"La bataille du rail" train wreck scene, real or model?

[willysmb44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Rails

Has anyone else ever seen this film? Pretty dry stuff but the trains and military equipment is quite amazing, especially showing German (captured French, really) tanks riding armored trains to take out resistance fighters when needed.

The wreck near the end, to me, looks like the real deal. It sure doesn't look like a model to me, especially for as far away as they filmed it (and the final scene that looks like it was taken from another train going past the site of the wreck). German Halftracks and tanks go flying off dozens of flatcars.

Does anyone know where that was filmed and if they used the real stuff or was this one of the best model scenes in movie history?

[gwb123]

If that is fake, it is very well done.

[manayunkman]

No German vehicles were harmed during the making of this film.

 

[paul_bish]

doesn't look like a model to me

[Squad leader]

It is completely real. Absolutely no FX in this scene. The movie was made 2 or 3 years after the end of the war. A lot of German stuff and vehicules was still around. Dozens of real German vehicules were used for this scene.

 

Dan.

[Powerhouse]

In complement, the exact spot where the sequence was filmed :

"The scene of the derailment of rolling German military train short ( "tight on signals") behind the armored train Apfelkern was shot just outside the Tregrom station in the Cotes d'Armor, towards Rennes on an embankment that spans the river the Léguer (48 ° 36'18N - 3 24'56O). For the scene, traveling at contrevoie. The scene was performed without special effects, this is a real process that is launched in the valley." (extract from french wiki page of the film)

 

[sgtdorango]

Wow!....i bet you could find some cool stuff if you went metal detecting at that original location....mike

[BILL THE PATCH]

I was thinking the same thing Mike, lol

 

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

 

 

[willysmb44]

Yep, that's where I was going with it, as well. With all the German collectors in Europe, I bet that hillside has been walked plenty of times by folks. Can you imagine the nightmare of cleaning that mess up afterward?

Also, it's surprising that anyone was willing to wreck a locomotive (and all those flatcars) in 1946, as the French didn't exactly have a glut of RR equipment lying around after the war...

[manayunkman]

That's a lot of razor blades.

 

I wonder if, in 1946, people cheered during during that sequence?

 

That accordion sums up the futility of war.

[willysmb44]

I wonder if, in 1946, people cheered during during that sequence?

A French audience? I bet they did...

[GITom1944]

That's amazing. I'd never heard of this movie before. I'll have to check it out.

 

Tom

[stratasfan]

It is a fabulous movie! Of course, for those of us who can't speak French, the subtitles work very well! I am always trying to get anything on the French Resistance, and was finally able to get this through a State College library. Very worth the time of viewing! I've read about this film for years, as it was made by a prominent French director. A lot of the people who are in it were real French Rail Resistance members, too. Nothing Hollywood-ized here! Very real.

 

Another really good film along a similar nature, is the British 1944 film, "Now It Can Be Told", about SOE agents who are snet into France. Shows a lot of cool stuff about Allied agents setting up networks in France, as well as SOE agent training.