PRR GG1 - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

During the mid-1930s, the art of streamlining became popular, especially with locomotives, as it conveyed a sense of speed. While other railroads were introducing streamlined trains, like the Union Pacific's M-10000 or the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad with the Zephyr, the Pennsylvania had the GG1. The GG1 has "shown up over the years in more advertisements and movie clips than any other locomotive." It was also featured in art calendars provided by the Pennsylvania, which were used to "promote its reputation in the public eye." It has appeared in the films Broadway Limited in 1941, The Clock in 1945, Blast of Silence in 1961, the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate, and Avalon in 1990 in the livery of the Pennsylvania. Two GG1s appear in the 1973 film The Seven-Ups—a black Penn Central locomotive and a silver, red and blue Amtrak locomotive. A Penn Central GG1 also appears in another 1973 film The Last Detail. PRR GG1 4821 appears briefly in the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth, pulling the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Train into Philadelphia's Greenwich Yard, with the movie's director Cecil B. DeMille narrating the scene of their arrival.

A Pennsylvania GG-1 was used to pull the funeral train of President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Washington D.C.'s Union Station to New York City's Pennsylvania Station in 1945. Two Penn Central GG1s train pulled Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train on June 8, 1968.

The GG1 and the Congressional were featured on a postage stamp as part of the United States Postal Service's All Aboard! 20th Century American Trains set in 1999.

The 1998-released popular computer game Railroad Tycoon II allows for players to purchase and operate GG1 locomotive engines on their train routes. The venerable GG1 even benefits from the highest reliability rating in the entire game: outstanding.