Railroads on Television

According to the Tracks Ahead website, there will be 13 new shows that start fall of 2005. Their website also lists all the PBS stations that air the program. Unfortunately, that listing is dated 2002.

Maybe they could bring together an "all trains" channel on satellite or digital cable along the lines of Discovery Wings or the Military Channel. Wouldn't that be cool...the Railroad Channel.

shortlinerailroader wrote:Maybe they could bring together an "all trains" channel on satellite or digital cable along the lines of Discovery Wings or the Military Channel. Wouldn't that be cool...the Railroad Channel.

Heh.. I would never leave the recliner

RFDTV has a couple of train-related (both model and full-sized) shows
that they show on odd (not regularly shceduled) occasions. The problem
is that they are usually broadcast ot 0100-0200 at night! They are good
programs, however. Many showing steam still running throught the use
of professionally shot videos of different steam locos on special runs.

Even though there is not much mention on TV as a whole about railroads,
there certainly is enough material, both old (classic?) and new, to justify
the creation of an "all railroad" cable/satellite channel. Maybe we should
mount a letter-writing campaign to the TV providers? Couldn't hurt.

It's GOTTA be better than some other stuff out there!!!

CBRy wrote:RFDTV has a couple of train-related (both model and full-sized) shows
that they show on odd (not regularly shceduled) occasions. The problem
is that they are usually broadcast ot 0100-0200 at night! They are good
programs, however. Many showing steam still running throught the use
of professionally shot videos of different steam locos on special runs.

Even though there is not much mention on TV as a whole about railroads,
there certainly is enough material, both old (classic?) and new, to justify
the creation of an "all railroad" cable/satellite channel. Maybe we should
mount a letter-writing campaign to the TV providers? Couldn't hurt.

It's GOTTA be better than some other stuff out there!!!

TIVO is how I catch those every week. They are usually on at 0100 Monday mornings, however I have caught the program on other days.

Watching an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" episode titled "Money Train", I saw brief footage of a IC train with SD40A 6022 leading a GM&O SD40 and another IC engine, both IC's were still in orange and white. Took me by surprise.

But the show takes place in Texas, and if I remember right, IC didn't have any lines there. It looked like stock footage, or from a railroad video. But knowing Hollywood, they don't care about what railroads run in Texas!

Wow, nobody mentioned the 1960s TV series "The Wild Wild West" starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. A train was their base of operations.

(Similar in some ways is the late-1960s movie "Once Upon a Time in the West", except that the train was the "bad guys" headquarters.)

Don't forget In The Heat Of The Night series.On the intro,Chief Gillispie waits for an Amtrak train before going on a chase in the premiere.Also lots of train scenes in the show and the train horns blowing,mainly K5LAs.I heard one season was filmed in LA,the rest in GA.I've seen a Chessie System engine in one episode and a C & O engine in another.

Red Arrow Fan wrote:Wow, nobody mentioned the 1960s TV series "The Wild Wild West" starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. A train was their base of operations.

(Similar in some ways is the late-1960s movie "Once Upon a Time in the West", except that the train was the "bad guys" headquarters.)

And Wild Wild West has returned to popularity with DVDs, as a classic example of early televisions "steampunk" genre. http://www.sfuniverse.com/2009/12/22/wi ... -was-cool/

This episode of HoBO's The Pacific has a two second "clip' of a Santa Fe train heading from San Diego with the "hero" and his wife-to-be to LA. Anyone have an idea what that equipment is?

If you have an "On Demand" service, pause the teleplay on the train, and you will see that the cars are definitely not Santa Fe. In fact they do not even appear to be US equipment (the series was filmed in Australia).

Enquiring mind is "stumped".

Both "Fringe" and "V" recently featured Via rail equipment probably filmed in the Vancouver area. On "Fringe," the VIA equpment "played" a Boston commuter train, while on "V," it represented a U.S. long distance train in the New York area.

The concluding episode of HoBO's "The Pacific" has a fair amount of rail footage depicting the series characters "coming home".

While the equipment was liveried Louisville and Nashville, I think it was Australian equipment (looks more like US than does European or Asian) likely with "special effects" to make such L&N. The only rail related production credit given was to Connex - a concern that holds operating contracts for rail services in Australia, where the series was filmed.

if it was stainless steel , then it would be budd cars made under liscense in australia . Still used on the indian pacific and other long distance trains .

With regard to bloopers, I read about an episode of Bewitchedon another web site in which a spell cast by one of smantha's relatives was causing strange things to happen around Darrin's mother while she was riding on a train and she kept fraking ou and plling the emergency brake. The blooper was that the long shots showed the train being pulled by a pair of E body locomotives, and when the emergency brake was pulled, there was a closeup of steam locomotive drive wheels locking up.

I don't know if anyone here is watching The Cape, but Monday's episode featured a classic runaway train situation, complete with the mandatory fight atop the moving cars. I do have one question about it: in order to stop the train, they decided they had to cut the brake line (down near the moving wheels under the car body, of course), because doing so would cause the brakes to lock up instantly. Is that actually how they work; i.e., would cutting a hydraulic line to the brakes cause them to automatically engage? (I'm assuming it was a hydraulic line and not an air hose because the person who cut it got sprayed with all kinds of goo.) Thanks for any info...