Have you heard of such a super train?
The history of the creation of this futuristic train is uncomplicated, but at the same time interesting. In the late 1970s, NBC, the largest American television company, relied on two large-scale projects. As part of the first of them, NBC bought all the rights to broadcast the 1980 Olympics in the United States, which took place in Moscow. The second project was filming a television series about the atomic train.
The name of the future series is short and capacious - "Supertrain" ("Super train"). The main events of the picture were to unfold in the train carriages. According to the genre, "Supertrain" could be attributed more to a fantasy-crime picture. The best specialists of that time worked on the series. A record amount at that time was invested in advertising. The producers relied not only on the purchase of paid subscriptions, but also on the distribution of the series on VHS tapes, which were gaining great popularity at that time.
However, the greatest time and money spent on creating the concept of the train itself. A 1: 1 scale model was built in a special pavilion. The dimensions and appearance of the train were impressive. In addition to the locomotive, the design of the landing platform, interior and exterior was developed from scratch.
To make the model as realistic and luxurious as possible, the best designers and architects of that time were involved in the work. The spacious carriages had comfortable compartments, dining rooms and even a swimming pool. There is no exact data on the budget of the series, but according to some information, about $ 1 million was spent only on the creation of the train layout.
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Since 40 years ago computer graphics were at a very low level, in addition to the main concept, several dozen train models of various scales were created. The shooting of reduced models was carried out both in the open area and in the studio pavilions.
In addition to the train itself, a whole network of railways and platforms was built. Naturally, the word "atomic" was added only to attract attention, no one would install a nuclear installation on a regular model for a television series.
It would seem that everything was done to ensure that the series gained immense popularity and brought millions of dollars to its creators. But something went wrong. Shortly before the premiere of the pilot episode, one of the models went off the rails and collapsed. It was a bad omen.
The series completely failed at the box office. Neither the original script nor the eminent actors could save the day. A total of nine episodes of "Supertrain" were filmed, after which the project was declared unprofitable and closed. This is how the most expensive television series of its time ceased to exist.
It is still not clear why the circumstances turned out this way. NBC was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the actors were not paid a cent to shoot. Unfortunately, apart from a few photos and videos on YouTube, you won't find anything else about the once grandiose Hollywood project.