Golden Twilight of Postwar Steam, Complete 6 Program Collection

Part 1, The Pennsy’s West End and its Neighbors Gene Miller took superb 16mm movies of railroad steam action right after World War II. (75% in COLOR!.)Join with us as we step back over a half century to view and enjoy Part 1 of the memorable rail movies he shot mostly during the era between 1945 and 1950 with, perhaps, some scenes earlier than that of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Metro Chicago, St. Louis, Terre Haute, and the surrounding areas and its neighboring railroads. An incredible array of steamers from the Pennsy appear in the major first part of this program, such as J-1’s. T-1’s, K-4’s M-1A’s, H Class 0-8-0s, H-6’s, H-10s.Early diesels also show their stuff, such as F-3’s, F-7’s, as well as Baldwin Centipedes. Many other railroad’s steam and early diesels are found in Chicago, and the West End including Frisco, Alton & Southern, Terminal R.R. of St. Louis, Grand Trunk, GM&O, C&O, C&WI, DM&IR, Erie, Monon, Belt Rwy, Chicago Great Western, C&NW, NYC, Wabash, and L&N.

Part 2, Rails in the Heartland: The L&N, C&EI and IT It was an era of war and heartbreak and then of peace and hope and prosperity. The nation’s railroads were stressed nearly to the limit during World War II and then emerged from the conflict to confront nearly worn-out and aging steam locomotives and a dwindling passenger business.
br>Despite this, it was still a heady period on the high iron. Gene Miller was in the Heartland during this era shooting 16mm movies of this tough transition initially, in and around Evansville, Indiana. Many of our rail action scenes were shot in Evansville where the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railway made an end-to-end connection with the Louisville and Nashville at the L&N passenger depot alongside the Ohio River. The C & E I entered Evansville from the northeast, ran down the middle of Division Street, and jogged over one block to end at the depot which had run-through tracks and a stub-end terminal for Louisville & Nashville trains. The L&N headed west, across Pigeon Creek, where its line to St. Louis split off at a wye at North Howell. The L&N’s Howell Yard and bustling engine terminal were alongside the line heading south to Louisville and Nashville.

Part 3, Cajon to Horseshoe: Trains across Mid-America and the West Gene Miller got around during the 1940s and 1950s…shooting classic and irreplaceable 16mm movies near his home in the St. Louis area and farther to the north, west and east… as steam power was fading from the American rail scene with the arrival of First Generation diesel motive power. Journey with Gene as he photographs train action in Metro Chicago and the St. Louis area and then heads west to see the Union Pacific, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific in all their steam glory. He returns to the Baltimore & Ohio in Kentucky before wrapping up on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s legendary Horseshoe Curve.

Part 4, Trains and ferries and the end of steam on the NYC Trains and ferries were the way many people traveled to New York City in the pre-expressway late 1940s. Pulsating rail lines stretched in nearly every direction from America’s largest city as rail armadas of steam, diesel, and electric trains transported thousands of commuters and other passengers to and from the city every day. Inland from the east bank of the Hudson River, trains of the Putnam and Harlem Divisions of the New York Central Railroad brought riders from stations in nearly 50 bedroom communities into the city. While more riders crossed the Hudson River on ferry boats from Weehawken, New Jersey, after riding trains of the West Shore Line of the NYC, our focus on the west side of the Hudson is the struggling New York, Ontario and Western Railroad – operating into the Catskills from a connection with the West Shore at Cornwall, New York.

Part 5, Norfolk & Western As the 1950s wound down, a few isolated pockets of steam remained on major railroads, or steam power was in storage waiting a call to return to work – a call that did not come until additional diesels had arrived to rule out a last hurrah for steam. On the Norfolk & Western, things were different – very different. The N&W was a major railroad, operating big-time steam over its rail lines radiating out of Roanoke. Although diesels could be seen all over the railroad, the high iron was still dominated by the throaty sound of the steam whistle and the pulsating rumble of 12 or 16 drive wheels of steam giants, sometimes double-headed, pounding the railheads. Steam was not stilled on the N&W until May 7, 1960. Fourteen months before this happened, Frank Schlegel made the first of four or five trips to Roanoke and West Virginia to film the final year of steam operations on the U.S.’s very last large steam railroad.

Part 6 Transition As the 1950s drew to a close, steam power was all but gone from the American railroads, one by one, the fires were dropped . . . in the powerful Berkshires of the Nickel Plate, on the Illinois Central, and, finally, on the Norfolk and Western Railway. . . the last major railroad in the country to rely extensively on steam power . . . which went all diesel on May 7th, 1960. After that, just a few smaller railroads around the country burned coal in their fireboxes to pull trains. But steam on the big railroads often continued to soldier on in one specific application – primarily to power memorable passenger excursion trains. Other steamers started to run to the delight of thousands on historical preserved steam railways. While the practices continue today – it was in the late 1950s and early 1960s when some of the more memorable steam locomotives stepped out on American rails.