Atlas Shrugged - the Movie:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/atlas ... ie-trailer

Based on the trailer it looks like it may actually play true to the
actual storyline. Fascinating.

Updated to a modern story line, the story seems to integrate a high
speed rail line somewhere in the US. I doubt the movie is about
high speed rail, however.

I'm sure the comments to follow will thoroughly detail the story line
and it's specific politics which for a change in Hollywood will veer
right.

Wiki actually has (as of 2-27-11) a very well written summary of
Ayn Rand's novel which was published in 1957 and which tells a
story surprisingly in sync with the world we live in today, 54 years
later.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged

"Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. The book explores a dystopian United States where leading innovators, ranging from industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by society. The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her (and her railroad empire) as the government increasingly asserts control over all industry, while society's most productive citizens, led by the mysterious John Galt, progressively disappear. Galt describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the "minds" that drive society's growth and productivity. In their efforts, these "men of the mind" hope to demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where men are slave to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society."

It's going to be a wild ride - both here and once the press gets wind of it.

/Mitch

Read this book in the early 1970s and was mesmerized by it than and now. I know it doesn't have much to do with railroad restoration in many ways, but the points the book made were right on in my book. Whether your talking society or small size operations such as RR museums, there are those who can make things happen and those that seem hellbent on stopping things from happening. The form changes but the essense is the same. Was one of the most powerful books I have read, in fiction writing it was the most powerful. It is a very long book probably the longest book I have read too. Cheers, John.

I suppose the book may have more relevance then the movie, yet, I remember reading the book and the insight into running a railroad in the early part 19th century was quite enjoyable. There is a pretty well written summary within Wiki that details the story and it's railroad content.

/Mitch

Agree about the RR parts being enjoyable to read. At about the same time I was reading the book I was much involved in returning a Mopac 120 ton wrecker back to running condition at Mid Continent. Was quite easy as the thing was in super good shape.

In the book Dagney Taggart kept having a thought about a crane she saw needing it's cables greased. In the book it was a goofy thought that she kept having over and over, not really goofy, but in the story there were big things going down that were more important. Back to my Mopac wrecker. Once the boiler was inspected and washed out, we started running it. The cables on this thing were in dire need of some sort of grease as they were bone dry and while others came out of the woodwork to play with her once running, no one was real keen on doing the dirty job of greasing those cables up, but everybody thought I should do it. I remember the book and how it applied to a lot of things that applied to an operating railroad applied at Mid Contintent back then. The RR parts in the book were quite accurate to me at the time and indeed enjoyable. Unfortunately so does the story and reasons for the decline of our society. Cheers, John.

Massive, political discussion alert!

Well, I took a look at the trailer and official site-can't say I'm impressed. Or maybe I am, that one house interior that's supposed to look so rich and opulent somehow manages to look cheesy. How do people get money out of Hollywood to make things like this?

Maybe I would be more impressed if I'd read the whole book instead of maybe a dozen pages or so, but at 1,500 pages, I figured I didn't have the time at the time.

Based on the trailer, I personally think the movie is out of date. There is a scene in the trailer in which Rearden is saying his main ambition is to make money. The anachronism is that he wants to make money by building something. Today, it seems you become insanely rich by moving money around and not worrying too much if it actually does anything productive; see Exhibit A, Wall Street bankers, stockbrokers, etc, as they are now, not as they were a generation and more ago.

As an auditor, I have also seen some businesses with insane incomes and payouts for the owners; these are (cough, cough) "gentlemen's clubs," which a health officer in my building calls "butt huts." I don't want to say any more than this on a family-friendly forum, but I can supply some interesting statistics and operating details on Exhibit B (but no names of course) off board if you are really interested in seeing how you are in the wrong line of work.

On to the rail stuff, which I do know a little about:

The "conventional" railroad that has all that derailment trouble looks a lot like the Union Pacific (based on a couple of shots of yellow locomotives with red numbers), with a Norfolk Southern leased unit (black and white paint) in one consist. Some comments in the trailer suggest much of the trouble comes from problems with the steel in the track, and "Rearden Steel" supposedly has a new metal that is superior. The "John Galt" line's high speed "locomotive" looks like an Acela power car, but there are no overhead wires visible, so it has some other power source. Track looks pretty conventional for modern practice (concrete ties with a variation of Pandrol clips), other than that the rails and other Rearden Steel products look more like aluminum than steel in color. The movie's digital model makers would have done better if they had consulted a bridge engineer or two, most notably for an older bridge that is apparently to be replaced. Its trusses are based on a Southern Pacific design, but the movie people have it combined with a supporting arch over a great canyon; a large trestle, a cantilever, or a steel arch without the trusses would be much more typical and believable to me.

How can a house look so cheesy?

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... aul-Larkin

What look like aluminum rails:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... RDEN-METAL

Should have contacted real bridge engineers or rail historians on this one:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... ION-BRIDGE

Acela influence; structure design reminiscent of some stations on the UP in Wyoming:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... TRAIN-STOP

New bridge-and a high speed freight train (notice no windows)?

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... TAL-BRIDGE

Power truck-for once something that looks like the real thing:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... RDEN-METAL

New bridge again:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/photo ... ION-BRIDGE

OK, has anybody here properly read the book and can correct any comments I have, which mostly stand on visuals and would certainly be classed as nit-picking by an admittedly frustrated railroad movie writer?

Well it was inevitable that such a famous story would eventually be made into a film. Honestly, when I read the book, after the first couple hundred pages, I really just paid attention to the train segments. The whole capitalism vs communism plot got beaten to death. Overall, it is an unusual book, and an interesting cold war relic, but it's just another example of political views going to an extreme, at least in my opinion. Course, a book like Atlas Shrugged has a different effect on different readers, so I don't mean to offend with my view on it.

Pity the film is set in modern times, there are steam locomotives in the book.

Thanks, Taylor

I parked in front of this for two years (while going to work on only slightly larger engines):

Well you know, it's the usual thing where a science fiction writer decides he's going to invent a whole new social order... or, God help us... religion. That in and of itself isn't the problem... it's their FOLLOWERS.


Oh, that is a shame. It'd look so nice in steampunk.

Come to it... American HSR needs steampunk. Or more of a steampunk-art-deco transitional thing. Make 'em look like the pride of the Central in 1930.

I absolutely concur with the time setting of the movie - there was so much neat and very accurate railroading in the book, which I have read cover to cover.

However, the book is not a communism vs. capitalism plot - it is a plot regarding the productive in society and those whose existence is only possible by mooching off of others. Taking property for redistribution at the point of a gun (the IRS) is anathema to the concept of individual liberty. Remember when others talk about the rights of minorities that the individual is the smallest minority and, yet, the most important one, whose rights must be protected from others. The plot is an extensive illustration of this - kind of like the grasshopper and the ant.

You know, it goes like this:

OLD VERSION . . .

The ant works hard, in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks that the ant is a fool. He laughs, dances and plays the summer away, preparing nothing for the coming winter.

Winter comes, the ant is safe and warm.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The moral to the story being: BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEW VERSION . . .

The ant works hard, in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks that the ant is a fool. He laughs, dances and plays the summer away, preparing nothing for the coming winter.

Winter comes, the ant is safe and warm. The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and fed, while others are cold and starving!

CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC & CNN show up to provide pictures of shivering grasshoppers, next to a video of an ant in his comfortable home, with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast! How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer this way?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah, with the grasshopper. Everyone cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green". Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the group singing "We Shall Overcome". Jesse then has the group pray for the grasshopper's sake, and reminds the group to contribute to his group, so that he can "continue the fight" for grasshoppers everywhere!

Steny Hoyer & Chuck Schumer exclaim, in an interview with Keith Olberman, that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the poor grasshopper! Both call for an immediate tax hike to make the ant pay "his fair share!"

Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, is quoted by the NY Times as saying "this is what happens when grasshoppers aren't allowed to organize and bargain collectively." Mass protests occur on the lawn of the ant's house and frighten the ant's children who are inside when the union protesters "get out in the street and get a little bloody," as encouraged by Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Finally, because of President Obama's desire to "spread the wealth around," Congress drafts the "Economic Equity For Grasshoppers Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire the proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his house is confiscated by the government.

Eric Holder gets his old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant. The case is tried in federal court with a jury comprised of unemployed welfare recipients.

Surprise! The ant loses the case!

The story ends, as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food, while the government house he lives in (which happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him, due to lack of maintenance!

The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found, dead, in a drug-related incident. The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders, who terrorize this once-peaceful neighborhood.

The moral of this version? Don't vote for Democrats.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Atlas Shrugged is one of the most seminal works of all time and is largely a rational/reason based defense of the notions of individual liberty that grew out of the Enlightment movement of the mid-18th century. Re-read it sometime or get it on audio (it's some 30 hours as I recall). Definitely something to be learned with each reading.

Mike in Literalville


"No rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality – to think, to work and to keep the results – which means: the right of property." - John Galt

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or the looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? ... Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into bread you need to survive tomorrow. ... Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values... Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.' " - Francisco d'Anconia

I hope there is some cut and paste in your response, if not, kudos on a lengthy adventure in typing with no grammatical errors! Anyway, as I said, the book effects everyone differently, and conveys a different message to different readers. While I certainly agree that the message of taking individual responsibility is a timely and strong, I do have to disagree with Democrats wanting to steal all that valuable ant property. Unfortunately, the nation is becoming so polarized these days that many consider the the designation of Democrat/Socialist/Communist and Republican/Redneck/Elitist to be a correct description.

And hitting back on the book being somewhat of a time capsule, I wonder exactly why Rand chose a railroad as the industrial flagship for her book, considering that by 1957 other forms of transport were tearing away at the prestige and power of trains. Perhaps Rand was a bit of a nostalgic railfan herself? Maybe she just enjoyed writing what she knew.

Thanks, Taylor

Berkshire Hathaway released their annual report on Saturday and they (well Warren Buffet) make it clear that they believe BNSF and railroads in general will be taking on a greater role in transporting goods in the coming years than ever before. Maybe now is the time to have railroads play a central theme in a movie like this.

Newriver - did you come up with the new grasshopper/ant story or did you find it somewhere else? While certainly not RYPN material it is some of the better political satire I have seen in a while.

SO,

Variations of the "revised Grasshopper & Ant" fable, as well as ones of Henny Penny or Goosey Loosey asking other farm animals for help in making food and then being forced to share her feast with the slacker animals, have been kicking around for decades, with only timely changes to make the star players topical--I've seen variations of this dating all the way back to the Franklin Roosevelt "New Deal" era. The current environment just offers far more extremes to parody.

I'm specifically shying away from the topic of the movie being discussed, as I am all too familiar, first-hand, with the rabid, cult-like, near-worshipping following the original novel had and continues to have among many of a "tea party," libertarian, or "classic liberal" mentality that have read it. Even though I just might agree 100% with the politics and mentality supposedly espoused in the novel/movie, there's a fine line between enthusiasm and zealotry, and it matters not whether it's Ayn Rand, Michael Moore, or Al Gore. (Or, for that matter, the PRR or Ross Rowland. >;-) )

A quick little bit of background research shows that there have been several previous failed attempts to bring this novel to TV or the movie screens, and a quick perusal of the Internet Movie Database pages on this new movie shows that it's being done with an estimated budget of $15 million, and is being done pretty much completely outside the normal Hollywood financing, artistic, and production circuits--which would not be a surprise to those who see "Hollywood" as a bastion of neo-socialist, left-wing, or "liberal la-la land" thought and philosophy. My first thought, upon hearing of this movie, was "How? It certainly didn't involve Hollywood, after all...."

Mike's version of the "Grasshopper & Ant" sounds suspiciously like a skit that was on the "John Boy and Billy" radio show not too long ago..............

Congratulations to everyone from preventing this commentary from degenerating into a political diatribe. So far.

Maybe we can hope for a minor bump in public interest in railroading from this movie.

I've always been a bit mystified by the marked lack of comment in the railfan press on this novel; I've not seen a single mention of it in the principal railroad magazines or elsewhere in 40 years. I escaped reading it for years, until my sister-in-law brought one home from a college class and said, "You'll like this. It's about trains."

Of course it isn't, really. It doesn't qualify for what David P. Morgan used to call the "great railroad novel." It's only about trains because Rand got a cab ride in a Twentieth Century Limited E-7 and conceived Dagny Taggart under the spell of throbbing 567's. It's mainly a gut reaction by a refugee from totalitarianism to the New Deal, and the book's technological scenery was obsolete by the mid 1950's when it was published. I'll be interested in seeing how the movie makers brought this forward to 2011.

Nonetheless, the railroad industry of the 1960's was a pretty good case study for the thesis of Atlas Shrugged. It's the one industry where the Rand scenario played out in large and in detail. In 1972 I was given a tour of the bowels of Indianapolis Union Station by the members of the Indiana Transportation Museum when they kept an ex-NYC coach fleet there on the abandoned private-car tracks in the first year of Amtrak. This scene came back to me when I read the book. The overwhelming feeling of decay and bleakness of the depth of the Penn Central bankruptcy were the one place where Atlas Shrugged really happened.

But to find out how the story ends when the men of the mind go back to the world, just read "The Men Who Loved Trains."

Aarne Frobom