" A RAILROAD REPORT TO AMERICA " 1950s RAILROAD FILM PENN STATION PASSENGER TRAINS XD14754
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- čas přidán 28. 11. 2021
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This film, dating probably to the early 1950s, demonstrates modernization efforts on the railroads as a shift from steam powered locomotives, to diesel engines, and begin to concentrate on freight service. The film presents a view of by-then already antiquated styles of passenger service, as well as an early look at multimodal transportation. The film displays an information technology landscape of punch card tabulation, fax machines, reel-to-reels and a feminized clerical workforce, and culminates in a spectacular demonstration of the control systems employed at Conway Yard. (TRT 17:28) A steam locomotive moves down a track, marked “Cyrus K. Holliday” (0:09). The engineer sits at the front of the train (1:06). A steam engine (1:19). Military people enter a train car. The train passes by artillery. (1:31). Workers walk past engines at a railroad yard (1:44). People pack the back of a car. Cars move down the street, competition for the railroad (2:03). A Greyhound bus drives past some palm trees (2:11). An airplane marked Eastern Air Lines picks up travelers, ascending aircraft stars from the tarmac (2:20). The tail of a United Airlines Mainliner. Air freight (2:28). Trucks carrying freight. Trucks marked Triple, carrying short haul (2:35). Barges (2:46). A pipeline being laid (2:53). A graphic shows a natural gas pipeline, the “Big Inch,” joining Texas and New York (3:04). A train with a car labeled “State of Maine Products,” “Soo Line,” (3:25). The Old Penn Station, New York City. People stand at ticket booths (3:40). One Pullman ticket booth is marked NY NH H RR (New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad). and LV RR (Lehigh Valley Railroad). Tickets. A sign marks times and locations for Poughkeepsie and the “Upstate Special,” which includes Hudson, Albany and Schenectady (3:51). Businessmen exiting a train car (4:01). New York Central Railroad trains traveling (4:04). A porter serves beer to a group of women, men sit in armchairs in first class, a man gets a haircut from a barber, women stretch out their feet on rests (4:30). A woman in pajamas reads in a sleeper car. A man answers a telephone (4:44). Porters serve meals to people seated around dining tables on the train. Coffee is served. A man makes the case for the institution of the dining car, threatened with extinction (4:56). A crane lifts freight out of train cars (5:40). The sign of the LaSalle Street Station (5:49). Men laying railroad rails by hand and hammering in railroad spikes. A crane lifts a rail. A man pushes a rail through a machine that welds the rails together. The long rails - as long as a quarter of a mile - are then transported by train (6:00). A modernized Penn Station. A ticket sales sign - “Directory: Pennsylvania Railroad” (6:30). A woman puts a container in a pneumatic tube system. Women with headsets monitor closed circuit television screens, telephone dials and notebooks at the ready. A woman makes a reservation next to a television screen (6:39). People work a giant tabulating machine used for making travel reservations. A facsimile transmitter prints a reservation, a ticket printer prints a ticket (6:52). Trains of different varieties race one another, in a demonstration of the greater economy of diesel over steam engines (7:30). A Santa Fe Railroad diesel locomotive. People aboard the train. (8:05). A Pennsylvania Railroad experimental lightweight car, Pioneer III (8:20). A New Haven Railroad self-powered car (8:30). A General Motors Aerotrain (8:40). A smoking car - the Santa Fe high-level El Capitan (8:53). Freight cars pass between buildings (9:10). The Pennsylvania Railroad Keystone (9:24). The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad’s Pioneer Zephyr (9:44). The New Haven Talgo Train (9:47). A Mid-States truck, illustrating early multimodal transportation, knick-named “The Piggyback” (10:17). A “Piggyback Trucker” describes how freight is moved onto trains and trucks. The distance between Chicago and New York is displayed (10:40). Conway Yard, a marshaling yard on the Ohio River built by Pennsylvania (12:39). The automated control center of Conway Yard (13:12). A tickertape machine and punch card tabulator. A man phones in to a reel-to-reel recorder accompanied by transcriptionist. A pneumatic transport (14:13). Electric retarder brakes, with electronic control (15:37).
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com
My grandfather worked as a track laying foreman at Conway Yard from 1922 until he was forced to retire at the end of the 70's. Even then he still kept on as a consultant for many years. He lived in Freedom overlooking the yard and spent almost ever free moment sitting on the porch watching the yard. If he saw something he didn't like he'd be on the phone calling the yard. The railroad really was his life.
My dad ran trains from Crestline ohio to Conway
A very good episode about people who travel on the train showing how the passengers that ride the train and the dining car barbershop and how they socialize with each other in the 1950s
Today's people don't socialize this much...
Conway Yard is still very much a marvel, although much smaller these days. Man, this is a great film. Before the doomed Pennsy/NY Central merger, before railroads dropped passenger service altogether, etc.
Very good look into what was in my industry. Even so, I want to see the uncut version of this.
Thanks for this, great film.
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Hope you had a top top weekend hope you have been keeping well top job as allways inkoy catching up as been away 👍 👍
🔰🇺🇸 My father worked as a freight clerk at 30th Street Station area headquarters (PRR + ConRail) in Philadelphia, PA for like 40 years or so; Retired in 1996 I think.
- I remember him talking about those ‘punch cards’ that identified cars and freight.
- He always used to talk to my Mom, about getting ‘bumped’ to avoid layoffs and furloughs. I think ‘bumped’ was a railroad term where if you had seniority, you ‘bumped’ someone else with less seniority out of their position.
Awesome film. So sad there is not more passenger service. We'd love to take Amtrak to our destination, but it costs more to take the train than to fly...if it is going to take me most of a day to take a train versus a few hours, at least it should cost less
Totally agree. Amtrak needs to be re-thought. Glad you enjoyed the film. Consider becoming a channel member czcams.com/video/ODBW3pVahUE/video.html
Passenger rail only works for trips less than 2hr duration from a convenient terminal and when the right of way is maintained to passenger standards.
4:04 Mr. Vaughn’s comment not found
I’m still waiting on his comment 😆 !!
👍
After watching this film I have less tendency to go "off the rails"
Why did steamers have to be scrapped
The U.S. railroad industry made billions off World War II. But the American railroad industry has always been run by some of the most financially corrupt individuals American capitalism ever hatched. For generations, owners siphoned off the wealth into their own pockets and moved on, leaving behind the economic wreckage for others to clean-up. Slow to innovate, slow to change, slow to reinvest capital, and quick to blame anything and everything but themselves for their problems.
We could say the same for most American industries. Coming out of the war American mills could run at capacity while much of the rest of the world had to rebuild. Europe and Japan built new, more efficient plants while American companies paid out fat dividends instead of making capital investments. Then they blamed the unions when those old plants became uncompetitive against foreign competition. More recently it’s turned into a political trope that “they”…the other guys…sold out America and moved the jobs overseas. Always blaming anybody but the ones who made the decision to take profits rather than reinvest.
WTF?? if the owners owned it they had the damn right to take a profit! and they knew how to reinvest when they needed too!! and hell if you want know where the corruption in it was look no further than the unions and them buying politicians!!! most of them make the drug gangs look saintly!!!
@@jacksons1010 no dividends no investors union stooge!!!
@@keithmoore5306 Take the steel industry - the cold hard reality is that US steel companies did not invest in modern equipment and that is why they could not compete with steel makers in Europe and Asia - it had nothing to do with unions. It was company management that was blind to reality and blamed everybody but themselves for their loss of business and disappearing profits. I was involved in buying steel in the 70s and the price difference between US steel and imported steel from Europe was significant - that had everything to do with modern steel manufacturing facilities in Europe that were built after WW 2. Same with Japan - all their mills were brand new after WW 2 and were kept up to date and thus were highly efficient compared to US mills. There are a few US specialty steel manufacturers that can and do compete and they all have invested in modern equipment and they keep their mills up to date because they have intelligent management.