Typically busy and entertaining script by series co-creator/co-producer Stephen Kandel (pronounced kan-DELL) from a story by Berne Giler.
The titular train, supposedly carrying $140,000 in bearer bonds, is stopped by a colorful gang of outlaws. When he can't find the valuable securities on board, the clever, ruthless leader (well played by Victor French) begins to improvise. The passengers and crew, led by the railroad's co-owner Dan (series regular Gary Collins, Master of Blandness), are hijacked and taken to a remote telegraph station. You naturally expect the railroad's other owner, Calhoun (charismatic series star Dale Robertson), to show up any minute and save the day. But this is a Kandel script, so anything can happen.
The mystery of the bonds' whereabouts, and the uncertainty of whether and when help will arrive, keep the pot boiling. Some of the characters bluff, con, and try to outwit one another; not everything and everyone is quite what they seem. Others succumb to the tension and constantly threaten to explode into violence. The plot veers into ploys and counterploys, double-crosses, fights, an escape, gunplay, a couple of romances, redemption, an unexpectedly humorous ending, et cetera.
And genre clichés! It's got (some of) what you want in a railroad Western. Cut telegraph lines! Wrecked train tracks! Two drunken gang members humiliating a cowardly traveling corset salesman at gunpoint! A climactic brawl atop a gushing water tower!
There's juicy bits and/or character arcs for practically the whole cast. Series semi-regular Nils Torvald (played by Roger Torrey), the big Swede, gets to pick on someone his own size. Series regular Barnabas (Bob Random) gets a romance and a little of his backstory filled in. Besides Victor French, the best of the guest actors includes Joan Huntington as a sexy duplicitous moll, an excellent Russ Tamblyn as a dangerously psycho gunman, Celia Kaye (very far from the _Island of Blue Dolphins_) as the ingenue, Mickey Morton as Nils' giant nemesis who's especially fun when drunk, and Sam Reese as the timid salesman. I wasn't as crazy about Helen Kleeb, as a God-fearin' eye-poppin' cartoon old maid right out of a Mae West movie, or Gus Trikonis, who later switched from acting to directing, as one of the gang, but they add needed texture.
Herb Wallerstein's direction is okay, with some great intense close-ups of Tamblyn, and the stunt crew more than earns its paycheck. Pace is sometimes sluggish, but that's the case with a lot of mid-'60s TV episodes, even good ones like this.
The titular train, supposedly carrying $140,000 in bearer bonds, is stopped by a colorful gang of outlaws. When he can't find the valuable securities on board, the clever, ruthless leader (well played by Victor French) begins to improvise. The passengers and crew, led by the railroad's co-owner Dan (series regular Gary Collins, Master of Blandness), are hijacked and taken to a remote telegraph station. You naturally expect the railroad's other owner, Calhoun (charismatic series star Dale Robertson), to show up any minute and save the day. But this is a Kandel script, so anything can happen.
The mystery of the bonds' whereabouts, and the uncertainty of whether and when help will arrive, keep the pot boiling. Some of the characters bluff, con, and try to outwit one another; not everything and everyone is quite what they seem. Others succumb to the tension and constantly threaten to explode into violence. The plot veers into ploys and counterploys, double-crosses, fights, an escape, gunplay, a couple of romances, redemption, an unexpectedly humorous ending, et cetera.
And genre clichés! It's got (some of) what you want in a railroad Western. Cut telegraph lines! Wrecked train tracks! Two drunken gang members humiliating a cowardly traveling corset salesman at gunpoint! A climactic brawl atop a gushing water tower!
There's juicy bits and/or character arcs for practically the whole cast. Series semi-regular Nils Torvald (played by Roger Torrey), the big Swede, gets to pick on someone his own size. Series regular Barnabas (Bob Random) gets a romance and a little of his backstory filled in. Besides Victor French, the best of the guest actors includes Joan Huntington as a sexy duplicitous moll, an excellent Russ Tamblyn as a dangerously psycho gunman, Celia Kaye (very far from the _Island of Blue Dolphins_) as the ingenue, Mickey Morton as Nils' giant nemesis who's especially fun when drunk, and Sam Reese as the timid salesman. I wasn't as crazy about Helen Kleeb, as a God-fearin' eye-poppin' cartoon old maid right out of a Mae West movie, or Gus Trikonis, who later switched from acting to directing, as one of the gang, but they add needed texture.
Herb Wallerstein's direction is okay, with some great intense close-ups of Tamblyn, and the stunt crew more than earns its paycheck. Pace is sometimes sluggish, but that's the case with a lot of mid-'60s TV episodes, even good ones like this.