I was pleasantly suprised to see a familiar steam engine on "The Waltons" last night. 4501 was pulling the FDR funeral train. When was this filmed? Was it on the Southern Railway?

Just curious,

Looking forward to seeing her steam again very soon.

Best wishes to all involved,

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian

You ARE aware that "The Waltons" was originally filmed in the 1970s and very early 1980s, correct? That these are reruns of episodes filmed 35-plus years ago?

The episode to which you refer is apparently the two-hour season 9 opener, "The Outrage", which originally aired Nov. 20, 1980:
http://www.the-waltons.com/season9.html

Nearly everything one sees in "The Waltons" was filmed on Stage 26 of the Warner Brothers Burbank, Ca. studios, with a few outside shots filmed at various locations frequently used by Hollywood studios, such as the Golden Oak Ranch, a Disney-owned property north of Los Angeles that features a very fake-looking covered bridge.

Having said that, the producers of "The Waltons" were known to have shot background locations in the central Virginia heartlands. I'm certain that they might have seized the opportunity to do a little filming if a steamer were about. However, 4501 was primarily used in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi in the late 1970s with no trips to Virginia. Meanwhile, SR 722 (then also painted green) was used on trips out of Alexandria in March 1980 before failing on March 29 and being replaced by diesels on a March 30 trip to Warrenton. More trips with 722 were run in Va. and N.C. in August 1980 as well. And, of course, all of the filming could have been done at the Tennessee Valley RR Museum anyway, the most likely scenario........

On one side note, the show was set in the fictional Waltons Mountain, which in real life was Schuyler, Va. One frequent plot of the show was going over to "the Rockfish post office," which was supposed to be a general store trackside to the Southern Railway. Rockfish does exist, and also the supposed "post office," a tiny prefabricated building supposedly "dropped off" by the US Post Office in 1910. The store burned down around 1970, apparently. During one of the last NS steam runs in 1993 or 1994, I shot N&W 611 pounding over the trestle there and past this quaint little shack, which at the time still had a rocking chair and vintage Coke machine on the porch, as if I'd dragged them there to pose them!


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockfish ... 6132825864

Webcam pointed at the tracks for railfans:
http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/nobyter/2/show.html

Two key words in TV productions in the 70s and 80s:
Stock Footage
Anyone else recall the episode of 'Duke of Hazard' filmed roughly in the same era, where a police chase ended when the cop car was almost hit by a SP Daylight train (pulled by PAs, if memory serves)?

Sandy,

I am very aware of when the show was produced as I got to see it on television when it first aired.

The engine could have been the 722 I suppose. The lighting was not that great.

Thank you for your reply,

JD

I remember the episode, and it was in fact 4501, the headlight as I remember was in 4501 position no 722's. I also remember seeing the pony truck under the tender.

Oh my! I wonder what happened to cause that?

Might the producers have used footage from "Eleanor and Franklin"?

Wesley

Excuse my mistake, Under the Firebox. And I was wondering too if it was from the filming of Elenor and Franklin. I tried looking on Youtube for the episode, but to no avail, I did find that it was Season 9 episode 1 "The Outrage."

Photos exist of 4501 being in Northern Virginia in 1974, 1976 and 1985. The 9th season was in 1979 so they easily could have found footage from any of these excursions, if indeed, it was filmed in operation in Virginia.