Flagler's Train: The Florida Keys Over-Sea Railroad | Full Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Flagler's Train is a one hour documentary, produced by South Florida PBS, which chronicles the imagination and achievements of Henry Morrison Flagler, who spearheaded the development of the over-seas railway connecting Key West to the existing Florida East Coast Railway.
#floridakeys #documentary #history
I came to America on a boat from Cuba in May of 1980; it docked in Key West. My first car ride in this great nation was on the overseas highway from Key West to Miami. Thanks Henry.
Fight to keep this nation as you found it in your youth.
My great great grandfather was the engineer on this job. My great grandma was there as a child and wrote a book about it at the age of 100. Its called "The Bridges Stand Tall" by Priscilla Pyfrom if anyone is interested.
Thanks Nick.
Sounds Amazing, Thanks.
Cool
: ) !!!
I want to read it
I was in the Army and stationed at Homestead at the tail end of the Cuban Missile Crisis for a couple of years. Drove that route to Key West many times. The legend of a railroad intrigued me and I spent many hours and days exploring the backwaters down to Key Largo finding remnants of it. This is a great video and while it brings back many memories it also makes me realize how I miss that area. I know that today it is not all like it was and I would probably be disappointed at what I find. Today I'm about as far away as you can get up in the boonies of far NE Washington state and too old to go that far ever again. By the way evidence of that 1935 hurricane were still evident in the '60's. Blown down and blasted trees in the Everglades.
It has changed tremendously, but it has not lost it's charm or it's personality.
I grew up in Key West
in the 50’s through
the 80’s..
This is probably one of the best documentary on Flagler’s Railroad I’ve seen..
Congratulations! This is by far the best documentary off all time about this great engineering event. You also did a great job telling about the individuals involved in its completion. I've visited Whitehall a couple of times and have always been interested in Mr Flagler. Well done!
Hi Flagler!
Riveting video. Brightline has just sent it's first passengers via high speed railway from Orlando to Miami. I'm central Florida born in 1965 and rode in my parents car to the Keys many times over the original overseas hwy. Even to this present time I drive to Key West every year and camp at Bahia Honda State Park. I love the Keys and have my reservations for next August. Thank you Mr. Flagler.
Have you seen any of the remains of the attempted “Florida Canal.” My Dad would point out to us kids driving through Central Florida.
I love Brightline. I hope it suceeds.
What Flagler and his board couldn't imagine was that the US Navy decided to switch to oil to power their ships in 1910, thus the coaling stations were no longer needed, including the Keys coal dock. Oil allowed naval ships to cruise longer distances at greater speeds for less cost, and tankers were designed to refuel ships while at sea. This decision began the long decline of coal as oil and natural gas displaced coal as a fuel in shipping, homes, and industry. Even the railroads stopped using coal in the 1950s when they converted to diesels! Eventually Florida would become more modern with an electrical grid that allowed electrification of homes and industry so that by 1940 everything that Flagler had envisioned became a reality.
Thank you for your comments too.
What an incredible achievement at the time! The piano soundtrack is a wonderful complement to the historical stills and film footage. Flagler's grit and drive were truly remarkable; building a raised embankment across the everglades and a seven-mile bridge all the way to Key freaking West simply because it had to be done.
Makes me think of the Old Ridge Route in SoCal, carved along the snaking spine of the mountain range east of where the 5 fwy is now by men with picks, shovels, and horse-drawn scrapers in 1911 because there was no paved road connecting the area to the Central Valley that didn't get washed out every year. It was built so well that almost all of the original concrete remains in very good condition, 112 years later.
And don't get me started on the epic California Aqueduct! lol
Hats off to guys like Flagler, who just make it happen.
The piano track is subtle and haunting at the same time. Her voice is so soothing
Yeah, too bad they left out the part about Henry Flagler utilizing slave labor to build everything.
For those of you who enjoyed this documentary as I did, I would heartily recommend Les Sandiford's book, The Last Train To Paradise. It is an extremely entertaining but very scholarly treatment of Henry Flagler and his development of east Florida. Mr. Sandiford's description of the intensity of the hurricanes that came through the region during the construction of the over-sea railroad as well as the famous 1935 hurricane which is reputed to be the most powerful hurricane to ever make landfall in the US, are basically masterpieces of description. Mr. Sandiford's descriptions really bring it home.
I was just going to add a comment saying the same thing but since you already brought it up, I will just add to yours and say that I wholeheartedly agree. Les’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in this topic.
It's amazing that I JUST finished the very same book and found this looking for more information.
Yes I have that and loved it. Great book.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will definitely check it out. 👍
I will be visiting Key West in January. Until I watched this documentary I knew nothing about Flagler or his railway. It's a real shame that it failed to survive the Great Depression. A highway is no substitute for a railroad.
An outstanding production of this historical achievement. A truly wonderful production by PBS. Wish they could show this production on the broadcast air. Only PBS could do this. An Excellent production.
The 1935 labor Day storm was absolutely hell.Simple as that.
What an interesting story of such a fascinating man. Little did I know the depth of achievement of Mr Flagler when I visited his splendid home in West Palm Beach.
Thank you for sharing with us. Truly the internet at its best.
This is truly, one of the greatest accomplishments. Imagine not having the technology there is today, the architects were spot on. It’s incredible !! The only thing they couldn’t beat, was Mother Nature.
A train would make even more sense today with the crushing amount of automotive traffic and gridlock. The transportation of tourists would be much more efficient by train. You don't need a car visiting Key West or any key for that matter. All you need is a suitcase and your body.
I drove down that highway/bridge with my dad...truly spectacular
I was stationed at Boca Chica and was in awe of the bridges.
Love Ms.Pennington’s voice. Easy to listen to.
It's a shame there is no longer a train to Key West. The drive is soooo long!
Thats why i aint been to Florida in yrs. That Tropical climate just kicks my ass.
I've been traveling to the keys since the late 60's when I began camping in Key West with the Webelos.
Excellent Historical Documentary,
I once read a library book called " The Train That Went To Sea" it was about an attempt to build a train to Cuba from the Keys.A hurricane took it out and was never accomplished. Could be this is the same train build. I can remember going to the Keys in the 70's I was only 12 and seeing remnants of an old bridge with the pilons still sticking out if the water... going south toward the Keys they were on the right of the long bridge. I think it was a 7 mile bridge.
That was the adjacent old bridge to key west; there is a 7 mile portion.
This was an Excellent Video ! Henry Flagler had a lot of courage to build this railroad ! Thank You for producing it.
A beautiful, sad, and well told story. : )
Very interesting story. I've driven to Key West and saw some remnants of the railway. The credits say it was narrated by Jack Kelly but I swear it sounds like Peter Coyote.
I worked at The Breakers in the early 1980's as a culinarian. Awesome experience going to the beach after work in winter.
I have been on that 7 mile road in the 1960's and people bumper to bumper and hardly moving with ocean on both sides during a storm and it does scare you quite abit.
Around 1995 visitors to Pigeon Key were being shown a very short video clip with no sound. I had bought one of the first digital editing system on the market and looking for a project to learn it on, I offered to redo the video, lengthen it and add sound. Word of mouth and an ad in local media about an after hours photo capture session at the Marathon library produced a treasure trove of private pictures from family albums that had never before been seen by the public. I'm proud that my first project was a success.
You should be very proud.
@@dcasper8514 My only regret was I never got to add the planned narration. I had the script but the powers got in a dispute over which of three large donors who wanted to do it to choose and rather than alienate nice, generous folks we left it like it was. It's been my secret up to right now that the soundtrack was from a subliminal motivational feel good tape.
Anything IS possible in America! 🎉
Can't imagine how hard that work must have been.
Unmentioned: Flagler and Rockefeller got Standard Oil rolling in Cleveland before relocating to New York City.
Cleveland is where it all began. ESSO, (Standard Oil), gas stations were found everywhere .
great story..
who knew flagler was behind those damn trains! that made me wait when i was on a rush to score a room on those motels on okeechobee lol
The first Duval Crawl!
My father told me many stories of the 1935 hurricane and what really happened. He was there 22 years old and was working on the keys projects.
So what really happened?
And our legacy is that we gave away the Panama Canal, let our infrastructure rot, and don’t even know how to build anything except smart phones…
lol what. The Panamanian gov is essentially US client state so there’s that. America still leads the world is pretty much all medical research and high tech inventions. Smart phones aren’t difficult to make, you just need to millions of them so China does it. You still haven’t figured out how the whole capitalism thingy works 😂
Thanks for sharing. When was this documentary made?
BRING IT BACK BRING IT BACK BRING IT BACK!!!
Great documentary. Enjoyed it very much. How come it has only 3k thumbs up? Should be 3m!
great piece. thank you.
The first railroad in this country was the Lieper Railroad, in the Crum Creek valley of S.E. Pennsylvania. It was started during colonial times for the Lieper granite quarries.
Thank you for your comments.
Did it use draft animals or was it gravity powered?
It used draft animals.
The beginning of the end of Paradise 🌴🌅
Why has it been posted at 240k resolution? Was it made and uploaded in 2003??? I would be very interested in watching it, but not like this. BTW have several books on the subject - fascinating.
I can remember riding on the highway down to Key West in 1954 and when we looked off to the right one could clearly see the Wood Pylons/Poles that were still sticking out of the water that used to support Flagler's R.R. Tracks. There was nothing made of concrete visible like this video shows.
Weren't the concrete piles taken over by the highway for much of the length?
The road built on top of the Railroad structures
I wish someone would rebuild this railway. It would get rid of all of the ridiculous traffic in the keys !
I grew up down there. We use the old RR bridge (hwy) as fishing piers now.
Despite being English, b.1848; I feel sad about the circumstances that led to the end of the original Rly. Even more so having listened to your excellent narrative. All the builders from the architects to the ‘Navvy’s,’ as they were called in GB, we’re as brave and dedicated as military servicemen. They deserve better than to have their dream evolve into a dreary, bridge for boring and ubiquitous -and polluting- road vehicles. I don’t think our Chunnel comes near the Key West Bridge, for inspiration and enjoyment.
ITYM 1948?
Amazing!
She sounds like the voice from The Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds"
Damn!! These engineers and flagler’s staff and indeed Flagler himself seemed to really be on the ball. Some of the smartest people in the country and maybe the world. So which genius thought it a great idea to house these workers on oversized hous boats and remain on them while riding out a Florida hurricane?!?! That was a death sentence for those poor men and I’m sure th[laborers knew it!! I hope someone was charged with this heinous crime for god’s sake! So many dead fathers sons brothers husbands. They destroyed much more than just their work force 😢
Saved by a 400 ton loco? That's some engine
Can you please reupload this at original quality? 240p is garbage.
@53:00- That highway became the extension of U.S. route 1.
Very poor video resolution...can't watch it when it's so blurry. "Quality 240 P"
See Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Who Murdered the Vets" about the storm and it's aftermath.
The Guilded Age success because of less government. Could not be done today. My father helped to build the overseas highway and the water pipeline to Key West.
South Florida PBS can't post a better copy than 240p??? WTAF?
If only.....there would have not have been the storm and perhaps the railway would have survived.
240p ?
Ya know, aĺ those bridges between the keys, stood up to that hurricane. It was the tracks on the Keys, that washed out. If theyd had the corporate protections then, It wouldve continued, but it just wasnt to be.
Standard Oil made it's millions from buying and scrapping our nation trolley systems which at the time travelled for miles out into the farm
land countryside .Forcing people to buy a car or walk.
Why would you assume that the marine shipping lines would make a bee line to key west when they already had well-developed port facilities along the gulf coast?
What an exciting time…. Imagine an era of unapologetic achievements and ambition instead of state institutions trying to indoctrinate, tax and demoralize you into self-flagellation and serfdom.
The problem with the Florida Keys is once you get there, there's no there there.
Re: the title. Flagler didn't build a 'train' he built a railroad
Saltwater for concrete? Thats called Ferroconcrete. If nobody was convinced about the value of that, i think the Japanese fortifications on Tarawa convinced a few nonbelievers.
😁😁😁😁😁😁
The glorious days before income tax !
: )
And the keys still gets wiped out by hurricanes. The us should abandon it
Thta man died of type 1 diabetes.
Mmmm. Interesting no strong independent women working on the railroad??
Different times
Hahaha 😆 the train at 46:52 is HO scale Athearn crap 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
And at the closing credits
The woman narrating resembles a blonde Sara Gilbert.
The Tartarians built all the palaces , railroads , tracks , locomotives , bridges , we only inherited and used historians using a purposely false history narrative.
He ruined it
0:05 #climatechange
The keys may stay unaffected, they'll just stay unaffected underwater lol.
But realistically, they're already starting to disappear 😢
Source?
@@_.Leo_. what do you mean source? This is a very well-known fact. Look it up online it’s pages and pages of reputable scientific proof. Florida has always been sinking. We’re just thinking a lot faster now with the rising tide.
I'm with Leo. Source? Hey, when Barack Obama and his wife buy a seaside home, I'm pretty sure that tells you everything you need to know. The water ain't rising, but the BS sure is!
@@justaskin8523Obama and his w i f e??
Michelle...sorry, Michael Obama was a Man!
Been going there since 1985, haven't seen any disappear yet.
Seth Bramson was my professor of Florida history many years ago at FIU. Absolutely fascinating course (got an A). Glad to see he's doing well!
He’s a great guy, absolutely fascinating!
Thank you South Florida PBS for this excellent program. Ever since I was a child, I'm 78 now and have always wondered about Mr. Flagler's railroad. Now I know. From Chicago much obliged.
Fantastic documentary!
My Mother grew up in Miami and her family would go down to the keys every summer, driving on the old railroad bridges.
Just incredible to think they built a railroad line across the sea!
I highly recommend reading any of Seth Bramson's books.
He is south Florida's foremost historian.
I grew up in Miami 59-67. Went Fishing in Keys on something called “The Old Railroad Bridge.” It was wood and it seemed to never went anywhere. Skeeters 🦟 so big, fierce and dense it was absolute misery.
Hmm. I wonder if Seth’s historic account details the situation as it was with Flagler, ie; Henry’s fondness of slave labor? Which, if google is correct, was utilized by Henry in contracting every last bit of his empire. Not just a shame, but a damn shame, to deny the people who truly built that bridge any form of acknowledgement….but, that’s how it goes in the good old USA. (FYI, I never knew about this until I had gotten a hunch while watching this video, in particular, when the individual spoke about the employment conditions in which harry was rumored to scoop a bunch of immigrants fresh off the boat. Even though this was refuted, it still caught my attention bc wtf is she saying all this for, if not to correct a common “misconception” about the labor practices. With that in mind, I googled “Flagler, Slavery” and what do you know!! a whole treasure trove of evidence regarding Mr.flaglers use of “forced labor”. I encourage you to look it up for yourself. Not everything is what it seems on the outside. even after watching a seemingly “in depth” documentary. You must always conduct your own due diligence, especially in this day and age.)
I love the history of Flagler's Key West railroad and that you can still see part of it today. Living in Michigan I remember once driving on the Overseas Hwy while they were building the new one. Great documentary.
I remember my dad coming home and dusting his jacket as he hung up his keys and took off his boots. Ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you this is all accurate recollection
Actual history.
Very nicely done!! Great to see Claudia Pennington displaying her calm and poignant thoughts about this part of history. Congrats to all!!
I haven't been everywhere, but I've to a lot of places in this increasingly small world and I have to say Key West is the most unique place I have ever been.
when America WAS America. no longer sadly!
It can be again with honorable people in charge.
@@dcasper8514 It's more than the people in charge. It's the people who built that railroad, and this country. The MEN who did the heavy lifting.
Those men are GONE.
Replaced by weak, emotional valueless beings, where "likes" mean more than commitment or hard work and sacrifice.
America will NEVER be Made Great Again
Too many referees and compliance officers. We are not innovators now. We live in the nanny state.
@@dcasper8514True. But it will take at least a generation when or if we make it back to sanity.
It's 2023 and you couldn't upload this doc in anything better than 240p? 🤔
Flagler's Key West railroad was a gift to Florida. Without, who knows how long it would have taken to settle Florida.
It's a pity the resolution of the video was so poor that it cannot be enjoyed to it's full potential
When 1080p and 2160p videos are now STANDARD FARE on RUclips, why is this video being presented in the lowest-possible resolution? Answer: It is largely because this particular subject matter (HISTORY plus OLD TRAINS) is of very little interest to the great majority of today's viewers - therefore, naturally, what we have here is a miserable CRUMB tossed at the tiny handful of people who'd even bother to take the time out of their busy lives to watch it. It's a shame, because whoever created this film in the first place put a lot of hard work into researching and producing it - but never mind all of that - what we have here reflects the harsh reality of today's media universe, and what it prioritizes and values versus what it does not. Remember, also, that Public Broadcasting is the poor stepchild of the major news and Internet streaming news services, and so their material gets short shrift.
This is likely a copy of a copy of a copy of video file that has been compressed umpteen times because no one knows where the original master is located. No bad intent was involved, I assure you. I used to deal with broadcast TV as an editor.
It’s quite fanciful to dream up story lines about purposely degrading historical content, or posit that funding woes are somehow responsible for an inability to upload in 1080 (as if these two things are even related?!), but the lousy quality appears to be a case of human error, plain and simple. To wit, even the copy of this on PBS’s very own website-which is its “original source”, so much for the “copy of a copy of a copy” theory, too-is equally degraded.
This program is from 2012, which was well into the hi def era, so there has to be a pristine 720 or 1080 version on somebody’s hard drive somewhere. Someone just goofed when they uploaded it.
There’s a reason for that old saying about the simplest explanation usually being the most plausible.
@@joscallinet6260 This program first Aired: 01/23/2012
The original source material is old stock black and white film stock, filmed 100 years ago
PBS/WPBT is a top shelf broadcasting company that has created MANY outstanding documentaries for decades.
Sorry that your sensibilities are hurt because of a lack of 1080 p
I guess you missed the message behind this documentary.
thank you for this great video, I always wanted to know the history behind the overseas railway.... driving to and from The Key is such a bore!
10 ft.? Nobody stopped to consider a "real" hurricane. 10 ft aint nothin but a lameass tropical storm.
This was an excellent documentary. I love PBS. Being a rail and transportation historian, I've been aware of the Flagler and Florida East Coast story for years.
One of my favorite movies is Key Largo from 1948, which starred Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor. Mentioned in that film are many of the places in the Keys. They even mentioned that hurricane of 1935 when the train was washed off the tracks. The story was told by Lionel Barrymore.
I ❤Key Largo but only the opening dock scene was filmed there
I've read Flagler was paid 8,000 acres of Florida land for every mile of rail he built. Makes sense he went all the way to Key West.
I live just down the road from Flaglers home on the island, this and The Breakers should be UNESCO sites. Truly beautiful places. Flagler was however a terrible person, with no problem usuing Jim Crowe Slavery, and prison labor with no compensation to prisoners. He's also the reason Florida is an ecological disaster, and unmaintainable for human habitation. Should i evenentiin Rosewood, or the fact that as of 2022 the only indication thebtown had existed or the tragedy that had taken place was a small faded green sign that said "Former site of Rosewood". The whitewashing of the workforce, as a workers paradise. The fact they literally said at least there wasnt any slavery is DISGUSTING! No mention of native labor. Or mention that the only reason flaglers first surveyors returned at all was with the help of several tribes who found these guys starving and sick in the glades and got them home.
“Nobody was keeping any slaves…”. Read the XIII th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The narrator Claudia Pennington has the most soothing voice. I wonder does she narrate any other documentaries.
I don't understand why the modern video is such poor quality, and a little "fuzzy", as if shot in very low resolution. It's a shame, as in style this appears to be one of the better US-produced documentaries I've come across, but the video is doing bad things to my eyes, so I'm having to bail out. Might come back to just listen to it, one day, though. I had no idea that Florida was SO unpopulated at the time, I hadnt heard about the railroad, and I love learning new things about history and large engineering feats!
Looks like instead of using the original 1080p video, they ripped it /re encoded it at 240p to save disk space and upload faster.
So, what happened to the rest of train system? Did it become commercial only(freight)?
Overseas Highway. Developed upon the remnants of the 1935 hurricane, A1A south of Dade County would become the successor to the original Overseas Railroad. FEC still operates freight rail from Dade northbound. Brightline passenger rail operations currently use this right of way between Miami and W Palm Beach, with newly built extensions now serving MCO/Orlando, with plans to extend to Tampa/St Petersburg.
Wanderfull journey and thankyou !!! 😉😎
Amasing the things Our forfathers and there Money and engenewatie has buit and the Men that work 60hours a week for years to finshes? its a Wonderment!!!]