Guilty pleasure--shouldn't like these, but I find them hilarious, had forgotten how funny those kids could be, but yikes, the !!@#$%&*$#!!! chances they took with running a locomotive over a kid!!

I know this was done slowly with undercranked cameras, and the later version of the same stunt looks like it may have been done with a puppet, but still. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CpStbku ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5tAnll0WTQ

Then again, there was that crazy train on one set of wheels in "Unstoppable". . .

Neat stuff. Can you imagine walking into the BNSF offices with that script nowdays and saying "We need a little favor here, what kind of paperwork do we have to fill out?"

... or for PM 1225. =o)

I thought it interesting.... in the 1924 episode, the Santa Fe didn't seem to have any problem showing their corporate identity. In 1929, the initials on the cab side were painted out.

At least one account of the "Our Gang" shorts I've read said that director Robert McGowan was a former Denver firefighter that apparently had a hand in railroading at one point, and Hal Roach himself comes off as something of a closet railfan. Whatever the source, it's painfully obvious from both these films (and another one or two subsequent talkies about both railroading and the kids forming a volunteer fire company) that there was some hard-core understanding of how railroading, steam engines, etc. worked in the Hal Roach Studios. It also stands to reason that there may have someone else, like another director, who had connections with the Santa Fe. Oddly, the Hal Roach Studios were located in Culver City, CA, which was on the Pacific Electric; I'm guessing the Santa Fe scenes were shot around one of the many Santa Fe L.A. terminals......

Watching "The Sun Down Limited," I couldn't help but ask myself, "Wait a minute, haven't I seen that railroad before in some old back issues of the Steam Passenger Service Directory? In fact, didn't I RIDE that line when it was masquerading as either the Carroll Park & Western or the Petticoat Junction Railroad?" Those on this forum of a certain age and experience level may well understand that sense of deja vu and have a nominee of their own.......

"Mickey - A veteran Engineer - with over an hour's experience!"

I also like how the kid say "I can't stop her! We better send for the other engineer!" Yep, no matter how hard he tried, neither the injector or the firing valve would make her stop. (Next time, try the other side of the cab, kid!)

One of the street scenes in the 1st selection is outside the Culver City Public Market. Earlier, there's a Pacific Electric box car in the railroad yard.

"Can you imagine walking into the BNSF offices with that script nowdays and saying "We need a little favor here, what kind of paperwork do we have to fill out?""--fredstev

"... or for PM 1225. =o)"--S. Weaver

Or the Sierra Railway of today, even though they once did something really wild for the Marx Brothers in "Go West:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOUC_D2DAn8

Now if we could figure out how to get something like this to really work, we could give the art museum and LA Rock people a run for the money, literally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve4TybVf ... re=related

"Watching "The Sun Down Limited," I couldn't help but ask myself, "Wait a minute, haven't I seen that railroad before in some old back issues of the Steam Passenger Service Directory? In fact, didn't I RIDE that line when it was masquerading as either the Carroll Park & Western or the Petticoat Junction Railroad?" Those on this forum of a certain age and experience level may well understand that sense of deja vu and have a nominee of their own......."--Alexander D. Mitchell IV


Well, that got me curious, and I do recall how some early preservation roads seemed to rely on those narrow-gauge tank engines and other industrial power, so I started looking around:

Carroll Park & Western:

http://www.pvillage.com/index2.asp

http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/new ... ern117.php

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 428&nseq=5

For a time, the CP&W rostered a two-truck Climax that had been the property of the Elk River Coal & Lumber Co. Most people are familiar with this logging line through its common-carrier connection that shared its ownership, the Buffalo Creek & Gauley. This locomotive, which was once standard gauge, is now on the Roaring Camp & Big Trees in California:

http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/CPW03.JPG

http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/CPW03A.JPG

http://www.modeltrainjournal.com/phpBB3 ... =1&t=12261

It looks like it needs a bit of work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jterry618/4515224072/

Petticoat Junction Railroad of Florida:

http://petticoat.topcities.com/pjpanama.htm

Zowie, what would Ron Travis think?

http://petticoat.topcities.com/pjtrainpostcards.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/floridamemory/5686742109/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevesobcz ... 229066252/

http://www.cardcow.com/86057/petticoat- ... h-florida/

http://www.destinlaw.com/images/old_flo ... ilroad.jpg

http://www.burnsland.com/disneyrailroad ... 3&start=10

This one is still around:

http://www.cplerr.com/

http://www.cplerr.com/engineroster.html

http://www.freewebs.com/cplerr/histstry.htm

Somewhere, back in the 1960s, there was an article in Trains about a company that was rebuilding these industrial locomotives for park service, and I think it may have also been in the consulting business for roads like the Cedar Point & Lake Erie. One thing I recall about the article was that the fellow who ran this company thought these industrial engines were "ugly," but that was because they had been built after the details of the "time they were designed" had changed. In other words, these locomotives were really designs of the 19th century (arguably true), but changing times had caused their newer versions to look like 20th century power, and this fellow thought that looked drab and uninteresting compared with the brighter look of the 19th century.

I'm not entirely certain these 1960s translations of the 19th century were successful; at least some of the surviving examples don't have those fake spark arrestors on their stacks. I think we may also have to recall that this was a different time, when Westerns were popular on TV, when the diesel and the streamliner were supposed to be the future on the railroads, and those "drab" black engines were out of style. . .

Go search for the Carroll Park & Western on this forum. It's been discussed before.

As I recall, PART of the overall story is that the railroad, equipment, etc. had been built/modified on old four-foot-gauge mining equipment for the set of the movie "The Molly Maguires", set in anthracite Pa. in 1876: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066090/ Brother Lappelle will have to confirm the exact details, but either the studio came to the RR and added to it, or the tourist railroad itself was effectively a leftover movie set. As I recall, it was filmed ca. 1968-69 and released in 1970. According to IMDB, the movie was a horrendous failure at the box office, earning back about 10% of its $11 million production cost.

A four-foot-gauge Climax? Further proof of the "adjustability" of Climax axles.

Brother Alexander, thank you for the hint to look up the CP&W on this forum; one of the things I found was that I had seen this equipment before, and didn't quite know what I was looking at. It turns out the locomotive and two cars were on display at Tuttle & Spice in Virginia for a time.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=563&p=1367&hilit=carroll+park+%26+western#p1367

I wondered where they went when they weren't there later.

Again, thank you for the hint.

My God that 1309 Class Pacific took a beating!

I know this thread is a few months old, but from what I know the Carroll Park and Western was built 1964 as a tourist railroad and in 1968-69 parts of the film "The Molly Maguires" was filmed there and the engines and buildings were redecorated accordingly. I just watched the film recently to refresh my memory and it appears that they used the #117 0-4-0 engine which is in NJ currently and the rolling stock and possibly a model or matted the background of it for the one scene where the track was exploded and the coal cars were derailed as it looks totally out of place where the original location was in Bloomsburg, unless the movie company transported the engine to another location for the scene which I suppose is possible?

The majority was filmed in PA, I am sure a lot of the interior sets were on a sound stage in CA.

I went to the Carroll Park and Western in the early to mid 70's prior to it closing, was in disrepair and it closed soon after. This was after the owner died and someone else tried to reopen it. I remember riding in the same combination cars used in the film, do not recall if I rode behind #117 or #3?

The water tank looks different than the typical PRR style, the roof and banding is different, but I heard rumors that some of the structures were historic structures that were placed there during the construction.

This is the best site I found concerning the history with great photos:

http://berwickrailfan.webs.com/brwkrfcarrollparkRR.htm

I was a student at Bloomsburg State College (now university) from 1965-1969 during the heyday of the Carroll Park & Western. I was employed at the Magee Transportation Museum restoring trolleys, but occasionally I would get a call from Carroll Stahl for some help at the CP&W. He had some really cool equipment there; too bad most of it was scrapped after his death in 1972. The list included several C&O camp cars, Reading cocoa bean hoppers, a locomotive crane and two or three DL&W cabooses.

Stahl was a builder and developer -- a nearby housing development is named Carroll Park -- and he built the buildings at the CP&W, except for the section house, which came from the adjacent DL&W. That's also where the water tank came from. He had about a mile or so of track with a reverse loop at each end, all built with rail from the East Broad Top. The coach and combine started life as DL&W wooden cabooses and rode on re-gauged EBT freight car trucks. He had a local machine shop do the job -- they cut the axles and welded a piece of pipe into the center of each axle and made new truck bolsters.

My first cab ride was in the Climax, formerly Elk River Coal & Lumber (West Virginia) No. E-3, now at the Roaring Camp in California. The other engine, No. 117, was a Vulcan 0-4-0T from the Jeddo-Highland Coal Co. It was the first piece of equipment he had, and he laid the track to fit the wheels, without knowing it was an oddball gauge. He was very surprised when he brought a PRR 4-wheel caboose to the site and it wouldn't fit the track!

I could have had the "AliceMay," formerly PRR business car "Cape Charles" for $5,000 in 1975, but I was a low-paid teacher at the time and had no place to put it.

Interesting, do you remember the filming of The Molly Maguires? One scene the 0-4-0 is hauling some hopper cars with coal, not sure if those are the "cocoa bean hoppers" they used? Looks like they used a model, mock up or a matted background on the final scene before the tracks are exploded because the scene is in a mountainous region that does not look like the location where the CP&W was?

I do not recall how long after it closed that the 0-4-0 was sold, I am sure for a time I remember seeing it with some rolling stock sitting along Route 11 in the general vicinity of the property in the late 70's?

Is the girder bridge still in place or was it removed? Looks like now aside from the station and water tank, everything is gone and there is little evidence of it's existence. I am amazed the water tank survived all these years.