I am definitely glad that there were railfans with movie camcorders back then to catch these classics in action instead of just photos. I love this stuff.
Seeing that stack of semaphores at the start of the video just warmed my heart. Today we mourn with every searchlight taken down and back then they were seen as the new kid on the block.
Chicago's Railroads are sadly a shell of their former self, It makes me sad that I was born way too late (like January 2008) where most of these railroads stopped existing
I’m 19 and was making comments just like yours when I was your age. I realized a little while later that were in the middle of a great renaissance of train travel (Brightline is the first of many to come) and it’s up to us to recreate these glory days. Good luck my friend
0:45-0:51. Tower A20. Shot from Techny Road. Grew up there, worked at Cooksey Oil (heating oil and Coal) just to the right of the tower. Good times. Sure miss those days.
That was a beautiful "Rainbow train" towards the end of the clip: deep yellow Milwaukee Road E8's with sky-blue Great Northern and Northern pacific cars. Burlington sure kept their tracks in excellent shape.
Damn that video was great quality for that time period. This was the twilight of the golden age of passenger railroading. Once the major railroads got out of the passenger business, Amtrak (The Government) is at the mercy of where the freight railroads want them to go. Sometimes I wish Amtrak had never been created. ♣️💚♦️♠️.
Technically in my point of view, back in the late 1960s were the nadir of bad times for passenger trains. If the government really had its wish, just let the railroads be freight only and let automobiles, buses and planes take over. The interstates and airports were the big nail in the coffin of passenger trains.
You do realize that without Amtrak, passenger rail in the US would be gone, right? By 1971, most railroads lacked the funds for so much as basic maintenance due to having to support passenger rail and huge competition from trucks and airline freight. Look at what happened to N de M's passenger service in the 70s, it went bust and that would've happened in America too if amtrak was never created. I'm not saying that Amtrak is perfect, but I am of the opinion that things would be a lot worse without Amtrak.
My digs with the CNW in my boyhood was Fox River Grove, Barrington and Crystal Lake. Union Pacific still operates left handed only on the former CNW's northwest line in those towns under Metra.
Another 16mm film by the great Emery Gulash, I still can’t Thank him enough for all of his outstanding work, time and efforts that he put into these videos, factoring the travel, lodging, meals and film that he donated toward these. This must have been a true passion of his and I’m glad to have been a part of being one of Green Frog’s/Emery Gulash’s customer’s over the past year’s. These video’s, in my opinion, truly deserve an A+++++. In a manner of speaking, Thank You, for bringing back the fallen flags.
Santa Fe's F-units were tired out, so you needed extra power. Plus, the grades in Raton Pass in Colorado and New Mexico plus Cajon in California necessitated additional units.
I ride the GO train from Oshawa Ontario to Toronto. Times may have changed but its still relaxing as hell and the best way to travel. ( as long as you avoid rush hour)
MIKECNW: do you have nothing more to do than make snide self important comments to people u don't know & never did anything to you? Your an ass you know. Just in case were unclear.
Hobgoblin, "Old as f@ck" eh?Something which you'll be (if ur lucky) sooner than you can possibly believe. And when it happens, your gonna feel SOOOO stupid, lol. Enjoy the inevitable sonny Jim, ha ha haaaaa!!!
8:30 Sears Tower being built, this must’ve really been the time of big skyscrapers. The WTC in New York was built and the Sears Tower all in this decade
The shot of Deerfield is at the corner of Osterman and Green Bay. I also know Rondout. The shots were taken close to the old North Shore Line bridge next to IL 176.
Nigel Richardson Leslies everywhere, no E-bells, good Nathan horns, Nathan m5's, and more. There are a lot of reasons why the past of railroads were better.
At 8:30 the BN freight must be a transfer run because it is clearly on the south side of Chicago rather than on home rails at Cicero yard. It is passing below a PRR signal bridge, and when the camera pans it reveals C&WI signal bridge and parallel tracks. The skyline is also looming far too close in the background and the Sears tower is directly North of the tracks, ruling out the possibility of this being Cicero.
Well done, excellent photography, sound track, the works. My old S8 color films back then (silent, too, I might add) pale in comparison. No, actually they don't compare at all. Thanks!
I hate to be a pest, but shot where the Abraham Lincoln supposedly runs through Lemont may not be in Lemont at all. I looked on the maps to see where Lemont was in relation to Chicago and I saw that the main line ran straight through the center of the town adjacent to main street. In the background of the shot, there appears to be a church building with a double steeple. This may help in identify were the shot actually was set. I noticed someone here mention the parlour cars and said that they were used on the Coast Starlight until 2018. I was on the train in 2016 and may have been on one of those cars, literally.
Not exactly. In the late 80s, Illinois Central Gulf reverted to its pre-merger name as the Illinois Central. Today, the IC is a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway.
wow I missed out on all the good stuff, all the footage I get too see and watching Amtrak flail along out west here, my opinioni is the way the passenger segment of railroading has been handled shamefully, too many union turf wars I'm guessing, ah well, classy introductory soundtrack tho
We originally went with Emery Gulash's script and info he had on this film, and it can be hard to tell with Lens distortion, but you can typically tell an E-Unit over an F-Unit because the E-units were longer loco's!
I don't know much about trains in the US bit at 6:15 when there is a video of the Super Chief, why did the F units have so many booster/B units? Was is normally like this or was this for a special reason?
Judging by your profile picture, you're probably used to twin-cab diesels. I've been in that position. Anyway, from what I know, the B-units were to used to add extra power to the locomotive without the use of a cab. EMD Fs, Es, and similar passenger diesels of the time were built to promote streamlined trains, and having several locos with cabs on one train would just not work with the continuous flow of the train consist. West of Chicago trains with just one A unit and several B units was common, though A-B-A sets became common throughout the country so the passenger diesels wouldn't need turntables or wye-tracks like steam engines. They were a way to make the motive power look stylish while providing plenty of power for the train. Santa Fe' F-unit powered Chiefs were equivalent to three E units, but the Es have A1A-A1A wheel layouts, while the Fs are B-Bs. Fs were preferred as all of their power would go to the wheels for the steep grades between Chicago and Los Angeles. Normally Fs were used on freight trains, and their were passenger F units with steam generators. However, B units could also contain a steam generator for heating trains due to the extra space from the lack of a cab. In short, yes, power combos like this were very common in the days before Amtrak. The benefits of multiple-unit control. Must've been unusual seeing bilevel coaches as well.
The reason for all the F-7 units was two fold......in Colorado and New Mexico, the train did some serious hill climbing, then out near San Bernardino into Los Angeles, it had to climb Cajon Pass through the San Gabriel mountains. Second, when Amtrak took over the train in 1971, Santa Fe, like a few other railroads withdrew their newest passenger engines (FP-45, U28CG and U30CG) from letting Amtrak use them, in return they provided thee older F-7 units...which were in such crappy condition it took a lot of units to provide sufficient power among those that had on-road failures.
They were F units..........short car bodies and 4 wheel trucks...the.E units, Santa Fe had about 8 of them, were longer car bodies with 6 wheel trucks, though most were gone by the Amtrak era, and were NEVER used on this era Super Chief....only secondary trains in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Colorado.
Majestic Trains The Santa Fe and many other railroads for that matter bought many of there E (6 Axle) and F (4 axle) units in A-B-A or A-B-B-A sets, with the builders intention of the units not being uncoupled. However, the railroads taking units out for maintenance and finding it more efficient to run the locomotives in different styles of consist, they just end up all over the place and sometimes end up with crazy consist with lots of A and B units in a random configuration. Though it's funny, they were easier to use cause they didn't have to be turned. So when the A units were uncoupled, you couldn't lead it backwards cause you can't see anything.
The Milwaukee lost a gamble and its identity when it took those money-losing passenger trains off the Northwestern’s hands and started painting yellow on everything they owned. C&NW must have been laughing their butts off when UP picked them and not the Milwaukee as a merger partner.
Sorry but we never recorded the name of this music, this came from a Pro music library where you have to pay royalty fees for each cut of music you want to use!
The 1960s and 1970s were a changing time. Mergers happening all over and when Amtrak took off in 1971, you had a mixture of passenger cars from the roads that opted into Amtrak.
Emery Gulash: an underappreciated photographer and videographer.
Agreed!have 40green frog vhs tapes from emery travels all over USA in 1950-1980s...he was the best I've seen in my 75 yrs😊
Can I say that I wish to see Emery before he sadly passed away in 2006 but oh well he had a good life Filming carrier but did he go to Calgary??
Born and raised in Chicago. Watching this was like taking a short trip home and back in time. I'm an older man, I remember Truman. Thank you
Me too!😁
That show was awesome 👌
I am definitely glad that there were railfans with movie camcorders back then to catch these classics in action instead of just photos. I love this stuff.
Not camcorders. Movie cameras, with actual film. That's the only reason this footage looks as good as it does.
@@xaenon if only they came with their own audio.
Diesel locomotives really had style and character up until the 1970s. The windows in the engineers cab even gave them the appearance of a face.
@@DavidSmith-xs3or Yea
1940s music with 1960s images still make it!
1:53 that hurts, tho
Seeing that stack of semaphores at the start of the video just warmed my heart. Today we mourn with every searchlight taken down and back then they were seen as the new kid on the block.
The remastering on this video is fantastic.
Well done. Nice 40s music and 60s style video. I have to say trains from history are still there.
At 8:30 you can see the sears tower under construction.
Yeah.
Willis
@@joedirte716 It was sears at that time. Plus I didn’t want to anger people that still call it Sears tower.
That elegant Cadillac Fleetwood® at 1:38....
Everything was better back then!
Chicago's Railroads are sadly a shell of their former self, It makes me sad that I was born way too late (like January 2008) where most of these railroads stopped existing
I’m 19 and was making comments just like yours when I was your age. I realized a little while later that were in the middle of a great renaissance of train travel (Brightline is the first of many to come) and it’s up to us to recreate these glory days. Good luck my friend
The music lends itself well to this video.
Chicago was still buzzing in the mid 60, early 70. Many of us still did ot understand what happend to all the great railroads!
government poured money into air travel and didnt put money into rail and let the railroads try to survive by themselves..
From windy city the trains and buildings past great show 👏
0:45-0:51. Tower A20. Shot from Techny Road. Grew up there, worked at Cooksey Oil (heating oil and Coal) just to the right of the tower. Good times. Sure miss those days.
I had a great grandpa who used to work on the Milwaukee road
That was a beautiful "Rainbow train" towards the end of the clip: deep yellow Milwaukee Road E8's with sky-blue Great Northern and Northern pacific cars. Burlington sure kept their tracks in excellent shape.
And the late great Burlington's legacy is still very much at work under BNSF as well as the late great Santa Fe.
Damn that video was great quality for that time period. This was the twilight of the golden age of passenger railroading. Once the major railroads got out of the passenger business, Amtrak (The Government) is at the mercy of where the freight railroads want them to go. Sometimes I wish Amtrak had never been created. ♣️💚♦️♠️.
Technically in my point of view, back in the late 1960s were the nadir of bad times for passenger trains. If the government really had its wish, just let the railroads be freight only and let automobiles, buses and planes take over. The interstates and airports were the big nail in the coffin of passenger trains.
You do realize that without Amtrak, passenger rail in the US would be gone, right? By 1971, most railroads lacked the funds for so much as basic maintenance due to having to support passenger rail and huge competition from trucks and airline freight. Look at what happened to N de M's passenger service in the 70s, it went bust and that would've happened in America too if amtrak was never created.
I'm not saying that Amtrak is perfect, but I am of the opinion that things would be a lot worse without Amtrak.
@@scoobycarr5558 What did the government have to do with all of it?
plus what's the big deal?
The parlour cars used on the El Captain were used on the coast starlight until they were retired in 2018.
My favorite RR will always be the good 'ol C&NW! Great memories in the 70's of watching them run in SE Wisconsin.
My digs with the CNW in my boyhood was Fox River Grove, Barrington and Crystal Lake. Union Pacific still operates left handed only on the former CNW's northwest line in those towns under Metra.
Another 16mm film by the great Emery Gulash, I still can’t Thank him enough for all of his outstanding work, time and efforts that he put into these videos, factoring the travel, lodging, meals and film that he donated toward these. This must have been a true passion of his and I’m glad to have been a part of being one of Green Frog’s/Emery Gulash’s customer’s over the past year’s. These video’s, in my opinion, truly deserve an A+++++. In a manner of speaking, Thank You, for bringing back the fallen flags.
Yes sir...purchased 40 green frog vhs tapes from 1950-1980, emery and crew the best in my 75 yrs of railfanning😊
6:13
That's a lot of B units for such a trip.
Santa Fe's F-units were tired out, so you needed extra power. Plus, the grades in Raton Pass in Colorado and New Mexico plus Cajon in California necessitated additional units.
@@JessicaKasumi1990 True
I ride the GO train from Oshawa Ontario to Toronto. Times may have changed but its still relaxing as hell and the best way to travel. ( as long as you avoid rush hour)
Some of the bilevels on the former Burlington, CNW and Milwaukee Road are still in service today on Metra.
yes, you can identify CNW and Rock Island passenger cars by their grey, blue, and red stripes
Is no one gonna talk about the freakin six booster units on the super chief? Christ, where are they going?
all that awesome trackwork then and even now...so great.
I have this video and the first one as well. Very good video and this one definitely is much clearer.
What a document of history! And the quality is superb! ;)
I remember that train going down the middle median of the Dan Ryan Highway the last time I drove to Chicago. That was over twenty-five years ago.
Is that all you have to say?
MIKECNW except for the fact that he's old af.
MIKECNW: do you have nothing more to do than make snide self important comments to people u don't know & never did anything to you?
Your an ass you know. Just in case were unclear.
Hobgoblin, "Old as f@ck" eh?Something which you'll be (if ur lucky) sooner than you can possibly believe. And when it happens, your gonna feel SOOOO stupid, lol.
Enjoy the inevitable sonny Jim, ha ha haaaaa!!!
8:30 Sears Tower being built, this must’ve really been the time of big skyscrapers. The WTC in New York was built and the Sears Tower all in this decade
The shot of Deerfield is at the corner of Osterman and Green Bay. I also know Rondout. The shots were taken close to the old North Shore Line bridge next to IL 176.
All those railroads and loco builders companies non exist anymore !!!😞
Trains were better back then than now....
Nigel Richardson Leslies everywhere, no E-bells, good Nathan horns, Nathan m5's, and more. There are a lot of reasons why the past of railroads were better.
Not just because of the horns but also because train travel was more comfortable and convenient (cheaper too)
No crappy gevos
@@anthonyyoung3194 agreed no Crappy GEVO's just EMD E8 E9 F7 E7 SDP40F's F40PH Phase II And phase I
Big Boy Pasta he’s talking about service and productivity, not what makes you hard.
Hello! Many nostalgy thanks for the very nice pictures.
9:43 shows the Marina City towers when they were topped with broadcast transmitters.
At 8:30 the BN freight must be a transfer run because it is clearly on the south side of Chicago rather than on home rails at Cicero yard. It is passing below a PRR signal bridge, and when the camera pans it reveals C&WI signal bridge and parallel tracks. The skyline is also looming far too close in the background and the Sears tower is directly North of the tracks, ruling out the possibility of this being Cicero.
Well done, excellent photography, sound track, the works. My old S8 color films back then (silent, too, I might add) pale in comparison. No, actually they don't compare at all. Thanks!
Thank you so much you made a amazing video
Great Promo!
Nice little brief escape 😎
It's seems as if it wasn't so long ago that I witnessed those very same scenes. Where did all of the time go?
nice, special shout out to the cameraman
Good stuff Maynard. :)
where can i find this song by itself, i love it
RUclips Audio Library under Jazz/blues called "Da Jazz Blues"
@@GreenFrogVideos while that version is smooth and enjoyable, y'all do something in yall remix version that is more iconic imo
@@GreenFrogVideosthanks Emery this man is who I inspired to be a train photographer
Wow the variety of trains thin now you go there it's bnsf up csx Norfolk southern Canadian Pacific Canadian national and it stuck like a CD on repeat.
Strength & Honor
Like train
Wash racks? We don't need no stinking wash racks.
Kudos on your choice of music. Simply great stuff! Too many docs are ruined by a ridiculous soundtrack.....
Thank-you, glad you enjoyed the music, much appreciated!
6:22 how long was that train that it had 6 F units on the point?
I hate to be a pest, but shot where the Abraham Lincoln supposedly runs through Lemont may not be in Lemont at all. I looked on the maps to see where Lemont was in relation to Chicago and I saw that the main line ran straight through the center of the town adjacent to main street. In the background of the shot, there appears to be a church building with a double steeple. This may help in identify were the shot actually was set.
I noticed someone here mention the parlour cars and said that they were used on the Coast Starlight until 2018. I was on the train in 2016 and may have been on one of those cars, literally.
l just ordered this on DVD. Hurry up post office!!
Same here!
I'm planning to!
2:34 look at that steamer!
???
@@henrybrightonmusicuploads in the background
I like the music, and I'm a fan of the dark age of trains when they were starting to suffer.
1:14 weird horn on that Santa Fe unit.
I would have loved to see 21st street junction in its prime. 2:19 Where is that at exactly?
So sad how far we fell behind in infrastructure...
The *IC* now *GMO* free
Not exactly. In the late 80s, Illinois Central Gulf reverted to its pre-merger name as the Illinois Central. Today, the IC is a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway.
Old days 4 or 6 locomotives Lots of power pull passenger car Present day only one or two locomotives
Yep, 1500 hp per locomotive to 4,000 and 6,000 HP per locomotive being the norm :P
Green Frog how about a video of just the.Northshore line? Slow down the footage and describe where the train is at and give some history.
Shame Amtrak didn't paint any B-units in its pain scheme.
Russell Streak Yes they did. Google "Amtrak E8B" and you will find at least one. Not too many, though.
wow I missed out on all the good stuff, all the footage I get too see and watching Amtrak flail along out west here, my opinioni is the way the passenger segment of railroading has been handled shamefully, too many union turf wars I'm guessing, ah well, classy introductory soundtrack tho
4:43 no way that is an E unit. With that nose it has to be an F unit..
We originally went with Emery Gulash's script and info he had on this film, and it can be hard to tell with Lens distortion, but you can typically tell an E-Unit over an F-Unit because the E-units were longer loco's!
@@GreenFrogVideos It looks like the number is BN 9942, which would make it a former CB&Q E8.
Later E units and F units have the exact same nose. Also, it's time and a half as long as an F unit and has two sets of exhaust pipes...
7:52 I'm pretty shure that was audio of a sl4t
I'm pretty sure it's not. The extra note would be really easy to hear if it was.
@@ErickC I kinda think you can hear it in the first 2 blasts
I don't know much about trains in the US bit at 6:15 when there is a video of the Super Chief, why did the F units have so many booster/B units? Was is normally like this or was this for a special reason?
Or were they E-units? I find it hard to tell the difference between the later E-units and F-units.
Judging by your profile picture, you're probably used to twin-cab diesels. I've been in that position. Anyway, from what I know, the B-units were to used to add extra power to the locomotive without the use of a cab. EMD Fs, Es, and similar passenger diesels of the time were built to promote streamlined trains, and having several locos with cabs on one train would just not work with the continuous flow of the train consist. West of Chicago trains with just one A unit and several B units was common, though A-B-A sets became common throughout the country so the passenger diesels wouldn't need turntables or wye-tracks like steam engines. They were a way to make the motive power look stylish while providing plenty of power for the train. Santa Fe' F-unit powered Chiefs were equivalent to three E units, but the Es have A1A-A1A wheel layouts, while the Fs are B-Bs. Fs were preferred as all of their power would go to the wheels for the steep grades between Chicago and Los Angeles. Normally Fs were used on freight trains, and their were passenger F units with steam generators. However, B units could also contain a steam generator for heating trains due to the extra space from the lack of a cab.
In short, yes, power combos like this were very common in the days before Amtrak. The benefits of multiple-unit control. Must've been unusual seeing bilevel coaches as well.
The reason for all the F-7 units was two fold......in Colorado and New Mexico, the train did some serious hill climbing, then out near San Bernardino into Los Angeles, it had to climb Cajon Pass through the San Gabriel mountains. Second, when Amtrak took over the train in 1971, Santa Fe, like a few other railroads withdrew their newest passenger engines (FP-45, U28CG and U30CG) from letting Amtrak use them, in return they provided thee older F-7 units...which were in such crappy condition it took a lot of units to provide sufficient power among those that had on-road failures.
They were F units..........short car bodies and 4 wheel trucks...the.E units, Santa Fe had about 8 of them, were longer car bodies with 6 wheel trucks, though most were gone by the Amtrak era, and were NEVER used on this era Super Chief....only secondary trains in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Colorado.
Majestic Trains The Santa Fe and many other railroads for that matter bought many of there E (6 Axle) and F (4 axle) units in A-B-A or A-B-B-A sets, with the builders intention of the units not being uncoupled. However, the railroads taking units out for maintenance and finding it more efficient to run the locomotives in different styles of consist, they just end up all over the place and sometimes end up with crazy consist with lots of A and B units in a random configuration. Though it's funny, they were easier to use cause they didn't have to be turned. So when the A units were uncoupled, you couldn't lead it backwards cause you can't see anything.
The Milwaukee lost a gamble and its identity when it took those money-losing passenger trains off the Northwestern’s hands and started painting yellow on everything they owned. C&NW must have been laughing their butts off when UP picked them and not the Milwaukee as a merger partner.
Well...when the UP "picked" them { C&NW }, the Milwaukee was long gone.....
at 5:30 idk
What is the name of this song?
Sorry but we never recorded the name of this music, this came from a Pro music library where you have to pay royalty fees for each cut of music you want to use!
why is the coaches random?
The 1960s and 1970s were a changing time. Mergers happening all over and when Amtrak took off in 1971, you had a mixture of passenger cars from the roads that opted into Amtrak.
This is BORING!
Roger Borroel if you don't like it then just leave, it's a video about trains and why did you bother clicking on it?
Your BORING!
Roger Borroel just leave dude
Then don't watch it stupid.
Ok dumbazz!
like train