Lost Episodes

     Though it has not been verified, there is reason to believe that there may be more episodes of "Supertrain" than are currently known to exist. A TV Guide news item in 1979 noted that among the season's cancelled shows, CBS' "Young Daniel Boone" and NBC's "Supertrain" had episodes remaining to be shown when the ax fell.
     NBC's last first run episode for "Supertrain" is "Where Have You Been Billy Boy?" from early May 1979. Beginning in June of 1979, NBC reruns all the previously shown "Supertrain" episodes minus the series pilot "Express To Terror." From what I understand about such things, it is cheaper for a network to air a rerun of an episode than it is to pay for the airing of a new episode. With the show's poor performance, NBC may have ducked out of the remaining episodes for the May 1979 ratings sweeps and therefore left on the shelf a couple more shows never seen.
     One other thought on the lost shows may be that they are from the early part of the show's production run. NBC yanks "Supertrain" for re-tooling after only a few shows and makes cast changes. It might be possible that another episode or two exist with Patrick Collins and the original format for the series and they were junked when "Supertrain" was altered. The biggest argument against this possible scenario is the rushed production of the series. Given the speed at which NBC went from idea to air, there wasn't much time to put very many shows in the can prior to the February 1979 series launch.