I expect at the time the men wondered why anyone would want to film their every day lives on the railway, but now this film is all that’s left of such a different world.
I have worked for a railway and there is a lot that the average person would not see. In my work I have been in a prison, up an airport tower, the microwave level of the CN Tower in Toronto, the Toronto Stock Exchange and many other locations that might be of interest to others. I have also been in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario, without a single person within miles of me.
As a train engineer I can tell that this video is very educative and explains allot. I always love how the old documentary videos from USA are nicely detailed and explain the topic step by step, awesome footage seeing those old school EMD units and hearing those 567 engines when they were barely new!
I agree. I'm 50 yrs old now and a Navy veteran. For some reason, ever since I was a kid I feel like I was supposed to have grown up in the 50's. 50's movies especially sci-fi are my favorites & when I see these old school training videos I feel like that's when I learn best. BTW - nice to see freight cars before graffiti ruined them like these days.
Wow! In 2020, the US railroads closed huge numbers of gravity hump yards, the very thing they were so proud of in this great film! Also gone, cabooses, flagmen, head and rear end brakemen, firemen, wooden reefers, footboards on the front of locomotives, torpedoes (signal crackers)…. I could go on for hours! This was a great industry that’s now a skeleton of its former self. I prefer to remember it as it was in this film from 6 years before I was born!
@@michigandon I spent 41 years on Southern/NS, retired in 2020, and I can tell you that the damage to the class 1 railroads the he and his activist hedge fund cronies have caused will take decades, if ever, to straighten out! HH was never in charge of NS, but the wormy management of NS under the weak leadership of CEO Jim Squires, self inflicted HH’s scorched earth policies on the company! Now, in 2022, with HH deceased and Squires out, the NS is trying to come to come to grips with how to put the remain’s of a once great rr back together! With a staggering number of facilities closed, and employee count reduced to nothing by PSR policy and now covid, it’s proving to be a near impossible task!
In the 70s I had a crazy friend who was a conductor. I remember on his rout he had several girlfriends. Two of them came up pregnant at the same time. He wound up marrying the rich one, quit the train, and went to work for his father in law in the oil business.
I was one of the first new hire conductors for CSX back in the mid 90s running the Mobile to New Orleans route. It was still old school when I started and we were one of the last divisions still using a caboose. We needed it for a shoving platform for a local switching job. Some of the L&N old heads were still around when I hired in and some started when there was steam engines. It was one of the best jobs I ever had.
Wow that's cool. When I was a policeman I often stopped at a railyard and talked to conductors and brakeman. I begged for a ride but was told a pile of paperwork would have be filled out and it would take months for it to go through. I said forget it.
@@wesmcgee1648 I would allow police officers to come up and hang out in the engine with us while we were waiting for the light to get out. But I was also a law enforcement officer before I became a conductor for CSX.
@@wesmcgee1648 I used to be a technician with CN Telecommunications (part of the railway) and in the mid 70s frequently rode trains, often freights, to get to my work locations along the main line through Northern Ontario. I had two passes back then. The first was a service pass, available to all employees, which got me on any CN passenger service. I also had a work pass that would get me on anything that moved over the rails in Ontario region. That was normally passenger or freight trains but, on one occasion, I rode in one of those little gas cars that track gangs use.
For all the automation they had in those days with the humpyard and the radios, it still required an amazing amount of labor to get it done. Thanks for sharing.
Rohn KD4HCT Here in Greenville, SC, there is a company that transports big, heavy equipment or parts. They have completely restored and painted Red Cabooses. Sometimes, when I go shopping, I go out Garlington Rd to Woodruff Rd just to look at them. They are gorgeous.
I like these older documentaries about trains. I enjoy the slower pacing and the classic locos and railcars. I have no love for the modern day graffiti littered freight cars and huge multiple diesels, and NO CABOOSES! Damn.
When I was a kid, I remember counting cars and I remember when I first sartaed seeing trains with over a hundred cars! I also remember seeing steam engines working during the last days of steam! I had often seen two or more steam engines pulling their train, but one time I saw at least twenty steam engines on a train, and thought that it must be a really long and heavy train, but later I came to understand that they were on their way to the scrap yard!
Love these videos! Men working with no protective orange vests, getting on and off moving equipment, and doing it safely! Now a railroader must be in bubble wrap before he sets foot on the property.
True, when I became a conductor for CSX in the mid 90s, we could still get on and off moving equipment, but that changed shortly thereafter and got more and more restrictive as time progressed. It even got to the point where Train Masters were hiding in the bushes trying to catch you, not wearing safety glasses, etc. They turned an enjoyable job into a nightmare. As much as I loved the work, I am glad I left when I did.
Back in the mid 70s, when I was with CN Telecommunications, I frequently hopped on & off moving freights. The trains were moving dead slow, as the engineers didn't want to stop the train, if they didn't have to. I was just wearing my normal clothes, not even safety boots.
That was an excellent explanation of how a train is created with cars from other trains. I liked how the word “unscrambled” was used instead of “switching out” which is a term used by the workers. One thing was missing. They left out lacing up the brake air hoses, opening all angle cocks except the last ones one the front of the locomotive and rear of the caboose are closed, cutting in the air slowly so you don’t “big hole” the train, and how gladhands come apart without destroying the air hose. I’m a former brakeman for Southern Pacific.
Back in the ' 30s, 40s & 50s my Dad worked on the NC&STL in No. Atlanta, where the NC&STL & SOUTHERN RAILWAY ran side by side and We lived next to them in Hills Park Ga. ( a true Railroad Town ) The first 15 years of my life we listened all the Great Railroad Sounds , and it was a fantastic young life!!!!! This was the Great days BEFORE lawyers sued everyone in sight, so as the Son of a Railroad Man, I was allowed to ride the ENGINES, CABOOSES, MAIL CARS, PASSENGER CARS , SLEEPER CARS, & DINING CARS. WE HAD PERMANENT PASSES TO RIDE. IT WAS FANTASTIC EVENT TO RIDE THE STEAM ENGINES TO CHATTANOOGA & NASHVILLE WHEN THE ENGINEER WAS A FRIEND OF MY DAD'S . I STILL REMEMBER SITTING IN THE BRAKEMAN'S SEAT LOOKING FORWARD AND SEEING THAT " BIG BOY" " SNAKE UP" THE RAILS AND THE FIREMAN FEEDING THE "FIRE BOX" TO KEEP THE STEAM UP!!! I ONLY WISH EVERY YOUNG CHILD COULD EXPERIENCE IT ONE TIME!!!!!
My dad told me he got to drive a steam Locomotive when he was about 14. It was pulled into a siding and everybody knew everybody else. On really cold days they often shoveled coke off the engines as they passed by so the kids could take it home and stick it in the stoves for heat.
@@russell3380 Anthracite would have burned cleaner, we used it in cabooses and shanties of different purposes, i.e. crossing gatetenders or switchtenders.
@@russell3380 I'm sorry, I was mistaken in thinking that you burned coke at home. I once pilfered some coke from a hopper heading to a local military base for use in a switch tenders shanty. It burned gassy for want of a better description. After that I never used coal headed for power plants again. The oil or kerosene stoves used after coal was no longer used made your clothing smell like a furnace repairman.
@@ruffian2952 Ah, I understand now. That was when my father was a kid, 1930's. I'm sure then they burnt coke in the house often since 6 of his uncles worked for the RR. What surprised me was them hauling it across the river in a row boat to the house. I believe those guys on the trains used to shovel it off the train at places along the line where they knew folks would use it for heat, it was a different time with different people. It seems as though everyone in this area worked for the PRR and the rest of them sold their goods at the RR station, eggs, butter etc. through the windows of the passenger cars.
I worked a switching yard as a yard switchman, later as yard conductor. We did not have a hump. Our yardmaster did not control the switches. We threw switches by hand, and used hand signals to direct our engineers. We cut the cars, pulling the pins by hand, signaling our engineer to stop pushing, letting the cars drift. Rain or snow never stopped us in the Meadville Yard of the Erie-Lackawanna, even on lake effect snow nights.
Exactly as I remember it being done. It was especially dangerous at night when you had to read the car numbers with your lantern, communicate with your switching crew, and give the engineer switching signals with your lantern. You had to have your wits about you and move as fast as safety would allow. Mpls in the winter time was something you had to get used to.
I was 10 in 1954. The Southern Pacific had a 13 track yard in my small town. The MoP crossed the interlock north of town at the old passenger depot and did some switching. Many jobs were provided by the SP, and that included what we called an icing rack. Some thirty men would walk that rack pushing 300 pound blocks of ice into those wooden reefers and chopping them up. I guess PFE was too cheap to get a motorized ice crusher. Now all of that is gone. UP owns it all. The yard is a ghost town. The icing rack was pulled down decades ago because refrigerated cars had taken over. The engine sheds are gone. The MoP is gone. Many railroads operating in 1954 are gone. Seeing the GM&O box car reminds me of 1967's "In the Heat of the Night" movie with Sydney Poitier. He arrives and leaves Sparta on a GM&O passenger train. Also during the movie, there are two MoP trains. Yup, the times changed. Rail cars today are destroyed by mouth breathers who insist on their graffiti. Too bad. America once was a great place to live.
I wonder if the flat car load @ 4:20 was near the engine or caboose since it was too wide. I saw the GM&O boxcar was @ 1:20 too, the depot is still there at Sparta, Illinois, but MoPac engine house where they tried to fight Portier is gone.
I was born in mid 40’s and there were still a lot of steam engines around. I can remember hearing the steam engine sounds through my open bedroom window in Toronto. The big wheels on the steam engine would slip due to overpowering and the engineer would have to back off and apply sand to the track to get traction. Diesel was just taking hold back in the early 50’s.
Indeed. A special treat is seeing Santa Fe reefers with their ice hatches open. Notice they open opposite most hatches? Hinges are towards the ends of the car on SF cars, towards the center of the cars on most other reefers. I've lost count of all the time I spent redetailing my Athearn, Tyco, Train-Miniatures, and others to match Santa Fe practice.
@@Woodrow3170 Still means refigerator car to me. Though I play it for laughs when I buy a bunch of model refrigerator cars, calling it "Reefer Madness". What can I say? I like steel ice bunker refrigerator cars!
A great look back at "how it was." Looks like this train was being routed over what today is the BNSF Marceline Subdivision; the big brick station they paused at was Marceline, MO. One Amtrak train still uses this route- the Southwest Chief. Thanks to the OP for posting the film.
The switchers all appear to be Baldwin products, like the VO1000, except for the cow-calf set at 7:25, a rare TR4 set from EMD. Santa Fe only had two TR4 sets in the whole system. The "road units" are ancient EMD FT's, built during World War II. The passenger units are beautiful E6's.
Thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Reminds me of the films I watched in school. You need discipline to watch these videos and understand the time in which they were made. This was well done with a very good explanation of what was happening in the yard to the route the train took. Simpler times!
l was like that kid in '54...a few years later l built a model rr(HO) ..had a paper route to pay 4 cars, engines and supplies... my bed was under neath it all. hoping & planning to build a HUGE layout in my basement ..toot toot
I was born in 1957. I remember as a young boy in probably 4th or 5th grade going on a field trip to a round house in phoenix Arizona and watching this process happening with no idea of what was actually happening. they should of shown this video to use before going on that field trip. I remember a lot of flares being used too. and one of the railroad person shoed us how to lite a flare and telling us how dangerous they are.
well if the train ever had to be broken apart to set out a BO or spot an industry, each crew member had to relay signals to the engineer to make and break the joints due to not having portable radios. Talking to the old heads on the railroad I work for, having a portable radio was a rare and very expensive item, it started out that only the yard foreman had them. Even most caboose's didn't have radios, When lining switches, sometimes the brakeman missed the train, the conductor would then dump the emergency brake valve to stop it, when the brakeman was on board the caboose, the conductor would close the valve for the air to recharge, The engineer knew it was time to leave by seeing his brake pipe recover to 90 psi.
I had a neighbor who was a railroad engineer hauling freight cars from South King county (Seattle area) across the Cascade mountains to Eastern Washington State. He told me that he was glad to retire because he didn’t like the new procedures brought in especially how engineers were paid. He actually took a pay cut for doing the same work.
I resonate your words DEEPLY believe you ME! I worked at a NoN-Union rack and "cough" encountered some whom would work for free at times without ticket submission (or reducing the ticket time for submission leaving you looking like you put in to much when you didn't) ... it crossed over to making you feel like you were not a team member? Anyways...on with life!
Wow!!!!great video...I remember when I was little every month we take a train to my aunt town....and that was very fun and exciting.....I love the trains..very much.
My Grandpa was an engineer with Western Pacific for 37 yrs. My Dad was a conductor for more than 40. I fondly remember my dad taking me and my brother on the caboose through the Feather River canyon. Grandpa had his Silver and Orange Locomotive retired and it sits in the railroad museum in Portola CA. I miss them both & envy the life each had. Those were the days🚂 Thanks for the heartwarming video ❤️🚥🚦🕰️ J.V.
D Bennett My grandfather started working for the Reading Railroad in Reading, PA after the depression, until he retired. They had a huge maintenance shop that stretched for several blocks. Also the train station. He saw steam trains to diesel. I was born in 1952. I wish I could have taken a train ride like that. Maybe that is why I love trains and train videos so much. Ironically, coming home from work today, I had to wait for a train stopped on the siding and blocking the crossing. It was an NS waiting for a priority train. I wanted to stay but it was getting dark, so I went down to another crossing. The CP was showing green over red, so I knew it wouldn't be long. I live in Greer,SC.
I worked for the Northern Pacific RR out of 43rd Ave NE Mpls before there were hump yards. All switching and train making was done manually (no electronic switches).
1:54 - So that's where the phrase "over the hump" came from. It's a metaphor meaning get past a difficult point or complete a difficult job. Heard the phrase used a few times over the years but didn't know where it originated.
No huge trains like them in Australia in those days. A driver, fireman, and guard in the guard's van watching for hot boxes. The term fireman was still used into the delec era, I think. We did not have long passing loops. Trains three kilometres long in New South Wales now.
In 1954 there were still several railroads including the B&O that still ran steam locomotives including the one on my profile photo but a few years later would dieselize.
Imagine how much more comfortable those new fangled diesels were compared to the hot and sooty steam engines. We forget that railroading became magnitudes more comfortable with the introduction of diesels.
I hired out on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad in 1967 and I remember riding on those old wagon tops. I also hired out as a fireman and was told on my first day on the job by my Engineer that it was a shame that they hired me ,I asked him why? he said they were getting rid of fireman they don't need them anymore there is no more steam engines my days are numbered .well they kept me and hired no more fireman and promoted me to ENGINEER ! and worked the road for the next 43 years !! HA-HA- HA !!
I remember sitting in the Hayfield Iowa school looking out the 3rd floor windows watching the M& St L stopped for the Rock Island Line west of town on the diamond. Teacher said "Scott pay attention to what's going on in class"! Those were the good old days...
@ 8:04...between the head and rear brakemen, the rear brakeman was senior. folks don't know that the "work" is on the head end. no senior brakeman would ever work the head end.
raylrodr ~ Well, I get it and I’m a trucker. But I do know how the old DC locomotives transitioned because I have a neighbor who is an engineer on an iron ore railroad and they used to use them. Now it’s all big power SD70Ace where he works at BHP.
That fireman must have really been busy on that diesel! 🙂 I used to work for Canadian National and back in the mid 70s frequently rode freights. By then, firemen were long gone. However, they still had 4 man crews on the trains. When I rode in the engine, I'd be sitting in the middle seat, where the brakeman would have been, back in the days of the firemen. I also spent a fair amount of time sitting up in the cupola, when I rode in the caboose.
At 6:47 the wabco E2 horn. That's my favorite horn. I wish they would bring those horns back but that'll be the day. Compared to the horns they make now this horn sounds cheesy as hell. But it's still my favorite.
Trains have always had a good spot in my heart ,we I was young we lived close enough to a track with window open, I could hear even the bells ringing on the track ,but now Ole and alone and body crushed, it's black days and nights for me
The invention of air brakes and dynamic braking made the brakemen obsolete as did the retirement of steam did the same to the "firemen". But thanks to the union... both jobs (and the caboose) stuck around for decades.
@@BlackMan614 Actually it was the brakemen's job to walk the train in case there was trouble like a hot box,broken knuckle, uncoupling etc. It was the brakeman's job to do the enroute switching. So,both brakeman was needed.
Even Encyclopedia Britannica could make an error. In particular, the statement "The engineer takes the siding." The switch set for the siding was done by a dispatcher. All the engineer would do is bring his train down to a safe speed to enter the siding and stop.
I know it cost more to have both of the brakemen and the caboose on that train, but it seemed like there was a safety factor with eyes in the back of the train that you don't have anymore...
Not a lounge but you provided your own comforts. Made the mistake of placing a sleeper on an adjacent track. Some high fare paying passenger had the joy of my horsehair pad for a mattress.
Great stuff- thanks for posting- who wouldn’t love being the guy in the pit squirting those wheels all day- ideal if you were a mole in a previous life:-))
You can't blame America for the Holocaust/WWII. Granted minorities and women had some issues. Alcoholism is still a major problem, and now you have drug addiction (which in many ways is worse) added to it. Health risks from 2nd hand cigarette smoke (I want to be clear I do not smoke but saying that anyway.) and lead is over exaggerated. But overall I feel the 1950's would have been a great time to live. All cars should still have fins.
![The Giant Airliner With Cabins In Its Wings | Junkers G38 [Aircraft Overview #19]](/img/1.gif)
I expect at the time the men wondered why anyone would want to film their every day lives on the railway, but now this film is all that’s left of such a different world.
I have worked for a railway and there is a lot that the average person would not see. In my work I have been in a prison, up an airport tower, the microwave level of the CN Tower in Toronto, the Toronto Stock Exchange and many other locations that might be of interest to others. I have also been in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario, without a single person within miles of me.
Some say billy is still there counting
Is he , though? I guess we’ll never know...
Oh yeah Billy is now probably 75 yrs old now and a grand to great grandfather...you go Billy
Counting them intermodals now...
William William I thought that was his twin brother, Timmy.
Billy has no seat belt on not only that but he's in a Better Built car than we got today better looking also
As a train engineer I can tell that this video is very educative and explains allot. I always love how the old documentary videos from USA are nicely detailed and explain the topic step by step, awesome footage seeing those old school EMD units and hearing those 567 engines when they were barely new!
That's when schools educated students...not politicized them.
@@alberte.3059 HI MY NAME IS RICARDO REPORTER AND KIRO 7 NEWS
I agree. I'm 50 yrs old now and a Navy veteran. For some reason, ever since I was a kid I feel like I was supposed to have grown up in the 50's. 50's movies especially sci-fi are my favorites & when I see these old school training videos I feel like that's when I learn best.
BTW - nice to see freight cars before graffiti ruined them like these days.
@@alberte.3059 HI there you old coot, back in the day all was great right?
@@jackshittle who cares that you are a Navy Vet, like that makes you special? Anyone can enlist .
Man back when a mile of train was considered long. Now if I get a mile of train I’m happy it’s short
Wow! In 2020, the US railroads closed huge numbers of gravity hump yards, the very thing they were so proud of in this great film! Also gone, cabooses, flagmen, head and rear end brakemen, firemen, wooden reefers, footboards on the front of locomotives, torpedoes (signal crackers)…. I could go on for hours! This was a great industry that’s now a skeleton of its former self. I prefer to remember it as it was in this film from 6 years before I was born!
Mainly csx and ns I believe.
We used to break the torpedoes into little pieces and put them in a line on the rail,,,would sound like a machine gun when you passed over
You can thank that Scumbag Hunter Harrison for that brilliant idea.
@@michigandon I spent 41 years on Southern/NS, retired in 2020, and I can tell you that the damage to the class 1 railroads the he and his activist hedge fund cronies have caused will take decades, if ever, to straighten out! HH was never in charge of NS, but the wormy management of NS under the weak leadership of CEO Jim Squires, self inflicted HH’s scorched earth policies on the company! Now, in 2022, with HH deceased and Squires out, the NS is trying to come to come to grips with how to put the remain’s of a once great rr back together! With a staggering number of facilities closed, and employee count reduced to nothing by PSR policy and now covid, it’s proving to be a near impossible task!
In the 70s I had a crazy friend who was a conductor. I remember on his rout he had several girlfriends. Two of them came up pregnant at the same time. He wound up marrying the rich one, quit the train, and went to work for his father in law in the oil business.
I was one of the first new hire conductors for CSX back in the mid 90s running the Mobile to New Orleans route. It was still old school when I started and we were one of the last divisions still using a caboose. We needed it for a shoving platform for a local switching job. Some of the L&N old heads were still around when I hired in and some started when there was steam engines. It was one of the best jobs I ever had.
Wow that's cool. When I was a policeman I often stopped at a railyard and talked to conductors and brakeman. I begged for a ride but was told a pile of paperwork would have be filled out and it would take months for it to go through. I said forget it.
@@wesmcgee1648 I would allow police officers to come up and hang out in the engine with us while we were waiting for the light to get out. But I was also a law enforcement officer before I became a conductor for CSX.
@@wesmcgee1648 I used to be a technician with CN Telecommunications (part of the railway) and in the mid 70s frequently rode trains, often freights, to get to my work locations along the main line through Northern Ontario. I had two passes back then. The first was a service pass, available to all employees, which got me on any CN passenger service. I also had a work pass that would get me on anything that moved over the rails in Ontario region. That was normally passenger or freight trains but, on one occasion, I rode in one of those little gas cars that track gangs use.
For all the automation they had in those days with the humpyard and the radios, it still required an amazing amount of labor to get it done. Thanks for sharing.
Good little movie. I really miss "the little Red Caboose" Trains today just don't look right without them.
No caboose gives the train an incomplete appearance.
Agreed
I agree with out Caboose's theirs nothing to throw rock's at.
@@popps2502 Throw rocks? Why?
Rohn KD4HCT Here in Greenville, SC, there is a company that transports big, heavy equipment or parts. They have completely restored and painted Red Cabooses. Sometimes, when I go shopping, I go out Garlington Rd to Woodruff Rd just to look at them. They are gorgeous.
I like these older documentaries about trains. I enjoy the slower pacing and the classic locos and railcars. I have no love for the modern day graffiti littered freight cars and huge multiple diesels, and NO CABOOSES! Damn.
13thBear but the graffitis the best part about modern trains.
When I was a kid, I remember counting cars and I remember when I first sartaed seeing trains with over a hundred cars! I also remember seeing steam engines working during the last days of steam!
I had often seen two or more steam engines pulling their train, but one time I saw at least twenty steam engines on a train, and thought that it must be a really long and heavy train, but later I came to understand that they were on their way to the scrap yard!
Love these videos! Men working with no protective orange vests, getting on and off moving equipment, and doing it safely!
Now a railroader must be in bubble wrap before he sets foot on the property.
True, when I became a conductor for CSX in the mid 90s, we could still get on and off moving equipment, but that changed shortly thereafter and got more and more restrictive as time progressed. It even got to the point where Train Masters were hiding in the bushes trying to catch you, not wearing safety glasses, etc. They turned an enjoyable job into a nightmare. As much as I loved the work, I am glad I left when I did.
@@lynyrdskynyrdtributeband we are back to getting on and off moving equipment. Equipment has to be at 4mph or less.
Back in the mid 70s, when I was with CN Telecommunications, I frequently hopped on & off moving freights. The trains were moving dead slow, as the engineers didn't want to stop the train, if they didn't have to. I was just wearing my normal clothes, not even safety boots.
Good, when you are working with potential 50 tons death machines, a little protection is never a bad idea
What a beautiful time for Trains!
That was an excellent explanation of how a train is created with cars from other trains. I liked how the word “unscrambled” was used instead of “switching out” which is a term used by the workers. One thing was missing. They left out lacing up the brake air hoses, opening all angle cocks except the last ones one the front of the locomotive and rear of the caboose are closed, cutting in the air slowly so you don’t “big hole” the train, and how gladhands come apart without destroying the air hose. I’m a former brakeman for Southern Pacific.
Back in the ' 30s, 40s & 50s my Dad worked on the NC&STL in No. Atlanta, where the NC&STL & SOUTHERN RAILWAY ran side by side and We lived next to them in Hills Park Ga. ( a true Railroad Town ) The first 15 years of my life we listened all the Great Railroad Sounds , and it was a fantastic young life!!!!! This was the Great days BEFORE lawyers sued everyone in sight, so as the Son of a Railroad Man, I was allowed to ride the ENGINES, CABOOSES, MAIL CARS, PASSENGER CARS , SLEEPER CARS, & DINING CARS. WE HAD PERMANENT PASSES TO RIDE. IT WAS FANTASTIC EVENT TO RIDE THE STEAM ENGINES TO CHATTANOOGA & NASHVILLE WHEN THE ENGINEER WAS A FRIEND OF MY DAD'S . I STILL REMEMBER SITTING IN THE BRAKEMAN'S SEAT LOOKING FORWARD AND SEEING THAT " BIG BOY" " SNAKE UP" THE RAILS AND THE FIREMAN FEEDING THE "FIRE BOX" TO KEEP THE STEAM UP!!! I ONLY WISH EVERY YOUNG CHILD COULD EXPERIENCE IT ONE TIME!!!!!
My dad told me he got to drive a steam Locomotive when he was about 14. It was pulled into a siding and everybody knew everybody else. On really cold days they often shoveled coke off the engines as they passed by so the kids could take it home and stick it in the stoves for heat.
@@russell3380 Anthracite would have burned cleaner, we used it in cabooses and shanties of different purposes, i.e. crossing gatetenders or switchtenders.
@@ruffian2952 I have no idea what the PRR was burning but folks around here that used coal knew anthracite was better, we burned it.
@@russell3380 I'm sorry, I was mistaken in thinking that you burned coke at home. I once pilfered some coke from a hopper heading to a local military base for use in a switch tenders shanty. It burned gassy for want of a better description. After that I never used coal headed for power plants again. The oil or kerosene stoves used after coal was no longer used made your clothing smell like a furnace repairman.
@@ruffian2952 Ah, I understand now. That was when my father was a kid, 1930's. I'm sure then they burnt coke in the house often since 6 of his uncles worked for the RR. What surprised me was them hauling it across the river in a row boat to the house. I believe those guys on the trains used to shovel it off the train at places along the line where they knew folks would use it for heat, it was a different time with different people. It seems as though everyone in this area worked for the PRR and the rest of them sold their goods at the RR station, eggs, butter etc. through the windows of the passenger cars.
Love all these old films of how we use to live and where we came from. Priceless!
I worked a switching yard as a yard switchman, later as yard conductor. We did not have a hump. Our yardmaster did not control the switches. We threw switches by hand, and used hand signals to direct our engineers. We cut the cars, pulling the pins by hand, signaling our engineer to stop pushing, letting the cars drift. Rain or snow never stopped us in the Meadville Yard of the Erie-Lackawanna, even on lake effect snow nights.
Exactly as I remember it being done. It was especially dangerous at night when you had to read the car numbers with your lantern, communicate with your switching crew, and give the engineer switching signals with your lantern. You had to have your wits about you and move as fast as safety would allow. Mpls in the winter time was something you had to get used to.
5:35 fireman was along for the ride. Position was not eliminated for many years even though he had nothing to do on a diesel engine.
I was 10 in 1954. The Southern Pacific had a 13 track yard in my small town. The MoP crossed the interlock north of town at the old passenger depot and did some switching. Many jobs were provided by the SP, and that included what we called an icing rack. Some thirty men would walk that rack pushing 300 pound blocks of ice into those wooden reefers and chopping them up. I guess PFE was too cheap to get a motorized ice crusher. Now all of that is gone. UP owns it all. The yard is a ghost town. The icing rack was pulled down decades ago because refrigerated cars had taken over. The engine sheds are gone. The MoP is gone. Many railroads operating in 1954 are gone.
Seeing the GM&O box car reminds me of 1967's "In the Heat of the Night" movie with Sydney Poitier. He arrives and leaves Sparta on a GM&O passenger train. Also during the movie, there are two MoP trains. Yup, the times changed. Rail cars today are destroyed by mouth breathers who insist on their graffiti. Too bad. America once was a great place to live.
And Sydney Poitier just past away. I remember that movie
I wonder if the flat car load @ 4:20 was near the engine or caboose since it was too wide. I saw the GM&O boxcar was @ 1:20 too, the depot is still there at Sparta, Illinois, but MoPac engine house where they tried to fight Portier is gone.
I was born in mid 40’s and there were still a lot of steam engines around. I can remember hearing the steam engine sounds through my open bedroom window in Toronto. The big wheels on the steam engine would slip due to overpowering and the engineer would have to back off and apply sand to the track to get traction. Diesel was just taking hold back in the early 50’s.
I believe they still use sand today too.
The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954.
Sometimes I get a tear in my eye when I hear an old train in the night!
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe...
What I found notable was the absence of tagging on the engine and cars
A wonderful informative film about mid-50s railroading. What a great time that must have been!
The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954!
WOW! Actual wood "ice bunker" reefer cars.
As a kid the word reefer meant refrigerator or icebox...from mid-60s up, reefer means something else.
lol yeah like something to smoke? @@Woodrow3170
Indeed. A special treat is seeing Santa Fe reefers with their ice hatches open. Notice they open opposite most hatches? Hinges are towards the ends of the car on SF cars, towards the center of the cars on most other reefers. I've lost count of all the time I spent redetailing my Athearn, Tyco, Train-Miniatures, and others to match Santa Fe practice.
@@Woodrow3170 Still means refigerator car to me. Though I play it for laughs when I buy a bunch of model refrigerator cars, calling it "Reefer Madness". What can I say? I like steel ice bunker refrigerator cars!
Those wood reefers lasted into the mid '70s. I saw them as late as 1974.
I remember seeing this film in kindergarten. I now have it as part of a DVD series of railroad films
By far one of the coolest vids on RUclips. I love old b&w railroad footage
A great look back at "how it was." Looks like this train was being routed over what today is the BNSF Marceline Subdivision; the big brick station they paused at was Marceline, MO. One Amtrak train still uses this route- the Southwest Chief. Thanks to the OP for posting the film.
Wow - wood sided cars and ice docks for the reefers!
Just afew years after this the 1st automated reefers were put in service. BUT, surprisingly, some ice plants remained in service well into the 1960s!
@@b3j8 Cedar Hill was one.
The switchers all appear to be Baldwin products, like the VO1000, except for the cow-calf set at 7:25, a rare TR4 set from EMD. Santa Fe only had two TR4 sets in the whole system. The "road units" are ancient EMD FT's, built during World War II. The passenger units are beautiful E6's.
Man that brings back memories we lived near tracks like that and they still ran on steam and I was in my Dad's 49 Merc ♥
Thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Reminds me of the films I watched in school. You need discipline
to watch these videos and understand the time in which they were made. This was well done with a
very good explanation of what was happening in the yard to the route the train took. Simpler times!
finally I see how a train is made. Now I want to see the individual cars being loaded.
@Mike Cruickshanks Probably because they aren't interested in info they can't really use. Just a guess.
l was like that kid in '54...a few years later l built a model rr(HO) ..had a paper route to pay 4 cars, engines and supplies... my bed was under neath it all. hoping & planning to build a HUGE layout in my basement ..toot toot
What a beautiful video and these days were provided jobs! I love trains too.
I was born in 1957. I remember as a young boy in probably 4th or 5th grade going on a field trip to a round house in phoenix Arizona and watching this process happening with no idea of what was actually happening. they should of shown this video to use before going on that field trip. I remember a lot of flares being used too. and one of the railroad person shoed us how to lite a flare and telling us how dangerous they are.
Unbelievable the amount of staff needed for one single train.
Bodies got stuff done.
Now its 2 on a train
Jovetj is was your
Even then a tiny fraction of that used today by over the road trucking, per unit volume.
well if the train ever had to be broken apart to set out a BO or spot an industry, each crew member had to relay signals to the engineer to make and break the joints due to not having portable radios. Talking to the old heads on the railroad I work for, having a portable radio was a rare and very expensive item, it started out that only the yard foreman had them. Even most caboose's didn't have radios, When lining switches, sometimes the brakeman missed the train, the conductor would then dump the emergency brake valve to stop it, when the brakeman was on board the caboose, the conductor would close the valve for the air to recharge, The engineer knew it was time to leave by seeing his brake pipe recover to 90 psi.
The 10 year old inside of me just went berserk!
I remember the marshaling yard in K.C.K just off of kansas avenue my uncle worked there back in the 60's. Now it's the BNSF.
I always enjoyed watching these Encyclopedia Brittanica films in elementary school in the 1960’s.
I had a neighbor who was a railroad engineer hauling freight cars from South King county (Seattle area) across the Cascade mountains to Eastern Washington State. He told me that he was glad to retire because he didn’t like the new procedures brought in especially how engineers were paid. He actually took a pay cut for doing the same work.
I resonate your words DEEPLY believe you ME! I worked at a NoN-Union rack and "cough" encountered some whom would work for free at times without ticket submission (or reducing the ticket time for submission leaving you looking like you put in to much when you didn't) ... it crossed over to making you feel like you were not a team member? Anyways...on with life!
Wow!!!!great video...I remember when I was little every month we take a train to my aunt town....and that was very fun and exciting.....I love the trains..very much.
great video. nice to see that such a complicated rail system work seamlessly with all the professionals dedicated to their jobs.
My Grandpa was an engineer with Western Pacific for 37 yrs. My Dad was a conductor for more than 40. I fondly remember my dad taking me and my brother on the caboose through the Feather River canyon. Grandpa had his Silver and Orange Locomotive retired and it sits in the railroad museum in Portola CA. I miss them both & envy the life each had. Those were the days🚂 Thanks for the heartwarming video ❤️🚥🚦🕰️ J.V.
D Bennett My grandfather started working for the Reading Railroad in Reading, PA after the depression, until he retired. They had a huge maintenance shop that stretched for several blocks. Also the train station. He saw steam trains to diesel. I was born in 1952. I wish I could have taken a train ride like that. Maybe that is why I love trains and train videos so much. Ironically, coming home from work today, I had to wait for a train stopped on the siding and blocking the crossing. It was an NS waiting for a priority train. I wanted to stay but it was getting dark, so I went down to another crossing. The CP was showing green over red, so I knew it wouldn't be long. I live in Greer,SC.
Pretty cool.
@D Bennett...nice memories of an area I know. Thanks.
Anyone else notice our 3 unit FT set became a 4 unit set after the meet at the station with the E5 powered passenger train?
I worked for the Northern Pacific RR out of 43rd Ave NE Mpls before there were hump yards. All switching and train making was done manually (no electronic switches).
@ 8:39 what mass and definition! Very impressive!!
Yes that was one they had respect. It's all gone now it's a shame.
My dad did that for 30 years at Norris Yard, Irondale. We would watch the hump.
Gotta love a good vintage government train documentary! 👍❤️🚂
FANTASTIC !!! Never stop learning about the railroads, past, present and future.
I was born on May 3rd 1954. at St. Elizabeth Hospital at 750 am.
Well, that was a rather random statement.
I know someone else said it too, but the very first thing I noticed was NO GRAFFITI...Now days you can barley see the car numbers..
rushmore120 probably because spray paint in a readily available spray can had just barely come onto the market.
Actually they try to go around the car numbers.
Thanks to the FBI and CIA all these street gangs exist since the late 70's.
1:54 - So that's where the phrase "over the hump" came from. It's a metaphor meaning get past a difficult point or complete a difficult job.
Heard the phrase used a few times over the years but didn't know where it originated.
Interesting clip, thanks for sharing.
No huge trains like them in Australia in those days. A driver, fireman, and guard in the guard's van watching for hot boxes. The term fireman was still used into the delec era, I think. We did not have long passing loops. Trains three kilometres long in New South Wales now.
In 1954 there were still several railroads including the B&O that still ran steam locomotives including the one on my profile photo but a few years later would dieselize.
Yeah, but the engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954!
Imagine how much more comfortable those new fangled diesels were compared to the hot and sooty steam engines. We forget that railroading became magnitudes more comfortable with the introduction of diesels.
I hired out on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad in 1967 and I remember riding on those old wagon tops. I also hired out as a fireman and was told on my first day on the job by my Engineer that it was a shame that they hired me ,I asked him why? he said they were getting rid of fireman they don't need them anymore there is no more steam engines my days are numbered .well they kept me and hired no more fireman and promoted me to ENGINEER ! and worked the road for the next 43 years !! HA-HA- HA !!
The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954!
In Australia and the UK you would have entered as an engine cleaner which was kind of good as you understood the steam loco.
I remember sitting in the Hayfield Iowa school looking out the 3rd floor windows watching the M& St L stopped for the Rock Island Line west of town on the diamond. Teacher said "Scott pay attention to what's going on in class"! Those were the good old days...
Kansas City MO/ Kansas City KS is huge both sides of the river....im a truck driver and im in Kansas City area a lot.....i have a love for railroad..
Thanks for sharing that. I was born in 1954. A lot has changed since then, huh?
True, the top 1% are raking in the country's wealth, while more people have a tough time meeting the house or rent payments.
This makes me wish I could have been born earlier. I love seeing these movies with first gen diesels like the F-3 and E-8s.
Those were Fts and E7s sir
Great information for building a good yard on future layout. Awesome video👍
So cool seeing a kid counting cars on a freight train. I would be doing the same thing 40 years later when I was about that kids age.
We have one of those old tank cars at the UP training center in West Chicago,IL.
I remember watching many a educational film of this type in grammar school.
@ 8:04...between the head and rear brakemen, the rear brakeman was senior. folks don't know that the "work" is on the head end. no senior brakeman would ever work the head end.
The term 'flagman' was used on my property for that assignment.
I loved watching that thank you for posting it.
A freight train still goes through my hometown several times a day. But it's not the same as when I was a kid.
Why not?
Old times. I LOVE IT
Manual transition FT's!! Only old.heads will get this!
I'm not an old head and i got it. Well i do have an F7 manual so i cheated. LOL
raylrodr ~ Well, I get it and I’m a trucker. But I do know how the old DC locomotives transitioned because I have a neighbor who is an engineer on an iron ore railroad and they used to use them. Now it’s all big power SD70Ace where he works at BHP.
If you're not an old head, chances are you've got experience at a museum.
Sweet ! Not a cell phone or I-pad in sight.
That fireman must have really been busy on that diesel! 🙂
I used to work for Canadian National and back in the mid 70s frequently rode freights. By then, firemen were long gone. However, they still had 4 man crews on the trains. When I rode in the engine, I'd be sitting in the middle seat, where the brakeman would have been, back in the days of the firemen. I also spent a fair amount of time sitting up in the cupola, when I rode in the caboose.
At 6:47 the wabco E2 horn. That's my favorite horn. I wish they would bring those horns back but that'll be the day. Compared to the horns they make now this horn sounds cheesy as hell. But it's still my favorite.
I was born in 1943.Got to see steam & no graffiti & most railroads are gone.
The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954, I know, like you, I was 10 years old.
What a great treat seeing how it used to be...Mo more...
This video on freight is great
Must have been cool living back when the world was in black and white.
It's true. Life didn't become colorized until about 1960; until then, it was a black-and-white world. LOL
Don't go there.
This was so interesting to watch. Thanks for sharing! :)
Trains have always had a good spot in my heart ,we I was young we lived close enough to a track with window open, I could hear even the bells ringing on the track ,but now Ole and alone and body crushed, it's black days and nights for me
I still get a tear in my eye, when I hear an old train in the night!
@@christopherdibble5872 Thank God for you you are a will make it , if a person doesn't cry I'm worry about them
I'm getting some lionel train town deluxe flashbacks while watching this video.
Very nice game.
I love this oldskool stuff :)
Super interesting and very informative. Thanks.
Thanks for this educational Video
That was days when it was enjoyed to put in a day of hard work, whatever you did. More laid back and peaceful. God, I miss those days so much.❤😢❤
Compared to what? Are you saying people don’t want to work now? Unemployment is at a 50-year low
When I hired on in 1972 of the few old timers left most always had a bottle in their back pocket.. Fact..
bottle of what whisky or bourbon?
right.. holy water for the trip..
blueticecho oh sorry I didn’t know. Yeah I fuss holy water would be good in those days. It dangerous work.
You needed the proper fuel, right?
"It's hard to find a job that won't cut into your drinking." Night watchman, "Sunshine Hotel" NPR, 1998.
Yep. When railroading WAS cooler. It seemed more dangerous for the brakemen though
Not really if you followed the safety rules.. I worked as a brakeman on the PRR/PC and later the Chessie.
@@brakie44820 That's an awesome job to have
The invention of air brakes and dynamic braking made the brakemen obsolete as did the retirement of steam did the same to the "firemen". But thanks to the union... both jobs (and the caboose) stuck around for decades.
@@BlackMan614 Actually it was the brakemen's job to walk the train in case there was trouble like a hot box,broken knuckle, uncoupling etc. It was the brakeman's job to do the enroute switching. So,both brakeman was needed.
@@brakie44820 Now done by the conductor. Hot box detectors have been around for 25 years.
Even Encyclopedia Britannica could make an error. In particular, the statement "The engineer takes the siding." The switch set for the siding was done by a dispatcher. All the engineer would do is bring his train down to a safe speed to enter the siding and stop.
But the engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they did back in 1954!
real men doing real work
Very interesting always wanted to see a switch yard with the hump and brake system
Melbourne Australia was very proud to have the nation's first hump yard in the 1970s it quickly disappeared.
The Glory Days of Railroads!!💪🇺🇸
What's nice short train film👍 love it, to bad it's not in color, but it's still GREAT to view😊
This is a really great video
Cool video, thanks for sharing!
I know it cost more to have both of the brakemen and the caboose on that train, but it seemed like there was a safety factor with eyes in the back of the train that you don't have anymore...
Very interesting. Love trains.
That was so cool to watch
No more caboose or brakemen. They were replaced by the RED - Rear End Device, also know as FRED as it cut jobs from working men.
That was an FT pulling that frieght train and the passenger train was pulled by E7a and 2 E7bs
I miss the caboose! Even though they are no longer needed, they should still have them for extra set of eyes and a lounge for the crew
Not a lounge but you provided your own comforts. Made the mistake of placing a sleeper on an adjacent track. Some high fare paying passenger had the joy of my horsehair pad for a mattress.
Great stuff- thanks for posting- who wouldn’t love being the guy in the pit squirting those wheels all day- ideal if you were a mole in a previous life:-))
awesome vid! simpler days indeed
The 1950's were without doubt a great time to be an American citizen with a booming economy, good music, Jet age cars, and Films and TV shows.
The Speed Witch would shame some of these trains. Same goes for BH-7 and HB-8, A/CB-1and CB-2.
Huh! No graffiti all over the freight cars! How 'bout that?
In those times there were more civilized people.
phillyslasher Yup !!! Back when America wasn't infested with liberal communist trash. God bless America !!!!
You can't blame America for the Holocaust/WWII. Granted minorities and women had some issues.
Alcoholism is still a major problem, and now you have drug addiction (which in many ways is worse) added to it.
Health risks from 2nd hand cigarette smoke (I want to be clear I do not smoke but saying that anyway.) and lead is over exaggerated.
But overall I feel the 1950's would have been a great time to live.
All cars should still have fins.
where aerosol paint cans around then?
yeh, but they probably kill you instantly.