According to the American Shortline Association there are appearently several TV reality show production companies looking for shortline railroads to work with:

http://www.aslrra.org/news___publicatio ... cleid=4813

Does anybody know exactly which production companies these are??

Great just what we need, the Ice Road Truckers, Gold Rush, or Deadliest Catch with Railroad equipment...

I hope for everyone's sanity all the Railroads turn them away.

Rich C.

I know at least one short line company that turned down the same production company three times; apparently the CEO saying "not just no, HE!! NO" didn't get the message across the first time.

And the Ax Men will be contracted to supply the ties!

Aw heck, they can just buy the surplus props from The Lone Ranger, and build their own shortline.

The Fillmore and Western has been a popular property when a railroad setting is part of the story line.

_____________________

Dave

Ugh, true enough, but. . .

This could be a good sign, that railroads are a subject of increasing interest by the general public, or at least seen as such. The thing is, as noted in another thread, to get the right producer, one who is sensitive to railroads and railroad history (even if he or she would be dealing with a contemporary railroad subject). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like these people making inquiries are the right ones.

How do we get the right ones to come to us? Or, perhaps more importantly, how do we get backing for those who would be the right producers among us, such as Kelly Lynch? Are there even others among us besides Kelly?

There already is a reality TV show on cable, using the Alaska Railroad....

Jumping on the band wagon, I guess?

The Alaska thing is OK to watch once or maybe twice, but it grows old in a hurry. The same crew is always desperately trying to get a valuable train to the other terminal on time and there's always something wrong that the Roadmaster has to fix just ahead of either the freight or passenger train shows up.
Watching closely, you'll notice the lead unit changes numbers several times on the road. It's actually a pretty good look at the scenery and the "Off gridders" up there.
It gets annoying with all the dubbed in horn blowing. It's possibly better than the average reality show. It's better than the one that was on a couple years ago that had the guy on there acting like a Gerbil on speed.
Frankly, reality shows get old.

That guy would have been banished to a trailing unit on my train pretty fast. I've seen engineers do that to conductors and even trainees they didn't like, as unfair as that might have been.

Seriously, IF you could find the right producer and situation, something like this could be good PR and a fundraising opportunity for a group like Ft. Wayne or TVRM, at least as a limited one or two season show. You're right about reality shows getting repetitive and formulaic after a couple of seasons.

I was contacted by a British production company two months ago, and they did not treat me well.

Contact me privately if you want to share notes.

Hadn't known about the program in Alaska until reading about it here, so I did a bit of checking. Some of what I found was---interesting.

http://amandacoyne.com/politics/new-ala ... t-of-myth/

http://www.alaskarails.org/sf/film/rail ... mit=Search

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?1,3268174

http://www.adn.com/2013/11/28/3202547/r ... ckers.html

Looks kind of corny, but might be fun, at least as a limited series. Vintage and current photos on the program's website certainly portray a spectacular and beautiful line--but the vintage photo collection includes stuff from the White Pass & Yukon!

http://www.destinationamerica.com/tv-sh ... k-peek.htm

As noted, might be decent, but, oh, how much better could we do than this!

Maybe Overhaulin is taking on the 4014.
Hurry up, we only have two weeks to finish this.......

The post on the Shortline Assn's website sounded pretty cautionary....

A few years ago, a prominent Southwestern traction engine collector who was also an independent manufacturer of farm tools, was seriously depleted of funds for a project that was supposedly greenlighted by either Discovery or History. He had acquired all the patterns of a certain obscure maker of steam tractors some decades back, and was approached about building new engines for the show. they were going to document the project beginning to end. The Cliff notes version is this: after the collector had not only paid to repair all of the very old patterns to make them useable again, replicating some others, and invested money with the production company's principles (advances of cash to secure the project, housing for the producer, ect)-poof! the promoter of it vanished into thin air, and the signed agreements with Hollywood had never been seen or heard of west of New Mexico.