DESERT CENTER, Calif. — A 22-year-old college student has saved a piece of movie history: The full-size plywood replica of Southern Pacific “Daylight” No. 4449 that was used in the 1986 film “Tough Guys.”
The plywood 4-8-4 has been sitting largely forgotten in a California warehouse for more than 30 years. Last month, an auction house listed the prop along with other items online, including a former Eagle Mountain Railroad caboose. [See “Plywood ‘Daylight’ replica from 1980s movie up for auction,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 25, 2019.] The auction was held on Nov. 2.
While a few people expressed interest in the prop, 22-year-old Anthony Williams emerged the winner with a $130 bid. Williams is a volunteer at the Northern California Museum of Transportation in Oroville and plans on displaying the prop at the museum. “I thought that since no other museum was interested, why not take the initiative if it was cheap enough and purchase it myself,” Williams tells Trains News Wire.
In “Tough Guys,” Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas play two old-school gangsters just released from 30 years in prison after robbing a fictional SP passenger train called the Gold Coast Flyer. Dismayed by modern life, the two men decide to rob the train on its final run.
While Lancaster and Douglas are prominently featured in the film, 4-8-4 No. 4449 is the real star of the movie. The locomotive was moved from its home in Portland, Ore., to California, where parts of the movie were filmed on the Eagle Mountain Railroad, a now-defunct iron ore road.
In the movie’s grand finale, Lancaster and Douglas’ characters, Harry Doyle and Archie Long, crash No. 4449 through a bumper post and across the U.S.-Mexico border. Because SP No. 4449’s crew was not willing to let the filmmakers crash the real 4-8-4 off the end-of-track, they were forced to build a full-scale replica (the actual crash scene was filmed with a smaller model).
Williams says the locomotive portion of the prop is badly deteriorated but the tender is in surprisingly good shape. Williams is currently focusing on removing the most valuable parts of the prop, like the tender panels lettered “Southern Pacific” and the number boards.
Tough Guys did very poorly at the box office and for good reasons. The whole premise was outdated and ridiculous. Nice to see a prop was saved. I remember when 4449 came to L.A. in 1986 for filming of the movie.
Mr. Lemen: And I spent a very enjoyable afternoon in that dome obs singing along with your excellent musician ship between Birmingham and “Knaw–Lens”. Accessibility to suitable libations was also a pleasant part of the package! Thanks for bringing back a very pleasant memory!!
When a campaign was engineered in 1966 by three college students at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington IL to keep the CB&Q’s steam program in place, despite the railroad’s cancellation plans, we were about the same age as Anthony. Fighting under the name SPUR, Inc., the group lost its ultimate battle with the “Q”, but wound up with hundreds of supporters who had written letters to their newspapers and legislators. Starting with an 0-4-0 saddletank locomotive from an Indiana gravel pit, SPUR ultimately became the Monticello Railway Museum. Now, 53 years later, the all-volunteer museum has bought and restored a 1907 Southern Railway 2-8-0 (No. 401), gotten Norfolk & Western to donate the last F7-A built in Canada and restored it (Wabash No. 1189), and bought an Illinois Central branchline to gain access from its grounds northeast of town into downtown Monticello. My advice to Anthony: Don’t be afraid of big projects, as your age doesn’t matter, but your enthusiasm and perseverance do. I’d gladly kick in a few bucks if a fund was established to move this replica and do the necessary work to stabilize its condition for display. Many great ideas start with just a couple of people willing to take the first step. The good news–you already have a museum where it could be included as a display and don’t have to start from scratch. As a side note, No. 4449 is very dear to my heart, as I rode every mile of its return from Florida to Portland in 1977 following the end of the American Freedom Train. On the Florida to Birmingham portion in January, and again on the Birmingham to Los Angeles portion in April, I played piano in the ex-Wabash dome-lounge-observation car No. 9310. Because the car wouldn’t fit through snow sheds between LA and Portland, the piano playing part of my trip was over, and I got to enjoy the ride with an SP obs on the end.
A lot of people have good intentions (you know where those lead) but this young man put feet to his dreams. Way to go, Anthony!
I’m impressed, congratulations Anthony!
SCHOLARSHIP AMERICA
I wonder if anyone’s also aware of how a bunch of Thomas and Friends fans found the prop replica of Lady the Lost Engine from “Thomas and the Magic Railroad” almost two years ago, purchased it, won two court cases over its ownership and got it to Florida? Anyway, best of luck to anyone who finds these kinds of props and gets them fixed because these are very rare to find. (I’m actually named Wilson and am biologically male, by the way; Mary is just my mother’s name.)