it.

I'm proud to be a Eurovision fan as it allows me the moral high ground when others start sneering at it because it's not trendy according to some magazine full of Shitegeist. I actually have a recording of "I Treni di Tozeur" on a CD which is how I know it's a dirge. The lyric translation comes from one of the many Eurovision websites (plus a little Italian translation myself). There are sites on the Contest's history, scoring, alleged voting preferences, lyrics, MP3's of the songs, discussion boards that make the most flame debate here seem like a damp squib, just try typing in "Eurovision Song Contest" into Google and see what comes up.

Simple, really.

Respect

[markw]

Being a Eurovision fan has other spin offs. Like I've become addicted to the Daily Baltic News website covering Estonia (this year's hosts) and Latvia (next year's hosts) where I got this gem of "news" from today:

"SONKAJARVI, Finland (CITY PAPER) Estonians are once again savouring victory in a sport in which they have become acknowledged world masters: wife carrying. Estonian husband and wife Mellis Tammre and Anna Zilberberg grabbed the tenth annual World Wife-Carrying Championship title in Sonkajarvi, Finland over the weekend—making it five straight victories for Estonians in the unlikely but increasingly popular event. The competition, widely covered by international media, involved husbands carrying their wives around a 254-meter course that included hurdles and chest-high water pools. Some 6,000 people watched 36 couples take part in the event in the small Finnish town as Tammre and Zilberberg edged out a second place Finnish team; Americans, Norwegians, Dutch and Britons also took part. The most favoured style for carrying wives is with the women upside down and her thighs gripping the man's head and her arms wrapped around his stomach; the technique, developed by previous Estonian champions, has been dubbed "the
Estonia carry."

I've heard it called some things, but the Estonia Carry is a new one on me.

[micksasse]

... and in any case the line to Tozeur is freight-only, though definitely dusty. Thought everyone knew that. Mind, you can still see some fine diesels around Tunisia, a land almost entirely bereft of DMUs - and indeed apparently also of silencers

Talking about films (I wasn't), has anyone mentioned the truly dreadful "The Cassandra Crossing" from some time in the 1970s? Plot (such as it is) being that some terrorist bloke nicks an experimental virus from a Geneva lab and proceeds to infect an express train. In its credit, it does at least consist of SBB stock initially pulled by an Re4/4II. But its downhill from there as the train gets sealed to travel - gasp - across the Iron Curtain to be fumigated somewhere in Poland, but doesn't make it. The fact that it doesn't is not really surprising as we see a deeply convincing (not) HO scale model of an SNCF BB63000 fall off the collapsing equally unconvincing model of what's in fact the Viaduc du Garabit (that quite cool one built by Eiffel). Several fairly fundamental problems there, then...........

Obscure music reference? "Crying" by Björk: "I travel all around this city, Go in and out of locomotives" - like most of her lyrics, total nonsense that nonetheless seems to mean something... I think

[markw]

That makes the song even more surreal. Why write a Eurovision entry about a freight only line?

Anyone up for writing us an up-tempo disco number about the Middleton Towers sand branch at King's Lynn for us to showcase in Riga next year?