I can't find any information on the set they used where the locomotive is upside down and all the cars and the caboose are half buried in sand. I was mesmerized by the location.
Does anyone know anything about the set?
Also, I admit to tuning out parts of the movie because I get distracted, but I missed why the train was even up on a sand dune in the first place. Story wise, can someone help me out?
thanks!
"but I missed why the train was even up on a sand dune in the first place. Story wise, can someone help me out?"
I can try skyspectre but to be honest some things didn't make a lot of sense to me with this particular story line.
Mrs Lowe's husband along with a group of seven other train robbers were supposed to have robbed a train of some $500 000 in gold some time before. The gold was secreted in a hidden location that Mr Lowe supposedly had told Mrs Lowe about, before being shot in a "house of ill repute".
The train wreck does look spectacular silhouetted as it is, against the desert background. I think we are supposed to believe the desert has reclaimed the former railway line or something along those lines. But I don't for the life of me understand why the rail company or the Pinkerton Detective Agency needed to follow Mrs Lowe to recover the gold. Nor did I understand why they rode cross country to reach the destination. It surely had to be somewhere near the rail line itself...the caboose filled with sacks of gold. So why didn't they just follow the railway line?
May be some one can clarify that for me, as it didn't really add up.
Interesting, so maybe I didn't really miss that much. I thought maybe there was a scene with a specific explanation of how the train even got up there.
So I guess it was just a cool looking set.
I had another listen to Lane's 20 second explanation for the train being there and yes, surprise, surprise...it doesn't make things any clearer at all. You definitely didn't miss much.
Five years before, after the train robbery, Mr Lowe and two other robbers take the "Fargo caboose" into the Mexican desert to hide it. How they do that without rail lines, lugging all that weight through sand is never explained.
So yeah I think we're just expected to think it's a cool looking set and forget about the logic of the whole thing.
It's two different trains; and two different rail lines. The train that was robbed was in the US. The overturned train was deep into Mexico. Lowe's gang didn't take the robbed train's caboose into Mexico. The caboose is for the train crew (conductor and the brake men). Railroads shipped gold and other valued cargo in a guarded mail car.
Matt Lowe's gang only took the strongbox, with the $500,000 in gold, from the mail car of the robbed train. The gang split up as soon they left the robbed train. Matt Lowe, the gang's boss, took the strongbox with him, with the intent of hiding it somewhere. Then he intent to return with the gang to split the gold up, much later, after the hunt for the train robbers had cooled down.
The wrecked train, in the Mexican desert, was an old train wreck that happened many years before the robbery of the US train. It was a timber train that ran from an area that was still green and had trees to a unnamed large Mexican town - probably Mexico City. (It was a quick, offhanded comment, but Lane calls it "a timber train.") The tracks had been laid across the desert when it was more stable, but as time when on, erosion undermined the track, and the train ran off the track and tumbled down the ridge. The rail line that the timber train ran on was on the ridge above where the locomotive and the two logging flat cars had tumbled down from. (That train's caboose was probably still sitting on the rails.) The logging company pulled up stakes and left the train were it was.
Matt Lowe was looking for a good place to hide the strongbox. He could of hidden it in a group of rocks or buried it next to a tree; but when he stumbled across the old wreck, in the sands of Mexico, he decided it would be real clever to hide the strongbox in the firebox/boiler of the upside down locomotive. (According to a short conversation between Grady and Jesse.)
No one knew where Matt Lowe hid the strongbox except Matt Lowe, and Lillie when Lowe told her later (at the cathouse.) And after Lowe was killed only Lillie knew. The railroad nor the detective did not have a clue. The detective did suspect that Lowe might have told Lillie before he died; which is why he was following her. The gang and those that joined them also followed Lillie because they thought that Matt might have told her where the strongbox was.
Lane, "Mrs. Lowe," and Lane's boys rode "cross county" to get to where the strongbox was hidden. They may have rode as much as 200 miles. It wasn't until they got close to where the strongbox was hidden when Lillie told them the strongbox was in the firebox/boiler of the old wrecked locomotive.
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. It sounds very logical and believable. The only thing I'm is curious about is, was it actually outlined like that in the film (I don't own a copy)?
I remember Lane gave (what I thought) was a very brief exposition at the start of the movie, which appeared to contain far less detail than you've supplied and then I can't remember much else being said. For example I don't recall any discussion about 2 different train lines and my recollection is that the detective hardly said a word the whole movie, until right at the end when he appeared to join up with "Mrs Lowe".
Perhaps I missed it. But like I said, what you offer makes a hell of a lot more sense than I personally garnered from the movie and I gather...the OP as well.
I'm sorry, I didn't see this until today - almost a year later. After "Mrs. Lowe" tells Lane and the others where the stolen gold is hidden, Jesse and Grady have a conversation (while they are riding their horses) about Lowe "robbing one train and hiding the gold in another" where a lot of this information comes from.
It's a minor point but I have slight heartburn with the Ricardo Montalban character identifying himself as a Wells Fargo Detective and Lane calling him a "Pinkerton Man." And yes I know he's called that in the cast list too; but if he's a Wells Fargo Detective he's not a Pinkerton. Wells Fargo hired their own detectives. The Pinkerton Agency were their rivals.
Pinkerton was the first and largest of the private detective agencies in the 19th century. I don't know, but it might be that 'Pinkerton Man' became a synonym for detective the way 'Jeep' became a synonym for any 4x4 after WW2. That explanation would, at least provide cover for 'Lane.'
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
Could be, I thought about that myself.
sharesilvercometred1: I wanted to thank you for detailed explanation. It helps in understanding the movie.
My 150 (or so) favorite movies:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070122364/
Hello Lithotomy, did you happen to read my answer to your question? I had respond to Spooky Rat and it just dawned on me that you may not have read it.
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