Desperados Waiting For A Train (To Stop!)

[Bob Boze Bell]

May 24, 2012

Working on finishing our train issue. I have a pet peeve about horseback riders attacking a train, as they invariably do in the movies (think Shanghai Noon where Owen Wilson channels Led Zeppelin and rides down a hill with other outlaws to rob a train). Most horses hate trains and want nothing to do with riding up next to them, EVEN when they're standing still! Think about it: the train is made of metal. The engineer can duck down. They don't have to pull over.

 

The reality of robbing trains in the Old West was to sneak up on the engineer from over the coal car and at gunpoint make him stop the train, or, to put obstacles on the track, or derail the train. In my humble estimation, the absolute best portrayal of this, on film, is a Western that was a box office disaster. Can you name it?

   I have spent some time studying the Old Vaqueros. I love their look and regret their current assimilation into the mainstream North American Cowboy Look.

 

 

"Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard."

—Old Vauqero Saying

[Dave McGowan]

I like this and your thoughts. I've been troubled during the last two novels with a similar idea. I'd like to have an "escapee" from the south enter one of my stories and be differently dressed in a "radical" way.

[David Lambert]

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES. The Best Western of the past 20 years, I'd say.

[Sue Cauhape]

BBB, I gotta take issue with your belief that the vaquero/buckaroo is disappearing. They don't think so, and here's proof: http://www.thecalifornios.com/

I was so taken with the buckaroo tradition that is still practiced in northern Nevada, southwestern Oregon and California that I included it in my novel, Paradise Ridge. The mainstream cowboy look you're referring comes out of Texas and Montana. And then there's the Hawai'ian cowboy, but that's a different story.

BTW, I love the watercolor. And I especially LOVE the mule, long ears and all. With vaquero tack, he sure cleans up purty.

[Steve Sanders]

Name That BO Disaster:  "The Assassination of Jesse James"?

[Jim Pettengill]

Another way that was used was easier - steam locomotives have to stop for water at regular intervals.  Robbers would wait at the water tank, then get the drop when the train stopped.  This method was documented in records of the Rio Grande Southern in southwestern Colorado.

 

The Denver & Rio Grande announced a novel anti-robber system in Colorado newspapers - haven't been able to verify yet whether it was ever actually used (but I'm working on it) - they rigged a steam pipe from the boiler to send a jet of superheated steam directly at the top of the tender, so that the engineer or fireman (they had two valves so either could do this) could literally cook any robber coming over the top.  Ouch!

[Daniel E. Alcocer]

was the movie " The Long Riders"

[Stan H]

I have long questiond Hollywood's idea of a bunch of owlhoots racing their horses along side a train and swinging aboard. Those were some very well trained horses, plus the fact that the footing on the railroad bed would be a disaster for any running horse. I recall as a kid walking along side a train track. Those rock beds were difficult to walk on, much less try to run on.

 

 

[Bob Boze Bell]

Yes, the box office disaster I was referencing is "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Not only is the robbery accurate, down to the feed sacks on the head, but the way it plays out with the shadows and music is poetic. I swear, that movie is a classic and it is a crying shame that it tanked so badly. The artists who made it deserve more than the grief they all received for it (Brad Pitt mentioned in an interview I read that he lost a bunch of his own money because he believed in it).

[JimB]

Hey BBB,

A quick change of subject for a moment - an impressive collection of photos are at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-y...

I enjoyed.  Thought you might as well.  Have a great weekend.

[Jim Holden]

I always thought the way the "Wild Bunch" took the Army Munitions train in "The Wild Bunch" was pretty classic, although not as true to life as the train robbery in "The Assassination of Jesse James"  I think all the horse chases of trains was purely a Hollywood invention.  Most of the time the robbers had someone on the train to stop it, or used obstacles to stop it....fancy horse riding seemed to be a real Hollywood "thing".