And safe holiday travels to all in the group!
Posted by Vincent206 (Member # 15447) on :
Merry Christmas from Washington State where we have a slight chance of a White Christmas this year. One more trip to the grocery store and I will be done with my Christmas travels.
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
Merry Christmas and here's hoping for a fun & safe journey with all your 2018 passenger train trips.
Richard
Posted by MargaretSPfan (Member # 3632) on :
Merry Christmas to everyone here, and good wishes for safe and enjoyable travels to everyone in this holiday season and in the coming year.
The following video is my Christmas present to all of you. It is not about Christmas. It is old news sound film clips from 1928 and 1929 of the New York Central, and was a very pleasant surprise to me when I saw it as one of the suggested videos on YouTube after I had watched another and very different video. The video linked below is 12:38 long, and is a rare and very enjoyable look at railroading 90 years ago in New York state.
Here is the first part of the description by Sound Graphic Film and Video:
"More early sound film from the Fox Movietone News archives in the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Resource Collection. It shows New York Central trains in the Hudson River valley in 1928 and 1929."
This is too good not to share with everyone. Enjoy!
Mid-50's, this young lad in his early teens would railfan Harmon, NY to watch the electrics come off and the diesels go on. Alas, steam had run its course by then.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
Thanks for the video, Margaret. Love those old ones, especially the NYC with its great fleet of trains.
Hope all enjoyed Christmas. Can’t wait to see what 2018 brings to Amtrak.
Posted by Ocala Mike (Member # 4657) on :
Apropos of the New York Central in the 50's, "North by Northwest" ran on TCM last night. Great scenes out the window of the 20th Century Limited going up the Hudson and great double entendre banter between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in her "stateroom."
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
Thanks for the post, Margaret. Really nice to hear sound, considering it was shot only a year or two from the first experiment with sound movies in 1927. I liked the intersection scene with the old cars and trucks going by.
Richard
Posted by DonNadeau (Member # 61606) on :
Thank you everyone. Belated Merry Christmas wishes to all.
Here's the Southern Pacific Daylight trip from Loa Angeles to San Francisco in 1937. I love this video. The Coast Starlight follows the same route from LA to San Jose.
Amazingly a surprising amount of the scenery has not changed significantly since then. This is in a state that has some 40,000,000 people.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
Great video, Don. Makes you wonder - 80 years later is train travel any better?
Another example - this Super Chief wideo makes you realize that although we are grateful for trains like the SWC, service isn’t what it used to be.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Did Dr. Geobbels escape The Bunker to make propaganda films for the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific?
Be sure to note the Daylight departing from an LA station other than LAUPT.
Dr. Geobbels also was at work on my MILW. Chicago area viewers may recognize the "Ticket Agent" as longtime Local News Anchor (ABC) Fahey Flynn:
In the Milwaukee Road- Olympian Hiawatha video, above, it mentions the the stop at Three Forks, Montana and then the branch train line to Gallatin Gateway, MT. From there, a bus shuttle into Yellowstone Park.
I think the Gallatin Gateway Inn was the first railroad hotel built by the Milwaukee Road.
I wonder what has happened to the Gallatin Gateway Inn. I don't know if it has been refurbished as an inn or hotel, something else, or if it's still there at all.
Richard
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
Richard, Google knows all: Gateway Inn Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
Thanks for the link, Mr. Palmland. I don't exactly know who "Yellowstone Club" employees are.
I thought, a number of years ago, it was converted to a restaurant. I wish it was still a restaurant or, again, a hotel or inn. Possibly a Milwaukee Road historical center on the side.
Richard
Posted by DonNadeau (Member # 61606) on :
Great video!
However, am sure that Dr. Geobbels was occupied with other matters including a postwar stint at Argentina's Ferrocarriles del Estado.
The current LA Union Station opened two years later. The one in the SP video sat one block off Alameda SP's route to LA/Long Beach Harbor, which was street running in that busy area.
Now the tracks are in a tunnel shared most of the way by BNSF and UP. ATSF's route to the harbor was very indirect traveling via what is now the gateway to LAX.
The current Union Station fronts Alameda. Am guessing the UP made a deal with SP to share the latter's bridge over the LA River to access the new station. ATSF was already on the necessary side of the LA River.
Better? As you say not in North America, although I do love that all Amtrak western long-distance trains have retained high-level seating even though you can't look forward and back, in contrast to Mr. Norman's Super Dome and Vista Domes.
Never get tried of that Super Chief video. Included it some years ago in a blog post I wrote about Santa Fe.