There are no American railroading films I know of

JonMyrlennBailey

Active member
that are free of graphic violence and are suitable for small children to watch.

Railroading films would be chiefly centered around trains and train life.

Some TV series, songs and films in our culture have portrayed railroad employees as crude, violent, drunkard, slobs, anti-social, and savage. Yard bosses, conductors and division supers have been portrayed as men of iron with blood of snakes. They are portrayed as hating gentle-natured hobos and RR trespassers as if they were rats with the deadly plague. Train jumpers' being brutally beaten or killed by RR employees is a common scene in train-related film about freight-hopping. I don't know if real-world American RR's are this bad. I have seen some RR employees that can be ornery, however, particularly on Cal-Trans in the SF Bay Area in California. Some SP workers there have been unfriendly when I once dropped a small stone off a pedestrian bridge onto the cab top of an SP switch engine as a teenage juvenile delinquent while some SP engineers have waved at me as a little boy near the grade crossings. I have been on some passenger trains with rude personnel: namely Cal-Trans. Amtrak personnel weren't very sympathetic to me as a paying passenger when I complained about the California Zephyr's being five hours late to Denver in the mid-'80's as well as my gripes about the questionable quality of the diner food. Some RR workers seem anti-social like many local transit bus drivers, not nice and friendly like most well-dressed Greyhound drivers in my traveling experience.

However, children's songs and story books often portray trains as cute-sy, innocent and fun things.

There is a mish-mash of both positive and negative "choo-choo" imagery in our culture.

Amtrak's horrible safety record is not helping to engender a warm, fuzzy feeling about trains to boot. Much of that former train fuzziness and warmth was felt in the 1950's when Santa Fe ran that elegant, silver, long and glamorous Supercheif and El Capitan train. These modern Amtraks are carelessly-operated massive man-killing machines on iron highways. Railroads are seen by the public as corporate, reckless and ruthless in placing profits above the value of human flesh.
 
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Well there certainly is no shortage of documentaries about American trains and railroading, however I don't know if they will keep a childs attention.
 
The trains at Disneyland pulled by steam engines are about the warmest and fuzziest images of American railroading remaining and certainly they are suitable for youngsters: nothing graphic, violent and vulgar about them. Nothing about them that suggests RR workers and corporate executives are evil monsters or profit-hungry. Those little puffer bellies seem innocent enough in the public eye. The Napa Valley Wine Train has a more adult theme.

There was a train-related episode of Little House on the Prairie about children trapped on a runaway caboose, but all was well when nobody got hurt in the end and that was a child-friendly family-oriented program.

"Silver Streak", "Danger Lights", "Runaway Train" and "Emperor of the North" depict violence and/or profanity.

There was another old movie on TV I saw when I was 12, can't remember the name, about freight-hoppers and the railroad's effort to catch them. Can't remember if there was violence. There was a modern TV show about teenage boys who hopped a freight in more modern times but got beat up by RR personnel because the train jumpers were viewed as a potential lawsuit against the RR for liability. Heat sensors detected them in the boxcar. Whether real American RR companies are that ruthless, I don't know. There was another story about a woman who was harassed by UP security personnel (RR police) for merely crossing the train tracks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/us/complaints-rise-against-nations-railroad-police.html
 
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I was hoping that everyone would just simply "ignore" this thread ... and the odd thread would just fade away into oblivion ... but NO

I rented RR video tapes by the hundreds from a video tape rental company ... There were Pentrex, Green Frog ... etc ... etc ... I bought sound effect CD's and video DVD's at RR conventions, Trains and ModelRailroader magazines had dozens of advertisements for them, and online

Trains and Trainz are just really boring (just as Cruise Ship simulator, Trash Truck simulator, NYC EMT simulator, Coal Mining simulator, must be), and would not hold the attention span of children.

Unless a movie has crash's, a plot, and suspense ... A train is just another boring mode of transportation device

Small children and trains ... Ahh Hmmm ?

Why ... Do you have small children ?
 
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Sounds like a winge thread about trains and quality of service
Most kids wouldn't know one countrys trains from another in a film
Have they watched Thomas
Better not some of them are grumpy
 
Don't know if Thomas the Tank Engine is satisfies your criteria but I think it's great! There's another somewhat similar program called Chuggingtons, that's also violence-free and very entertaining. These are kids' shows of course, maybe not what you are looking for.
Mick
 
Another pointless thread in Prototype Talk with scant relevance to Trainz. :)

However in attempt to be helpful...

Unstoppable might fit the bill for the OP not having any gratuitous violence, albeit the depiction of rw events was spiced up to make the movie appeal to non rail enthusiasts. Or there's always Polar Express at Christmas, if you don't mind trains that climb or descend 50% gradients and can run on icy lakes.

Otherwise you need to go back to the 50's, 60's or earlier before movies required s£x, violence and numerous f and c bombs to bring in the audience.
 
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