CASEY JONES (1957-1958) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

CASEY JONES (1957-1958) – Alan Hale, in his pre-Gilligan’s Island years, starred as the legendary train engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones in this series that’s not only appropriate for Frontierado season but makes for a nice watch with the whole family all year ’round. (It never depicted the incident in which the real Casey Jones died.)   

The show lasted 32 half-hour episodes and was set in Tennessee as Casey worked his steam engine the Cannonball Express (just Cannonball in real life) westward and back during the 1890s. Child actor Bobby Clark played our hero’s son Casey, Jr. while Mary Lawrence was Casey’s wife Alice. Eddy Waller portrayed Conductor “Red Rock” Smith.

Dub Taylor played Engine Fireman Wallie Sims, a composite character based on two of Casey Jones’ fellow employees, both of them African Americans – Fireman Sim Webb and Wallie Saunders, who wrote the words to the first version of The Ballad of Casey Jones.   

Casey Jones featured action but not outright violence and even episodes with outlaws as the villains were more about drawing one’s guns, not firing one’s guns. Parents today appreciate that aspect of the program.   

Cinders the Dog played Casey, Jr.’s pet dog of the same name.

STANDOUT EPISODES:

NIGHT MAIL – Mixing a little John Henry in with the story of Casey Jones, this episode depicts Casey and his Cannonball Express colleagues striving to win a contract with the U.S. Mail by beating a rail line with more modern steam engines in a race to deliver some mail. Their competitors use sabotage to cheat. B-movie staple Glenn Strange played the engineer of the rival train.

DEATH RIDES THE TENDER – Casey comes to have mixed feelings about helping a sheriff capture an outlaw wanted for murder when it turns out the young man (Sheridan Comerate) is the son of the rail line’s carpenter Pete Dunlap, played by Bonanza‘s Roy Coffee.

NIGHT RUN – Our hero juggles the lives of hundreds when torrential rains wash out the tracks ahead and temporarily strand him and his passengers. The rains are about to make the local dam burst and Casey must devise a way of getting the fleeing townspeople as well as the passengers to safety. With John Mitchum.  

THE GUNSLINGER – A gunslinging M.D. called Doc Bailey (William Bryant) is the closest available doctor to save the life of a young woman suffering from an attack of appendicitis. The complication is that Bailey has been captured and is being transported via the Cannonball Express by Sheriff Norton (Harry Shannon) for legal punishment. Dorothy Morris and Cheryl Callaway guest starred.

DARK RIDER – A passenger on the Cannonball Express‘ latest run turns out to have smallpox. As the disease threatens to spread, Casey and his train are turned away by town after town as they desperately search for needed medicine.   

THE TRACKWALKER – The Skipper meets the Professor several years before Gilligan’s Island came along! Russell Johnson guest stars as Jeff Tyler, a Trackwalker/ Inspector who earns Casey’s approval and a modicum of fame after preventing a trainwreck. He’s a bad man gone straight and his former gang members show up looking for him.

LETHAL JOURNEY – Sort of a train version of The Wages of Fear this time around. Casey and the Cannonball Express are transporting dangerous amounts of nitroglycerin in a desperate attempt to use it to free miners from a cave-in before their air runs out. Fred Graham was a guest star.

PRISON TRAIN – Casey Jones engineers his train on a run to transport prisoners to a Kansas prison. A shipment of gold is included and a gang of outlaws try to steal it from the Cannonball Express during its journey. James Gavin, Chuck Courtney and Bing Russell guest starred.

STAR WITNESS – Casey and company are transporting a female witness (Eve McVeagh) ready to testify against violent anarchists called the Worker’s Seven. The lawman accompanying her gets murdered in dark tunnel along the way, so our hero must solve the crime plus race against time to find a bomb that the villains have hidden on board. 

PRESIDENT’S SPECIAL – Casey helps the U.S. Secret Service get the president to a vital meeting in the western territories. A fake agent infiltrates the safety detail, planning on assassinating the Commander in Chief. This episode featured a very rare guns-blazing finale for this show. Guest starring Paul Keast and Robert J. Stevenson.

LOST TRAIN – Casey and his colleagues join in efforts to track down the Cannonball Express when it disappears overnight. It’s all part of an elaborate plan by criminal elements and corrupt railroad employees to transport stolen gold. Myron Healey, Malcolm Atterbury and Jim Bannon are in the cast.

IRON MEN – Casey winds up having to intervene in a standoff between railroad workers from Sweden and a rancher who refuses to let the rail line continue across any part of his property. Guest stars included Eric Feldary, Tiger Fafara, Dan White and Stafford Repp.

THE BLACK BOX – “Why don’t they just build the whole train outta the black box?” Had to be said. The Cannonball Express becomes a magnet for thieves when it transports the long-fallen Mexican Emperor Maximilian’s crown jewels to a museum in St. Louis. Adele Mara is in the cast.

A BADGE FOR CASEY – The iconic Lee Van Cleef plays the outlaw leader Mort Clio! When the Cannonball Express pulls into a town along its route, Clio’s gang prevents it from leaving at gunpoint in a tense quasi-hijacking situation. Casey even gets into a saloon brawl with Van Cleef’s bad guy!  

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