Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Spaghetti Western Locations


What’s left to mark the spot of the Tucumcari station which appeared in the 1965 film “For a Few Dollars More” is located on a road that parallels the spur track which runs off the main train line to La Calahorra. The Tucumcari depot was an actual building which was covered in wood by the Leone crew (Keep an eye peeled for the little kid behind Roberto Camardiel in the depot when Lee Van Cleef reads the Guy Calloway poster). When I visited there in 2003 all that was left was a pile of dirt with some chips of ceramic tile from the inside walls, so you must be very vigilant when trying to locate the exact spot. The railroad tracks were still there but by 2005 the tracks and ties had been removed. Although some of the train engines have been restored and are in storage in Gaudix the passenger cars are in a terrible state of decay. Too bad as these should have been preserved and someone with some ingenuity could have put a train together and sold tickets to ride the rails and pass the Tucumcari station and Cattle Crossing, which is the station used in the opening of “Once Upon a Time in the West and sat diagonally across the tracks from the Tucumcari location. You can see the Tucumcari station in some of the opening shots of OUATITW and also in the opening train robbery of “Any Gun Can Play”.

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