Greetings family, friends and train buddies. Today's rambling and vintage postcard is about the "Runaway Train" attraction that startled riders on Universal City's "Glam Trams" in the 1970's and 80's. Hang on to your hats! Bill
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UNIVERSAL HOLLYWOOD’S RUNAWAY TRAIN
Ever since Carl Laemmle opened his Universal City to to the public to
see the interworkings of a movie studio in 1915, guests have been pouring into the San Fernando Valley destination by the millions to see the historic back lot, film sets, potential star sightings and signature staged events and attractions. For a nickle early day guests were encouraged to roam the extensive former Taylor Ranch, purchase fresh produce, and to sit on wooden bleachers to watch the action on various sets while enjoying a chicken box lunch. Public tours were discontinued around 1930 because the increased noise and since the studio sound stage buildings were not sufficiently sound proofed. Tours were not resumed until 1964 following the purchase of Universal Pictures by Music Corporation of America. Eager to increase profit’s, MCA opened the studio commissary to the public and initiated tours of stars dressing rooms and peeks of live production from the comfort of narrated “Glamour Trams”. As on-location shooting increased and fewer movies were being filmed on the lot, tram tours were ramped up with staged attractions including a Mexican village flash flood and the parting of the sea threatening to swamp trams, the near miss of styrofoam rock slide, a dizzying revolving tunnel and heart stopping collapsing bridge. In the studio’s western set a gonging wig wag signal warns of a runaway steam locomotive with glaring headlamp and screeching brakes that narrowly misses a certain collision with a tram full of guests that has become stuck in the tracks. The staged realistic Runaway Train attraction that frightened tram riders between 1974 and 1985 was a actually a replica steam loco constructed by the Universal Studio’s Special Effects Department that was set in motion with compressed air. No longer a back lot superstar, the slowly weathering faux #67 iron horse is now a static prop that was upstaged by an oversize gorilla nearly forty years ago.
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