The Silver Streak
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Tommy Atkins
Sally Blane
Charles Starrett
William Farnum
Hardie Albright
Irving Pichel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
As part of a plan to increase railroad ridership, engineer Tom Caldwell presents his design for a revolutionary, aerodynamic diesel train to the board of Barney J. Dexter's railroad company. The conservative board members reject Tom's design, however, and Tom quits the firm in frustration. Sure that Tom's ideas are sound, Barney's daughter Ruth talks Ed Tyler, a locomotive manufacturer, into looking at Tom's design. Unlike Dexter, Tyler is impressed with The Silver Streak and initiates immediate construction. Soon Tom and his work team complete a prototype and prepare to demonstrate it to Dexter. To Tom's dismay, however, the train fails to run at its promised 100-miles-per-hour speed, and Dexter turns The Silver Streak into an attraction for the Chicago World's Fair. Furious at Dexter's lack of faith, Tom quarrels with Ruth, while her brother Allan, also an engineer, announces to his father that he is leaving the railroad to take a job at Boulder Dam. As Tom works furiously to find the "bug" in the design, a depressed Ruth leaves for a vacation in the West. On the train, Ruth discovers that a polio epidemic has hit Boulder Dam and rushes there to find Allan, whose lungs have been infected with the virus. When a doctor informs her that, unless Allan receives treatment from an iron lung machine within twenty-four hours, he will die, Ruth telephones her father to have an iron lung shipped to the dam by airplane. Dexter is told that the iron lung is too heavy for an airplane, but Tom, who has corrected the flaw in his design, convinces the magnate to take a chance on The Silver Streak . With less than twenty hours of travel time, Tom guides the The Silver Streak and a load of iron lungs out of Chicago, unaware that he is also transporting a murderous Russian spy. As radio broadcasts announce its progress to the nation, The Silver Streak breaks records and zooms south. Just before arriving at the dam, however, the spy takes over the throttle and throws the train out of control. Tom eventually knocks the spy unconscious and, with only minutes to spare, arrives at the dam. Her brother's life saved, Ruth embraces Tom.
Director
Tommy Atkins
Cast
Sally Blane
Charles Starrett
William Farnum
Hardie Albright
Irving Pichel
Arthur Lake
Theodor Von Eltz
Guinn Williams
Edgar Kennedy
Doris Dawson
Murray Kinnell
Harry Allen
James Bradbury
Crew
Glendon Allvine
Al Colombo
Perry Ferguson
H. W. Hanemann
J. Roy Hunt
Fred Knudtson
Hugh Mcdowell Jr.
Jack O'donnell
Van Nest Polglase
Vernon Walker
Roger Whately
Roger Whately
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The Burlington Zepher, also known as the Pioneer Zephyr, was the first two-stroke cycle diesel-electric train to be used successfully for mainline rail service in America, and was developed by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway. The train had its initial run in April 1934 and continued service for twenty-five years. Galesburg, IL, the headquarters of the Burlington line, was the sight of the film's premiere, according to Hollywood Reporter. According to modern sources, the film made $107,000 in profits for RKO.
