The Brave Engineer

The Brave Engineer is a 1950 Disney animated short, which was released originally theatrically on March 3, 1950.
==Synopsis==
The film opens with an overhead shot of a sprawling railroad yard in the morning, where all the trains are "fast asleep". The shot begins to focus on a single train, pulled by No. 2, an Eight Wheeler 4-4-0, where Casey, the cartoon's protagonist, is revealed to be "slow asleep" in his engine's cab. He quickly awakens and realizes that he is fully behind schedule and ends up hurriedly readying the engine to depart. Mail is loaded aboard the mail car on the train and with a toot on the whistle, Casey sets off at a high speed through the maze of switches and sidings, nearly T-boning two other trains in the process before making it safely out of the yard, giving the switchman quite the panic attack.
At first the trip is uneventful. Further on, however, the weather becomes nasty, flooding the tracks and all but swamping the entire train. Eight hours late, but nonetheless undaunted, Casey climbs up onto the cab roof and uses his coal shovel as a paddle. Before long, when the flood has cleared, Casey is on his way again after his engine sneezes and shakes itself and the rest of the train like a wet dog.
No sooner has the train been back up to full speed than Casey is forced to bring it screeching to a halt: a large brown cow is standing in the middle of the tracks grazing. After much shouting and whistle blowing on Casey's part, the cow clears and lets the train speed onward as Casey starts shoveling the coal into the furnace from the coal tender.
Yet another problem presents itself: a stereotypical villain with a black handlebar mustache has tied a lady to the tracks in front of Casey's train where Casey screams in terror. Unwilling to waste any more time stopping, Casey rushes forward, stands on his engine's cowcatcher, and scoops up the terrified woman just mere seconds in the moment in which the train is about to run her over. Casey is in such a hurry now, that he doesn't have time to even stop to let her off, depositing her (rope and all) in the arms of a pleasantly surprised stationmaster as he rushes past the next platform at full speed.
Nightfall has come and Casey's engine is found steaming full-bore through a narrow, snow-covered mountain pass. As the train passes over a high trestle spanning a gorge. however, while Casey is stoking the boiler and blowing into the firebox to make the train go faster, another stereotypical villain nearly brings things to an explosive end. Once again, having been undaunted by a seemingly impassable obstacle, Casey's engine struggles, huffing and puffing, up the side of the gorge and continues on its way.
A short while later, a group of armed gangsters on horseback watch the train from up on a hillside in a desert and charge down toward the train as Casey is about to get himself and his train attacked by a gang of train bandits. The gang is soon in the cab, brandishing their guns and knives menacingly at Casey, who, while shoveling coal into the furnace from the tender, is oblivious to their very presence. It is in the next moment that he accidentally picks up one of the bandits standing on his shovel-full of coal that he finally notices the uninvited company for almost shoveling one fiend into the engine's furnace. Even then, Casey is extremely annoyed by this new distraction than anything else, and angered by this new interruption, begins to fight the train bandits, hitting them repeatedly with his shovel, while continuing to stoke the boiler with coal from the tender. After quickly throwing the last of the would-be bandits away from the train, Casey and his train continue onward when Casey checks his watch and realizes that he is put way behind schedule with the bandits. Determined to make up for lost time whatever the cost, he opens the throttle so wide that he actually rips the handle from its mount and throws it away.
The night time changes to day as the train speeds, and the scenery outside quickly becomes a blur as the train travels faster and faster. When running out of coal being used from the tender, Casey throws in his shovel and rocking chair into the furnace, and soon pushes his engine past its mechanical limits, which results in a myriad of structural problems, which Casey addresses with frenzied skill and speed and bravely gives his engine some repairs whilst the train is roaring down a hill.
While otherwise occupied on fixing his engine by grabbing and fitting the funnel almost falling off and the cowcatcher nearly coming loose and pulling it back on, Casey doesn't notice that another train, being a slow freight one, double-headed by two old twin engines No. 77 & 5, a pair of 4-8-0 Mastodons, is coming toward him on the very same track in the opposite direction. Casey is blind to anything but his repairs and is too busy fixing the steam dome to take notice, and as the other train approaches him, Casey's engine's dome falls off and is fitted back by the brave engineer, who manages to save it by putting it back on safely. The other engineer (an elderly one on the other train, and driving the front engine), even upon spying Casey's train, and in fear of Casey's blind and furious approach, screams in fear at the sight of the train coming toward him and the others, and blows the whistle to alert Casey's train to slow down in shock, and to the other workers to let them know that Casey's train is heading toward them like a speeding bullet at the same time. The brakeman, on Casey's train, upon seeing the freight train approaching, gasps, climbs out of the caboose, and runs up toward the engine to warn Casey about the oncoming train, though Casey can't hear him give him the message through, and as the conductor shouts in annoyance, he orders Casey to look behind him. As the other train approaches, the brakeman blows the whistle to tell Casey, who unfortunately scoffs "So what?" to his friend. As the conductor says "So long.", he jumps off the train, but, however, in the far away next shot, a view from Casey's train, he is back on the train and is shown still standing there on the cab roof of the engine. The workers on the double header, who are approaching on their train, all gasp in terror, and quickly abandon their train as well by jumping out of their two engines' cabs unharmed, and run for cover safely. At last, just as he now sees this, Casey now notices, and finally yelps in surprise one more time before the two trains begin to collide into each other with a violent chain reaction of large explosions in a cloud of black smoke to destroy the engines and their rolling stock.
Afterwards, we are taken to a station, presumably the one Casey is meant to terminate at, and, with Casey being late, the Station Agent fears the worst. Then, much to his joy and surprise, he hears a whistle of a real life train, and sees Casey, who rolls down the hill in the remains of his engine, carrying a lone bag of mail. A beaten-up Casey then shows his watch with pride, which states he is 'ON TIME—ALMOST' as the Narrator says "Next time, take the train!" as the film closes.
==Characters==
*Casey Jones (voiced by Jerry Colonna)
*Engine No. 2
*Brakeman (also voiced by Jerry Colonna)
*Switchman (voiced by an unknown person)
*Bossy (The Cow) (also voiced by an unknown person)
*Generic Dastardly Villain (also voiced by an unknown person)
*Generic Damsel (June Foray)
*Bandits (also voiced by Jerry Colonna)
*Old Engines No. 77 and 5
*Elderly Engineer driving No. 77 (also voiced by Jerry Colonna)
*Freight Train Drivers and Firemen (also voiced by an unknown person)
*Station Agent (also voiced by an unknown person)
==Differences between the cartoon and real life==
*The Brave Engineer depicts the wreck near Vaughan, Mississippi as a head-on collision with Casey's train steaming one way and another train steaming the other way, in an Ozark-like mountain range. In the real accident, Jones' engine had struck the rear end of a train which was stopped on the tracks due to a broken air line, and didn't occur in a mountain area.
*The accident takes place in broad daylight and clear conditions in the cartoon. The real-life wreck occurred at night during a rain storm.
*The Brave Engineer ends with Casey looking a little beat-up after the wreck, but very much alive. In real life, Jones was critically injured and did not survive the accident.
*The cartoon shows that Casey's engine, is an old American Standard 4-4-0 (Possibly based off of Central pacific #173 (Which is the model for Disneyland Railroad's #CK Holiday)) being an American type steam locomotive. Such steam engines of this common wheel arrangement were used on American railroads during the 1800s and 1830s until 1928, and were given the name "American" in 1872, because of all the work they did on every railroad in the United States. In reality, since his real engine, on the fateful trip, was number 382, a Ten-Wheeler 4-6-0, Clinchfield Railroad 4-6-0 #99, which is dolled up as a replica of that engine No. 382, is currently on display at the Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum in Jackson, Tennessee.
*These types of engines, that Casey pilots, are very different and have different wheel arrangements, such as the 4-6-0s having ten wheels (four leading, six driving wheels, and no trailing wheels), and the 4-4-0s having eight wheels (four leading, four driving wheels, and no trailing wheels).
*The two other engines, No. 77 & 5, a pair of old twin Mastodon 4-8-0 engines numbers 77 and 5 being both American type steam locomotives. Engines of these wheel arrangements were used most common during the 1800s and 1830s until 1928 and were also given the name "American" in 1872 to show how they did all the work on every railroad in the United States. Kinds of engines like these have twelve wheels (four leading wheels, eight driving wheels, and no trailing wheels). And when the workers jump off the train and run for cover, Casey, still fixing his engine, crashes his train into the oncoming train with a large explosion and in a cloud of black smoke. The two, following the collision, are not shown. In the real accident, both engines of the double-header were safely on the siding with a northbound, single-headed freight, and Casey's train crashed into the caboose and rear three cars of the double-header, demolishing them before No. 382 derailed. The crew of the double-header had laid out detonators on the rails to warn Casey, and had a flagman out to signal Casey with warning lights, giving Casey enough time to slow his train via the emergency brake, potentially saving the lives of his passengers at the cost of his own.
*Casey is depicted operating the engine single-handedly in the cartoon. The real-life Casey Jones had an African-American fireman, Simeon "Sim" Webb, who was with him until mere seconds before the crash and was not in the 1950 cartoon. When Casey knew they were going to crash, he told Webb to jump for it while he bravely stayed behind and was killed in the impact. Thanks to Casey's sacrifice, Webb survived with minor injuries incurred when he bailed out from No. 382 before the collision.
==Censorship==
*Like many classic cartoons produced by Disney and other studios, The Brave Engineer has recently been subject to US censorship editing in a controversial attempt to make it more "politically correct" in the US, by removing weapons such as knives and guns. In this case, a brief scene depicting train robbers brandishing knives and guns has been edited out.
==Releases==
===Film===
*Walt Disney's Festival of Folk Heroes (1971)
===Television===
*Disneyland, episode #4.2: "Four Fabulous Characters" (1957)
*The Mouse Factory, episode #2.18: "Trains" (1972)
*Good Morning, Mickey!, episode #32 (c. 1983)
*Disney's Rootin' Tootin' Roundup (1990)
*Mickey's Mouse Tracks, episode #38 (1992)
*Donald's Quack Attack, episode #87 (1992)
*Sing Me a Story with Belle: "Stick To It (Don't Give Up)" (1995)
*The Ink and Paint Club, #1.57: "From Zero to Hero" (1998)
===Home video===
VHS
*Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Disney's Tall Tales (1985)
DVD
*Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities (2001)
*Disney's American Legends (2001)
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*The scene where Casey is rushing through a tunnel at the end is mimicked in A Cowboy Needs A Horse.
*Casey's train is featured in the short Out of Scale as the model train Donald Duck rides in his train set.
*The end of the scene where Casey is leaving the railyard in a hurry, is mimicked in How to Be a Detective, a Goofy Disney cartoon.
*When the conductor runs up to the engine to tell Casey about the other train, he fails to get the message through, and jumps off the train, and then in wide shot is shown still standing there on the engine's roof.
*The word "Egad!" is said multiple times throughout the short: when the train leaves the depot, when the rain has made him eight hours late, when Casey sees the damsel in distress, when he realizes something, when the train bandits put him behind schedule, when another train is slowly approaching Casey, when an elderly engineer sees Casey's train up ahead and blows the whistle in shock four times to warn Casey to slow down and let the other workers know about Casey's train about coming toward like a bullet at the same time, when the brake-man fails to make Casey notice the other train, and finally when Casey yelps in surprise as the two trains collide into each other with a large explosion in a cloud of black smoke.
**"Egad" was a catchphrase of Colonna's radio alter ego Professor Colonna on The Bob Hope Show.
*Portions of this cartoon were included in the DTV music video version of "Friendship Train" by Gladys Knight and the Pips (which was released on the home video compilation, DTV: Rock, Rhythm & Blues), as well as the Disney Sing Along Songs release of "Casey, Jr." (as seen on Disney Sing Along Songs: Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah).
*On The Disney Channel, one of the Mickey Mouse-themed Disney Channel IDs of the 1980s and '90s shows Mickey taking a ride on a Mr. Toad-style dark ride, themed to trains and the Old West, which is called "The Brave Engineer".
*The cartoon also appears on Disneyland (1954), The Mouse Factory (1972), Good Morning, Mickey! (1983), Walt Disney Cartoon Classics (1983), DTV (1984), Disney's Sing Along Songs (1986), American Folk Heroes, Disney's Rootin' Tootin' Roundup (1990), Mickey's Mouse Tracks (1992), Donald's Quack Attack (1992), Sing Me A Story With Belle (1995), The Ink and Paint Club (1997), Walt Disney Treasures (2001), and Disney's American Legends (2001).
*This was the first Disney cartoon to feature the RKO Radio Pictures logo on it's own (purple, later blue) title card. The Buena Vista reissue mistakenly leaves in the very end of the RKO transition to the "Walt Disney Presents" title card for a few frames.
Category:Animated shorts
Category:1950 shorts