Harriman, Tennessee
Harriman, Tennessee, is a major railroad
junction where Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific's Cincinnati to
Harriman line [known around the world as the "Rat Hole Division" because of the
huge number of tunnels on the line] meets with Norfolk Southern's lines to
Knoxville, Chattanooga and Atlanta. Harriman is also the site of a Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA) coal-fired generating plant.
The majority of the train scenes in
October Sky were filmed around Harriman. Many of the scenes were
filmed inside TVA property and are not accessible to the public today.
39. Train with Homer. The real Homer Hickam, Jr. is in the cab.
The train was brought in from
Chattanooga, Tennessee, just for the filming of October Sky. The
picture was taken in Harriman, Tennessee. Photo courtesy of the Baxter and
Shelby Trail collection.
40. Train with Homer in Harriman, Tennessee. Photo
courtesy of the Baxter and Shelby Trail collection.
41. Train with Homer. Photo courtesy of
the Baxter and Shelby Trail collection.
42. Train with Homer in Harriman, Tennessee. Photo
courtesy of the Baxter and Shelby Trail collection.
Links
Movie Train
The steam locomotive used in the movie October Sky belongs to the Tennessee
Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Rail Transportation
Management Specialists (RTMS) was hired by the movie production company to
coordinate all of the railroad equipment used in the movie. This included
getting the Norfolk Southern railway to move the steam locomotive and a train of
coal cars from Chattanooga to the filming locations around Knoxville. RTMS
has to insure that trains were in the right place each day, that the proper
permits had been obtained, that security was available, and a thousand other
things. The RTMS web site used to have many pictures of the filming of
October Sky and contains a lot of information on everything RTMS had to do
for the filming. Unfortunately, all of the October Sky material has
been removed. (We suspect their may have been copyright issues with
Universal Pictures.)
http://www.rtms-movietrains.com/index.htm
