Tag Archives: The Chief

At This Moment 1954

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The Jam Handy Organization for
Westinghouse Air Brake Company
(Jim Handy to the rescue!)

Inspector Luger! Yep, I actually recognize someone in this industry featurette. Good old James Gregory appears in this corny, railroad worker documentary. Corny yes, but great scenes of first generation diesels and passenger/freight trains from the post-World War 2 heyday of American Railroads.

Long before the days of FedEx, UPS and Amazon, practically EVERYTHING used in the American home and business got there by rail. This message is beaten into the viewer continuously. Our story takes place in a railroad beanery called “Scotty’s”, just up the street from the depot. A stranger has arrived and is pumping the locals for information, about just what it is, that makes a railroad go.

I plan to overlook most of the hyperbole and just concentrate on the kick color views of trains. Sound good, Inspector?

Mr. Gregory was a great character actor “curmudgeon” from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Here we see him as Inspector Frank Luger in Barney Miller and the diabolical Doctor Tristan Adams in Star Trek’s “Dagger of the Mind“. Is that a great, smirking countenance, or what?

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Challenge for Tomorrow 1954

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Santa Fe Railway Safety Department

This one was a lot of fun to research and review. An old Santa Fe safety film in glorious Technicolor from the days of yore. Its formal name was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) which stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, The Bay Area (Richmond, California), and down from Kansas City into Texas.

Somehow all the prints I discovered online have the opening credits/title page lopped off. Thus, we’ll use the above safety images instead. The gent in the natty suit and bow tie, (wide lapels must be “IN” this year), has his pointer on San Bernardino’s injury count. He really needs to take a look at Albuquerque.

Just a smattering of steam locomotives are shown segueing into Santa Fe’s colorful, first-generation diesel fleet. And there’s no topping that classic red, silver and gold “Warbonnet” scheme on the passenger engines.

Let’s check it out. Santa Fe, All The Waaaaay!!

Motorcar operator “Skippy” is trundling down the San Joaquin Valley, blissfully unaware of the approaching San Francisco Chief. Should we warn him? “Look around, Skip, look around!” bellows the narrator. This great bit of melodrama will be fleshed out in the upcoming story. Read on.

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Santa Fe 3759 — 2004

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Pentrex – Santa Fe 3759 – Video DVD
Seymour F. Johnson Enterprises – Farewell to Steam! – Audio LP

This is the story of the final run of Santa Fe Railway steam locomotive #3759 in 1955. A 4-8-4 Northern built by Baldwin in 1928, this oil-burning behemoth was saved from the scrapper’s torch and placed on display in Kingman, Arizona where it resides today.

Today’s movie review was inspired by an LP from my father’s record collection — which I literally wore out playing, as a youngster. Loved that record. It wasn’t until later in life that I discovered a great deal of color film footage had been taken of the fan trip and put out on DVD by Pentrex. I had to get a copy.

The harder part was getting a good audio CD to replace the original LP. Apparently, there are two versions out there. The first was the original 1955 sounds put out by Mr. Johnson (see above). The second, more common, was a 1958 remixed album which had the reverb turned up to 11. Awful recording. As someone said, “It sounds like the listener was at the bottom of a steel drum”.

Anyways, Trolley Dodger to the rescue! Offered for sale on his website (see link at the bottom of this review) is an audio CD of the ORIGINAL mono non-reverbed LP. Fantastic sound quality and frequently playing as I drive along in my truck. ;p

For this video review, I created over 200 screen captures, but I’ll try to whittle that down to 65 or less, as #3759 makes it way from Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (LAUPT) to Barstow and back. Let’s watch big steam in action over Cajon Pass! In color!

Climbing towards Summit, the Farewell to Steam special passes a beautiful set of A-B-B-A F units on a downhill freight. With the San Gabriel mountains in the background, AT&SF #3759 blasts through a cut during a photo runby.

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Loaded For War 1944

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Santa Fe Telefilm Recording

Wow, early first generation diesels star alongside Santa Fe Railway’s magnificent fleet of steam locomotives in this color film showing the AT&SF was doing its bit to help win World War 2.

As a vital link to the Pacific Theater, Santa Fe received the lion’s share of EMD FT diesel locomotives built before and during the war.

Let’s take a look at how one railroad hauled military, freight and passengers along with all the facilities needed to keep the system going. Santa Fe, All the Way!

An EMC E6 locomotive gets its slant nose scrubbed down as a Baldwin 4-6-4 backs up alongside; a 4 unit set of EMD FT’s pulls past a very smoky iron horse.

GM’s Electro-Motive Division designed the famous red and silver “Warbonnet” paint scheme as well as the more somber, but still classy blue and yellow for the freight FT’s.

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Case of the 12th Wildcat 1965

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CBS Television Network

Oh, this one should make both my brother and my wife go, “Gah!!…NOOOOoooo!!” (neither can STAND Perry Mason for various reasons, best not discussed here).

But…it’s my blog and there’s trains in it, so a-posting I will go. Three different railroads are seen in stock footage, but more about that later.

Originally broadcast on Halloween night 1965, “12th Wildcat” featured a Southern Pacific passenger train from San Francisco to Los Angeles on SP’s Coast Line. The action takes place in the dark of early morning onboard a lounge car and a couple sleepers in the first 12 minutes of the feature.

Come along and watch with amusement as I search for clues to the identity of some poorly-lit railroad equipment. Objection! Counsel is assuming a fact not in evidence and is leading the witness!

I include this interior shot of the lounge car purely for this guy’s wonderful, leering smirk.

It’s probably just a set, but includes a well-stocked bar — which fuels a drunken souse leading to murder!

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