Someone sent me this today. I wonder if any of the equipment is still with us today?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e9a_1241081839

Great find.

I've never seen railway men climb aboard moving equipment so quickly and efficiently.

KL

I'm guessing slow-cranking of the movie cameras--which speeds up the resulting action on the screen--is a factor here.

Kudos to anyone who can ID the 2-8-0 that stars here. What with the high headlight, I'm guessing ex-NP, possibly by way of Duluth & Northeastern?

I would doubt frame rates are playing a part here -- if so, movement overall would seem unnaturally sped up.

Given that much of this is staged, I would assume they really did perform these actions as quickly as they are captured to give that impression of efficiency. You can even see the one conductor adjust his pants legs before he steps onto the caboose.

Like a well-oiled machine, I tells yas...

KL

Extensive use of hand cranked movie cameras ended by the late 1920's. Even home movie cameras starting in the 1930s were spring wound (wound-up by hand) but professional quality cameras, like the ones the US Army Signal Corps used, were most likely electric/battery powered, especially when used in a non-combat zone setting.

War Department Training films during WW II were important and got priority for related equipment. Many of the films were produced in the Hollywood studios using actors on active duty, e.g., Ronald Reagan and Clark Gable. Then there were the professional movie makers making feature films for the War Department with Directors like Frank Capra and John Ford, who I believe was a Navy Reserve Lt. Commander or Commander.

I believe someone a year or two ago brought to our attention this very interesting classified (at the time) film of the Office of Strategic Services' (OSS) experiment on blowing-up railroad track http://www.realmilitaryflix.com/public/212.cfm?sd=61 Seems it's not as easy as one would think. This film was also done on the Polk-Claiborne Railroad in Louisiana.

Thanks!

Such a shame that line is no longer there. I pulled a JRTC rotation at Ft Polk in 2000 and tried to find evidence of the roadbed, but the locals told me there just wasn't any evidenve that it was ever there these days...
That's pretty much accruate. One of my primary hobbies is researching and collecting items from war correspondents in the US and overseas in WW2. They used plenty of camera types, and some were wind ups, but yes, most were battery powered in the field. There's no way to list them all but for the most part, a stateside film would almost certainly have used a battery powered camera. No way would it have been hand cranked by that late a date...

Additionally, I do not think anyone made a professional quality 24 frame-per-second hand cranked non-speed-regulated camera.

--
Will

Got a 35mm Eyemo I can borrow for a project? ;)

KL

Many years ago I read a "first person" account of the Claiborn and Polk military training railway. The author mentioned that its nickname was "Old Crime and Punishment", and that the rolling stock was an assortment of cast-offs from various main-line railroads. He went on to say that "the only new piece of equipment we had was the wrecker crane, and boy, did we need that!"

Texas State RR #300 is a veteran of Camp Claiborn. She wore #20 there, the 2-8-0s in the movie are in the 20 series but I did not see #20. I'm going to re-watch it when I have the time. I'm sure she must have been kicking aroun the place when they made the movie.

The steam engines used on the C&P were a mixture of old former Texas and Pacific 4-6-0's, a pair of new Lima 2-8-0's, #20, which was the last domestic World War 1 "Pershing" 2-8-0, and several former N&W 2-8-0's. There were also several of the 65 ton Whitcomb diesels used as well.
#20 ultimately went to the Tremont and Gulf RR, and then to the Southern Pine Logging RR before the Texas State RR. I don't think that much else survived. Some of the right of way is still visible if you know where to look where it is on private property or in the national forest, and the location of the "Big Cut" bridge over the Red River and Gulf RR is visited by hundreds of dirt bikers and 4 wheeler types each year who explore old Camp Claiborne.