The Polar Express - driving the train

She gets to drive the train?! How lucky is that? Where's the real conductor though?

[andredizon]

One interesting detail I noticed when you watch this scene in 0.25x speed. You can see the engineer actually screwing in the light bulb into the headlight housing and close the hatch within a half a second

[JJ]

1:47 Hero Girl having her confidence shaken every so often when Hero Boy askes "Are you sure?" Is one of my favorite plot lines. The little motifs that plays too when he askes to ascertain her certainty. Having confidence is something important to have in being a leader and when she finally says absolutely, she isn't shaken by it anymore. There is always something new I can appreciate in this great movie.

[sebbysuperstar]

1:04 I love the sound of that whistle! 🥰

[avatarthanosthelegendarysu]

1:03 I cannot get enough of that whistle, its music to my ears

[ar_greyheart]

Legendary film. Gonna rewatch it on Christmas eve

[hotshotelectrichead]

2:32 - It gets me everytime the conductor starts ranting lol

[AlexandraBolz]

Whenever he says “Caribou?” And then the caribou blows in his face that always makes me laugh 😂

[broadwaymike]

Tom Hanks always makes me laugh in the way how he shouts in his movies!!!

[ThatChargerPursuitGuy]

(This is actually incorrect, See Kitsune's comment below)
For those who are wondering, The big red level is the Reverser.

A layman term would be your gear selector in your car. Steam locomotives have 3 settings there, Forward, Neutral, and Reverse.

If he yanked it, it would have stopped the train too, but might have caused severe damage to the locomotive.
It was used to stop trains as a last resort before air brakes were fitted to trains, called "Dynamiting the engine".

It was less common by the time of the Polar Express, as air brakes would always be faster then reversing with wheel slip.

Edit: Grammer and spelling, proof-reading on a phone is hard.

[cruisnblastfan]

1:06 I'd say the exact same thing.

[samalvey]

The Polar Express is definitely a magic train if she can stop dead like that after going at full speed.

[theguradien]

0:34 my favorite moment, "Give me the light!"

[xmenforever]

Chris: I’VE WANTED TO DO THAT MY WHOLE LIFE
Doc: ME TOO

[andredizon]

I find it hilarious you literally have a train that has magic from Santa himself (or idk, powers from it's onboard flux capacitor I guess) yet stills gets to have a burnt out light bulb that needs to get replaced

[DarknessOfRedbone]

The caribou: Look, brothers and sisters! It’s a loud eleven-foot-tall 401 ton hunk of iron hurtling straight towards us! Let’s remain here!

[arvono]

I love how the caribou are not even phased that a 401 ton vehicle was charging at them.

[metaII]

I remember when I first saw this in theaters, at about 2:26 I was partially expecting that to be Donkey’s nose from Shrek. LOL

[alishamcdonald]

0:33 0:34 1:03 1:04 2:12 2:13 2:14 1:14 2:48

[oldtimer]

The R-rated version would have plowed right through the caribou with the train covered in gore. Realistically, if the train didn't have the room to stop on icy rails... all the caribou on the tracks could probably derail the train despite the cow catcher on the front.

[Jacobcoleyray]

“I wanted to do that my whole life!”
Dr Emmet Brown did too