The Brave Locomotive is a 2023 American independent animated short film by Academy Award-nominated animator Andrew Chesworth.[1]
A love letter to the Andrews Sisters and 1940s animation[1] shows the story about Linus, a small steam locomotive with a big heart, and his jovial salt of the earth engineer Henry, in the Old West. An eastern railroad baron named Baron Von Kapital buys out Linus' tiny railroad, and as Henry falls in love with the baron's daughter, Scarlet Von Kapital, and receives a lofty promotion to drive Linus’ replacement, Samson the super locomotive, Linus ends up working at a forestry railroad with other scrapped engines. There he is forced to haul logs while Samson, with his strength, speed and technological advantages, builds the railroad up into a new humongous railroad. When Samson’s work commuting accidentally breaks the supports of the bridge and leaves him on the verge of falling off, Henry blows the whistle for help. Linus hears Samson's whistle blowing, notices the trouble and escapes by breaking his chains, leaving the log wagons behind for the forestry railroad engineer to land in the funnel of another engine, who looks up, grins, and takes him a way. As Linus rushes to the rescue, the forestry railroad owner shoots his boiler to hurt him. Reaching the bridge, Linus spins round and couples up to Samson's coaches and pulls, causing Samson's tender to come loose while Linus pulls Samson's coaches and tender free. Turning, Linus spies Samson about to fall with the Baron, Katrina, and Henry, and quickly couples to Samson and pulls as hard as he can. With the Baron, Katrina, and Henry in Linus’ cab, he gives Henry and Katrina shovels to give him coal to pull Samson as the bridge starts breaking apart, and ultimately, even with his own boiler busting, Linus manages to get Samson to safety, but crashes with a large explosion in the process. Everyone sees Linus in a sorry state, and just as Linus sadly floats up to heaven, they repair him and bring him to good working order again. Time passes and the bridge is fixed as Linus, good as new and with his old job back (with a news article having revealed Samson accepted a new job of hauling lumber), continues working with now elderly engineers Henry and Scarlet operating him.
Chesworth formerly worked at Disney (being animator on Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, Get a Horse!, Big Hero 6, Feast, Zootopia and Moana)[2][3] and Netflix (on the 2019 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature winner Klaus)[4] while working independently on his passion projects including The Brave Locomotive (first conceived in 2008; he released online in 2015 the opening sequence that was in progress before shelving it after being hired by Disney in 2011).[1]
It was released to film festivals for Oscar qualification before airing on YouTube.[5][6]