"Made in America" visits the GE plant in Erie

John Ratzenberger's "Made in America" show will feature a 9 minute segment on the GE Transportation Erie plant. It will premere on December 21, 2004 at 9:00pm on the Travel Channel.

For those not familiar with the show, Made in America brings you the stories of the best people, places and products in the United States. John honors the men and women who work with their hands and skillfully make products that are the backbone of the American economy. He formerly played Cliff Clavin on the popular TV show Cheers.

Thought this may be of interest for those wishing to take a peak into the Erie locomotive facility.

I saw this show last night on the Travel Channel. I thought they did a good job showing a side of the rail industry that a lot of people never see.

I hope is that they (the travel channel) will start airing other rail related programs. Things like and updated shows RAILWAY JOURNIES OF THE WORLD by the BBC from 20 years ago.

For anyone in the northeast who is interested in how locomotives are built, I would suggest that you try to see the "Inside EMD" lecture and slide program, which is a two hour tour of the original EMD La Grange plant combined with a step by step progression showing the construction of all the major components of locomotives. I understand this is going to be shown at several more groups in the New England area in 2005. See the "Inside EMD" discussion string under the EMD portion of this forum, or there is a description of the program on this website from a showing last year:

http://www.amherstrail.org/Meeting04.05.html

Those of you in PA can call up PCN (The PA Cable Network) and ask about the PCN tour of the GE Plant in Erie where they basically build a CSX CW44AC. Very good stuff.

I would love to see more shows on TV, about both modeling and the prototype. Profiles of prototype railroads, model companies, layouts, etc. You could probably have enough variation in programming to support a full day of programming, maybe even be able to launch a devoted channel to it on cable. Think about it, it's not that far-fetched of an idea especially when you stop to consider we already have 2, NOT 1, BUT 2 cartoon networks! Is that really necessary?

Let's hope that maybe one of the members of this forum has a whole lotta money just sitting in a bank somewhere, and that he also has broadcast experience, and thinks that this is a good idea..........

PS-I actually love cartoons.......Wile E. Coyote, The Roadrunner, and The Flintstones rule!!!!

Check Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show "Tracks Ahead". It is an all railroad TV show (model and prototype).