PITTSBURGH — As a kid, Stephen Low would often take long train rides across Canada to visit his grandparents. Over time, those trips turned into a lifelong fascination with trains that eventually led to a job with the Canadian Pacific Railway in northern Ontario.
"Somewhere there was that moment when ordinary becomes mystical," Low told the Post-Gazette of those early travels by train. "A little kid on a train sort of falls in love."
That child eventually grew up to be a prolific filmmaker specializing in documentaries made specifically for huge Imax screens. It was only a matter of time before Low made a movie about trains. It took him three years to complete, but he is now finally ready to unveil "Train Time," which follows a BNSF Railway freight train along its regularly scheduled journey across North America.
"Train Time" will make its U.S. premiere Saturday at the Carnegie Science Center's Rangos Giant Cinema. It will run there through March 12 and serve as a companion piece to the famous Miniature Railroad & Village showcasing landmarks around Western Pennsylvania.
"It's just an honor to be able to run a U.S. premiere from this theater," said Marcus Harshaw, senior director of museum experiences. "I think that's a feather in our cap at the Science Center and at the Rangos Cinema. We're really putting Pittsburgh on the map as a place where you can run these kind of premieres and the audience will come out and support."
Low's father was a documentarian, and he quickly realized after working in Hollywood for a bit that he also preferred real-life stories over artificial ones. After immersing himself in the equipment and processes Imax filmmaking requires, Low found it all "really quite mesmerizing" and began churning out movies like 1997's "Super Speedway," 2003's "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" and 2018's "The Trolley."
This project required interviews with hundreds of railroad employees, computer-generated re-creations of train engines and a lot of time in helicopters shooting sweeping vistas of the United States and Canada. Low said making this film helped give him a better understanding of how trains actually function and how "extremely safety-oriented" the whole industry is now compared to when he was working on a railroad.
Though he is Canadian, Low has always enjoyed traveling throughout the United States. He wants "Train Time" to show viewers what "a fantastic experience" seeing this country via a train can be.
"Railroading is unique to America," he said. "Railroads influenced America more than any other country. ... I thought railroading was a perfect vehicle to do a celebration of America."
For Harshaw, "Train Time" fits in perfectly with the sort of films he seeks for extended runs in the Science Center's Rangos Giant Cinema. He loves how it both highlights STEM-related jobs available to railroad enthusiasts and ties into a permanent Science Center exhibit like its miniature railroad.
"I am curating a set of films that really help to highlight the Science Center as a whole," he said. "I understand that people don't come here to see a film. They come here to have a great experience at the Science Center and then add on a film. And that's what I want them to do."
Image DescriptionAn engineer keeps an eye on the track ahead as the 3819 locomotive departs Kansas City, Mo., for a cross-country journey in the Imax documentary "Train Time." (Carnegie Science Center)
The Miniature Railroad & Village has been around since 1919 and in the Carnegie Science Center since 1992. It's an ever-evolving project that will continue its expansion later this year with the addition of a new section dedicated to the locally shot 1968 horror film "Night of the Living Dead." Harshaw said to expect special screenings at the Rangos theater of George Romero's horror classic in late October to commemorate the addition.
He hopes that "Train Time" gets visitors excited to learn more about railroads and reminds them that they're "still the backbone of American freight."
"They continue to change the world and evolve to meet the challenge of the environment," Harshaw said. "When you see sci-fi in the future, the thing you always see at some level are trains. That technology is not going anywhere anytime soon."
As for Low, he sees his film as a "universal railroad story" that illuminates how railroads keep on chugging along nationwide. Even though it largely focuses on trains in the country's western half, he thinks there's plenty for Pittsburgh audiences to enjoy.
"Railroading is a fairly secretive world," he said. "BNSF has kindly thrown the doors open and let us film the intimacy of railroading. It's really a unique perspective because of that access.
"You're going to see railroading like you've never seen it before."
