Where was Train Dreams filmed? Filming Locations Guide
Posted by Ra Moon
Featuring outstanding cinematography and striking locations, Train Dreams was filmed entirely in Washington State.
This immersive movie was made to feel organic, although many sets had to be built — even trees — because the world portrayed in the story no longer exists.
The film follows a humble Great Northern Railway worker, living in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, who witnesses the 20th-century transformation from the remote forests of the American Northwest to the arrival of new technologies.
Here is our guide to the filming locations of Train Dreams, with minimal spoilers, presented in order of their first appearance.
This immersive movie was made to feel organic, although many sets had to be built — even trees — because the world portrayed in the story no longer exists.
The film follows a humble Great Northern Railway worker, living in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, who witnesses the 20th-century transformation from the remote forests of the American Northwest to the arrival of new technologies.
Here is our guide to the filming locations of Train Dreams, with minimal spoilers, presented in order of their first appearance.
Train Dreams locations
Production designer Alexandra Schaller said in an interview that they had to build a set for the bridge because no existing real trestle in the region safely matched the film’s period look or the structural requirements for running a locomotive across it.
They found the remains of an old trestle on an remote, undisclosed private property near the Canadian border and rescued parts of it to construct the on-set trestle.
The area appears to correspond to the old Pend Oreille Valley Railroad and the former Milwaukee Road corridors that served Metaline Falls, which include abandoned sections and trestles north of the town and Usk.
Metaline Falls, located in far northeastern Washington, grew from a remote settlement into a company town after major limestone and mineral deposits were developed in the early 1900s.
One of the short scenes in Robert’s childhood memories appears to have been filmed at the Bowl and Pitcher rock formations in Riverside State Park in Spokane.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
The small church where Gladys (Felicity Jones) and Robert (Joel Edgerton) meet is the former St. Michael Mission chapel, now located on the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute campus in Spokane.
Originally built on Peone Prairie in the 1860s by Jesuits to serve the Spokane Tribe, it was moved in 1968 to ensure its preservation.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
The Train Dreams house
The Grainier's home was fully hand-built on a beautiful private estate, using locally sourced timber to match early-1900s frontier construction.
The cabin was designed to be filmed inside and out, —SPOILER ALERT!— allowing the crew to shoot the story’s intimate domestic scenes entirely on a location where the filmmakers could also burn it for real during production.
Schaller said they constructed it twice, the second time as a charred version after performing the practical burn, inspired by the mythical scene in Tarkovsky’s masterpiece Mirror. A small portion of fire work was done on a stage, but the main burn happened on location in the forest.
The Bonners Ferry train station in Idaho was filmed at the Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Museum.
Just next to this spot is an iconic Twin Peaks filming location: the nearby Salish Lodge and Spa, used as the exterior of the Great Northern Hotel, making the falls and its surroundings one of the most memorable visual landmarks of the legendary series.
The locomotive for the trestle bridge was designed with the help of Snoqualmie’s Northwest Railway Museum.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
Keechelus Lake, a long, narrow reservoir on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass in the Washington Cascades mountain range, appears twice in the movie: first in an opening shot and later in a scene following the fire.
The lake is known for its scenic exposed stands of dead tree trunks, which become especially visible when water levels drop in late summer or during low-reservoir years.
These trunks are remnants of forests that were flooded when the lake was dammed as part of the Yakima Project in the early 20th century.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
The fire tower was a set built on a high ridge and constructed from timber logs rather than metal, maintaining a strong, organic connection to the surrounding woodlands.
In the final Spokane scenes, contrasting the remote forest landscapes with the modern city, the Davenport Hotel serves as the backdrop for a shot.
Opened in 1914, the Davenport quickly became one of the Northwest’s grandest luxury hotels, introducing several innovations for its time, including air conditioning and a central vacuum system.
After falling into disrepair and closing in the 1980s, it was meticulously restored and reopened in 2002.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
Also, the silhouette of The Spokesman-Review Building appears on screen.
Completed in 1891 to house the offices and printing operations of the local newspaper, its distinctive six-story tower, originally 146 feet tall, made it one of Spokane’s tallest and most prominent landmarks.
Image courtesy of Netflix - Map
However, the Empire Theater is located in Tekoa, a small town in Whitman County in southeastern Washington.
This historic Art Deco cinema, built in 1940, closed as a movie theater in 1958 but was later restored by the community and reopened in 2000 as a performing arts center.
Image courtesy of Netflix and Google Maps
Since insurance wouldn’t allow actor Joel Edgerton to fly on a vintage plane, instead, the production instead mounted a section of the aircraft on a gimbal rig, allowing them to simulate realistic motion while still capturing the emotional impact of the flyover in a controlled environment.
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NOTICE: If you’re using this information on your website, please credit and link to this page as a source.
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Ra Moon
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