Tag Archives: Roundhouse

Railroad Town 1956

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National Film Board of Canada

My regular readers know I enjoy reviewing B&W railroad films produced in the 1950’s by the NFB of Canada. In this documentary short, we take a look at the railroad town of Melville, Saskatchewan whose main raison d’etre is Canadian National Railways.

Melville is/was a division point with a two-story depot, a large rail yard with ample steam and diesel servicing facilities. The depot is still there as of 2022 and is being restored.

Steam was still plentiful, but early first generation diesels were on the scene and slowly taking over with full dieselization occurring just four years later. Also, this was pre-1960 “wet-noodle” C N logo and paint scheme.

Check out this gem with CBC host Fred Davis getting no less than 3 cab rides and an open air speeder trip!

This is the mystery locomotive from the documentary. CN #8553 does not appear to match up with any CNR roster I could find online.

It is an end cab switcher, possibly a GMD-built SW-900 that was quickly renumbered to the 7200 series. In one of my books (Rail Canada, Volume 1 by Donald C. Lewis), I have a picture of CN #8555 at Calgary, so this is a distinct possibility.

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Loves Labor Won 1948

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20th Century Fox
Terrytoons Studios

Here I come, to save the daaaay! Yes, it’s Mighty Mouse once more battling Oil Can Harry for the affections of lovely Pearl Pureheart.

This train-laced, Terrytoons animated short, is done in a wonderful, fake-opera, melodramatic style with MM (our hero) belting out tenor, OCH (our villian) singing bass/baritone and PP (our damsel in distress) warbling soprano.

The art work is right up there with Warner Brothers for quality and the animators did a great job with backgrounds and interiors. Lots of action and enough asides and adult-gags to keep it interesting.

On with the show!

Wonderfully-detailed coach interior right down to the red-plush seats and pot-bellied stove; Standard old-fashioned steam locomotive about to change into an anthropomorphic object at the hands of Oil Can Harry.

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Webs of Steel 1926

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Anchor Film Distributors

Wow! This obscure, little gem is just PACKED with railroad action. While many/most of the early B&W movies I have reviewed (such as Murder in the Private Car 1934 and The Block Signal 1926) were filmed on Southern Pacific or Santa Fe rails, Webs of Steel was filmed mostly, if not entirely on Union Pacific Railroad (UP) in the Los Angeles area.

More specifically, we are treated to a whole slew of oil-burning, beefy 2-8-0 Class C-57’s, lettered for UP subsidiary LA&SL (Los Angeles & Salt Lake).

The heroine of this silent flick is the plucky Helen Webb (played by Helen Holmes). Actress Holmes came from a railroad family and did all of her own stunts in this movie as well as a string of other railroad-related pictures.

Two UP 6000 series 2-8-0’s are blasting along during the elopement scene. Helen and her beau (the engineer) are trying to stay ahead of the second 2-8-0 bearing her father — who does not approve of this joining! Sparks are sure to fly (groan…) when Dad catches up with them.

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Railroadin’ 1929

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Hal Roach Studios

Whilst grazing around on YouTube, I came upon this absolute gem of an early black and white talkie. Railroadin’ features the Little Rascals / Our Gang kids on location at Santa Fe Railway’s Redondo Junction roundhouse in Los Angeles.

The star of the show is AT&SF #1373, a 4-6-2 built by Baldwin in 1913 and scrapped in 1949. In addition, we catch glimpses of a whole bevy of steam locomotives at the roundhouse which I’ll try to sort out later in this review.

Many thanks to “chrisbungostudios” on YouTube for putting together a most useful “Filming Locations” video, which will be linked to further down in my write up.

It’s iron horses galore in the last golden days of the Roaring Twenties! Let’s check it out.

Santa Fe Railway #1373 belches copious amounts of black smoke skyward (sanding the flues) as it runs along a side track. Notice the string of boonie old “outside braced” wooden box cars in the background.

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Other Men’s Women 1931

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Warner Brothers

Southern Pacific Lines and their subsidiary San Diego & Arizona (SD&A) gave movie-makers carte blanche in filming this railroad-themed motion picture. The star of the show is a chunky little 2-8-0 SD&A #103, a C-8 class steam locomotive (Baldwin 1904). There’s a host of other Espee steam power seen in passing to keep things interesting.

Lots of action (this being a Warner’s picture) including crewmen on the car tops, bailing off and on moving trains, a couple fist fights in the cab and an actual side-swipe wreck of two trains. Future big stars, James Cagney and Joan Blondell make brief appearances in minor roles.

So let’s climb aboard and see Southern Pacific Railroad in all its glory as it rolls through Southern California in the early 1930’s. Highball!

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SD&A #103 trundles through the night with a long string of Pacific Fruit Express refrigerator cars bearing both Southern Pacific and Union Pacific markings.

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