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 Posted - May 17 2014 : 4:30:47 PM
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This is a classic 17 minute video highlighting post PennCentral/pre-Conrail footage.
CSX fans may want to note time slot 12:15...
Other fans may... ugh   at 12:40...
All y'all comments welcome.
Enjoy!
John
I don't have a one track mind. It depends on the turn-out.
"I love your catenary!"
Is that a power-trip or just another pick-up line?
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 Posted - May 17 2014 : 5:58:07 PM
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That footage is solid gold  Loved it, thanks for posting!
Always enjoy seeing PC footage, reminds me of my dad. And the early Amtrak stuff at the beginning was great too. Lots to see in this one.
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - May 17 2014 : 7:03:07 PM
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the steam train that reads Ghost Town Train is at Knott's Berry Farm & has now been restored to its real original Rio Grande colors as is the passenger cars too
That one PC loco with YELLOW PC letters was super cool
You can tell how BAD PC is with all the weeds growing in the tracks
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Posted - May 17 2014 : 8:52:21 PM
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| Penn Central was a dirt bag operation and they needed to go into bankruptcy. I thought I read somewhere that six years after they became CONRAIL they started to turn a profit. That just goes to show that PC had poor management.
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Posted - May 17 2014 : 9:00:38 PM
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quote:Penn Central was a dirt bag operation and they needed to go into bankruptcy. I thought I read somewhere that six years after they became CONRAIL they started to turn a profit. That just goes to show that PC had poor management.
Originally posted by GG-1 Guy - May 17 2014 : 8:52:21 PM
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EXACATALLY!! & the mergers should of never happened in the 1st place
But still was a cool operation even if it did suck eggs & lose money in the millions daily
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 01:23:47 AM
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| Terrific upload, thanks for sharing it. Most intriguing. I enjoyed it enormously.
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 01:42:20 AM
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If the ICC was going to approve the PC merger, it should have done so back in '58 when it was first proposed and the PRR and NYC still had something to work with. Also, The ICC encumbered PC by refusing to allow route rationalizations and the abandonment of marginal lines, etc., the very same changes the Federal government implemented when it formed ConRail from the wreckage of northeastern railroading. Gotta love the irony! Yes, PC had its management problems, not in small part from the infighting between former PRR and NYC employees, but that wasn't the only factor in its demise.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 08:47:24 AM
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quote:
Yes, PC had its management problems, not in small part from the infighting between former PRR and NYC employees, but that wasn't the only factor in its demise.
Originally posted by gmoney - June 19 2014 : 01:42:20 AM
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g:
I hate to admit it, as a PRR fan, but most of the bad management came from the Pennsy end...by merger time, the NYC thought of itself as a progressive transportation company, and had made a lot of improvements already, but the PRR had been ignoring its railroad and trying to diversify into other areas. This disease continued into PC, whereas the technological progress and efficiencies achieved by the premerger NYC did not...
You could even see this in the late steam era. As much as I like K4s, the PRR was the largest railroad in the world, and should not have been so dependent on such old power...and yet, in its day, the K4 had been a modern machine. Something was lost in the late prewar era and the PRR never found its way back until Conrail...
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 08:56:08 AM
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Bad management at Penn Central before Conrail and bad film making technique by Mr. Levine.
I do believe I saw student-produced films in the late 1960s in high school (by a neighbor who went on to work in commercial industrial films) that, with a tripod and some less nervous hand held camera work, looked more professional than this. Ordinarily, I enjoy railroad action footage, but this was a pain to watch- blurry, poorly-edited and compiled, and just "cheezy".
I know that there were no digital cameras back then, but I have seen many other industrial railroad videos that were made decades before this and were much better in quality. The short vignettes of each scene were more like a commercial than a story.
Just wish it had been better-made; then it would be more informative.
Siouxlake Ron
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 09:05:10 AM
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quote:
I do believe I saw student-produced films in the late 1960s in high school (by a neighbor who went on to work in commercial industrial films) that, with a tripod and some less nervous hand held camera work, looked more professional than this. Ordinarily, I enjoy railroad action footage, but this was a pain to watch- blurry, poorly-edited and compiled, and just "cheezy".
Originally posted by siouxlake - June 19 2014 : 08:56:08 AM
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The Blair Switch Project! 
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Posted - June 19 2014 : 12:48:14 PM
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The shakiness isn't from a handheld camera, but glitches in the frame rate, probably during the transcoding process from film to digital.
If I had to criticize anything it would be the excessive closeups, particularly toward the beginning, but I'll take this any day over the pan, zoom in, zoom out again shaky-cam faux documentary style that has been in vogue ever since that damn Nissan commercial back in the mid 80's.
This is very reminiscent of so many of the films I saw in school, so it really transports me back to the classroom, listening to that scratchy, punchy, midrange AV projector audio and hoping the teacher will learn how to use the focus.
I remember railroad ROW and equipment in that kind of condition. It was a bad time: we thought America's best days were long gone; that we weren't capable of doing anything right, whether it was building a car with door handles that didn't pull off in your hand, or running railroads that looked little better than a scrap line.
The Tyco Depot
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Helm
Little Six
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Posted - June 20 2014 : 07:50:11 AM
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Politics aside - It's a good film. Thanks for posting it.
RicH
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Posted - June 24 2014 : 10:42:08 PM
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Penn Central was a poor merger choice because the two roads had duplicate routes between just about every pair of midwestern cities you can name. The ICC wouldn't let them abandon a lot of the routes. Then they were forced to absorb the New Haven with all it's commuter trains. And lastly, the management teams did not get along and often would contradict one another's actions just for the sake of contradicting the guy from the other railroad.
In 1958, the NYC wanted to merge with the C&O, and the N&W with Pennsy. 40 years later in 1998 that's essentially what happened when NS and CSX took apart Conrail.
Conrail began making money only when the government, tasked with running the railroad, discovered how it's own rules and laws hurt the business and changed the rules.
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Posted - June 24 2014 : 11:58:53 PM
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quote:Penn Central was a poor merger choice because the two roads had duplicate routes between just about every pair of midwestern cities you can name. The ICC wouldn't let them abandon a lot of the routes. Then they were forced to absorb the New Haven with all it's commuter trains. And lastly, the management teams did not get along and often would contradict one another's actions just for the sake of contradicting the guy from the other railroad.
In 1958, the NYC wanted to merge with the C&O, and the N&W with Pennsy. 40 years later in 1998 that's essentially what happened when NS and CSX took apart Conrail.
Conrail began making money only when the government, tasked with running the railroad, discovered how it's own rules and laws hurt the business and changed the rules.
Originally posted by lvrr325Â -Â June 24 2014Â :Â 10:42:08 PM
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That right there describes the current state of modern railroads. They all seem corrupt these days. Of course, they're not as bad as they were in the 1970's as shown in the video.
-Steve
"A lot of modellers out there who go to these train shows see broken HO stuff and go, 'This is useless' when, in reality, they can still be used for modeling whether it's as a prop on your layout or a cool project to make something old new again."
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Posted - June 26 2014 : 8:50:08 PM
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The film's quality's isn't top notch, but it brought me back some fond, vivid memories that seem like yesterday.
I remember well seeing green Penn Central (ex-NYC) medium distance commuter trains and how quietly they ran.
On one occasion my parents and I got on a PC commuter train at the station seen at time index 10:00, and headed north along the Hudson River to go to a dealership so that my dad could buy a 68 Pontiac LeMans that was being held for him. Those were the days! Sorry...I'm memory-laning again.
I noticed that many of the sounds were dubbed in. A giveaway was that the FL-9 at time index 12:52 was equipped with a Hancock Air whistle, yet we hear it blowing a WABCO A2 horn. At the wash rack where an F-unit is moving forward, we hear 3 quick toots, which is standard signaling for a back up move, lol. But this was the 1970s and films like this were usually targeted towards Economics and Social Studies classes in junior high and schools which is why the info presented is basic and generic. It just gets to the key points. Too much detail and the kids go to sleep. These types of documentaries often aired on PBS stations back then.
Some of you that are in the age 45-65 group probably may remember your teachers showing films similar in style to this one on Bell movie projectors running 16mm reels!
Be creative, share and enjoy the hobby :-)
Edited by - AntonioFP45 on June 26 2014 8:52:14 PM
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Posted - June 27 2014 : 08:28:58 AM
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| I.. what? Railroads have changed a ton since the early 1970s.
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