Premires at 9pm tonight, (Thursday, June 28)
First episode: "Railroads"

http://www.history.com/minisites/boneyard

(If you miss it tonight, its showing others dates too..tonight isnt the only showing.)

Scot

I'm looking forward to it! Hope I don't weep to much. Preview showed a big bite being taken out of a loco.

Just finished watching it. Except for the SD45s being scrapped, there's not that much to weep over. Good footage of the inner workings of the Beech Grove facility and passenger car restoration.

Yep! No weeping here. It was quite interesting. I could have wathced a whole hour of Beech Grove or Colo Railcar. Quite interesting. At least no shots of steam being busted up. If I saw that I would have definitely weeped.

Lots of errors, though. Diesel-electrics were invented in 1949? I think not. The fact that the Rarus Railway is successor to the electrified Butte Anaconda & Pacific was ignored. It was stated that the road converted from steam to Diesel.

Speaking of Beech Grove, the impression was left that Amtrak built it, no mention of the NYC.

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Not to mention the discussion of GE P-42's begins with a loving shot of an EMD (a mistake made again a few seconds later).

I've often wondered if any in our midst have offered their services to the media to help get things correct before they get too deep in production? Even on some otherwise great PBS series like American Experience, I've seen footage of NYC Hudsons portraying turn-of-the-century trains, etc., etc.. I know there are egos, costs, short timing and a host of other problems involved in media productions, but a "getting it right" person would seem to be a good job possibility for someone in our field, especially one that had knowledge of and access to historical facts, photos and footage.

Why? This is, after all, television, the modern day "opiate of the masses." If the viewers actually wanted true facts, rather than the other kind, they'd be reading books.

TV producers have one goal… fill the maximum amount of air time for the minimum cost. The fact that they fill it with baloney really doesn't matter; if it's good baloney, the viewers buy it just the same.

Did anyone really expect anything different?

What was the name of the company that was restoring all of the passenger cars for orient express service or any private service. I missed the name and location.

Like many other pieces on The History Channel, it was hors'duereve (sp?) concerning an interesting subject over which most people are modestly curious. Light on deep information for the student, heavy on the top layer of process. It was an introduction, and a fair one at that. I would have been much more interested in locomtive refurbishment, from say, wreck or retirement to functional piece. Restoring a steam locomotive from park disaster to functional would be a marvelous topic, but possibly for a small audience. You can cut up an EMD Geep or SD any day and I won't weep. Cut up an ALCO, and tears will fall. Cut up steam...check me into the cardiac unit.

Time is usually not on our side in regard to fact-checking. I worked closely with Cody Pfanstiehl, the consultant who reviewed the closed-captioning for the orientation film at Steamtown. We spent several hours together making sure the terminology and descriptions in the captioning were accurate. This only happened, I think, because Cody lived locally, cared enough to get the details right and had the time to spend on the job.

Wesley

Colorado Railcar. They are located just to the Northeast of Denver.

I think professionals in any field probably get a lot of laughs (and heartburn) from what's on modern television. At least many of my fellow foresters get a lot of laughs over the vegetation types which are really not proper for the locality which they are supposed to represent.

Of course, budgets often force compromises. Recently a local documentary crew came to WRM and used Oakland Antioch & Eastern interurban trailer 1020 (Holman 1913) for an upcoming production. Hopefully their camera
angles won't show the electric lights too much, since the time is supposed to be about 1880. But, there aren't any restored gas-lit coaches within easy driving distance.

History Channel spends approximately $2000./screen minute on shows like these. By comparison, a PBS show such as Nova is in the neighborhood of $5000.+/minute.