This film was shown on one of the Satellite Film Channels today and it proved a little bit unusual with the stars of the film being the trains on this railway.

The film was directed by Byron Haskin who had great ability in bringing action stories to the screen – just before this he had done a superb job directing ‘Treasure Island’ for Walt Disney at Denham Films studios – Walt Disney’s first venture in to live=actio films as opposed to cartoon features – after this came ‘His Majesty O’Keefe’ and The Naked

Back in 1952, the film “Denver and Rio Grande” by Paramount Pictures was filmed on the actual Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado!

The film dramatised the history of the building of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in which the D&RGW and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (called the Cañon City & San Juan RR in the movie) clashed while trying to compete for space to build their tracks.

The two rival track gangs actually had armed confrontations for trackage rights along narrow canyons and gorges while constructing their own separate railroads!

The film starred Edmond O’Brien and Sterling Hayden and featured a staged head on train crash in which the 2-8-0 Locomotives 268 and 319 were used. Both locomotives were donated by the D&RG because they were destined to be scrapped at the time.

Note: Notice the pyrotechnics went off a split second before the two engines actually collide!

Although damaged was severe to both locomotives, they somehow managed to remain upright on the track after the explosions and crash!