The Central Pacific tested coal on the Western Pacific (of 1862, not the Feather River Route from 1905) in 1870/71 with limited success...

By late 1870 they were using coal between Sacramento and Oakland... but were still using a significant amount of wood system wide in the 1880's

California was getting coal from Nevada and Utah, had local sources at Mt Diablo and Coalinga (aka Coaling Station A), as well as getting coal from Coos Bay (Oregon) Puget Sound, Vancouver Island and Australia.

Oil was tested early, particularly on railroad owned river boats...

Randy

Having fired Steam Traction engines they would use wood or coal, you'd start your fire with wood and bring the coal on after. Railroads would contract with adjacent farmers to bring wood up to the tracks where they would gather it up.
Most of the early engines would be able to use wood or coal but you already know whats the better preference for fuel. You hand fired anyways, lugging wood in not so tough, but not in the later superpower engines, 3 firemen could never keep up.
Try that on a Big Boy.

I'm curious too what engine they modded with a diesel tender pusher. CGI has come a long ways, doing your shots with no tracks, that explains the engines on the flatbeds.
When the live action Casper the friendly ghost was made, they did not use any blue screen, the ghosts were matted in post, mixed with live actors.

I don't suppose this "Loan Arranger" can get us some money for a few preservation projects?

I think the media got the wood wrong. Gudde's book California Place Names (Univ. of California Press) says that in 1906 the Santa Fe planted an experimental grove of Eucalyptus trees there (not palms).

I've never heard of palm trees as a source of ties, but there are stories about the Santa Fe planting eucalyptus trees for this purpose. Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, and grow well in Southern California, but they made very poor railroad ties, tending to warp and being hard to drive spikes into. I should mention that there are many types of eucalyptus, but none of them make good ties, unless the Aussies have figured out a way to use them.

Gudde's book California Place Names (Univ. of California Press) says that in 1906 the Santa Fe planted an experimental grove of Eucalyptus trees at Rancho Santa Fe (not palms).

The wood from the species of Eucalypts planted in California are all very difficult to dry. They usually suffer fiber collapse and get a "washboard" appearance.

The Forest Service did some experimental drying and milling of Eucalyptus in Berkeley in the early 1900's. They rough-cut the wood for 1-inch stock but after planing to get rid of the washboard corrugations the final product was only 1/2" thick. A plank from that study is part of the wood display on the walls in Mulford Hall at U.C. Berkeley.

From the previews it definitely seemed that the quality of CGI here will at least look realistic...compared to the "steamer" in "Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter" at the bridge fire scene...could totally tell it was CGI...the train was almost like the polar express style of animation, with live action actors fighting desperately for their lives...

They shot the town scenes near alberquerque NM, which is where atsf 2926 lives...maybe they visited the 2926 site for inspiration or some help building the snap-track and modding the train???

Not going to do much in terms of helping the preservation community though...Disney almost didn't make the movie...when it was brought forward and the screenplay solidified in 2010, they shelved it cause the price for production was too high...supposedly Disney only agreed last year to 200 million cause everyone wanted to do it so badly Depp, Verbinski and Bruckheimer the producer all were Ok with paycuts...

I think you mean link and pin couplers. But the modern design was already with us in 1885.

The modern knuckle coupler has its origins with the patent of Eli H. Janney granted on April 29, 1873. In 1877 he associated himself with the firm of McConway & Torley which produced and improved the coupler, In time the Master Car Builders Association adopted the term "vertical plane coupler" to identify it in a generic manner. But the M.C.B. was reluctant to adopt a design whose mating face patent was controlled by one firm; in 1888 it reached an agreement with McConway & Torley that placed the mating face design in public domain. The Master Car Builders Association the adopted the design as the "M.C.B. Coupler." Many variants and improvement were patented by others (including Janney). By the end of of 1899 the MC.B. had approved 49 manufactures of the "vertical plan coupler" that would work together. But even then some promoters and railroads were endorsing various kinds of improved lin-and-pin coupling systems.

The size and mass of the knuckle coupler has increased over the last 100+ years. But the mating faces are the same -- you can couple to a car from the 1890s with a diesel built this year.

John White in his book about railroad freight cars has a whole chapter on various ideas for making safe couplings between cars.

Looks like this topic has taken on a couple of sub-topics.

1) Lone Ranger. A Disney crew was at Campo a few weeks ago, filming "track going by." They mounted a camera on a caboose, and filmed the track as the caboose/locomotive consist moved along over about 6 miles. I think this is for something coming out after the Lone Ranger.

2) Rancho Santa Fe/Eucalyptus. Having been born in San Diego 70+ years ago, and lived here all my life except for a couple of years courtesy Uncle Sam in the '60's, I have lots of experience with eucalyptus and heard plenty of stories about Rancho Santa Fe. I'd always heard that Santa Fe planted the fast-growing trees to provide a good source for ties. But, when it turned out that euc wasn't good for ties or lumber, they turned the "The Ranch" into an exclusive residential area, which it still is. Probably the most exclusive part of San Diego county. Back in the day, people like Douglas Fairbanks lived there. In fact, more recently, another upscale area, just adjacent to "The Ranch" has been developed, Fairbanks Ranch.

There are supposedly 100 or more varieties of eucalyptus. All the ones I've had experience with are totally unsuitable for any kind of construction. It is a very hard wood, but the grain is very twisted, almost like the strands of fiber in a heavy rope. When dried, any lumber cut from it twists. However, it does make very good firewood. But, you have to split it as soon as it is cut down. Once it dries, it is almost impossible to split. However, I've never heard anything about the railroads using it for fuel. The tree project probably came along after they started using oil.

While looking for material for another post, I came across this. It's a minor behind-the-scenes look at "Hugo," which does feature a fair amount of railroad action. What's quite amazing is (a) how much was either computer generated or combined, and (b) how good it looks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVQ6hiIPkvM

Looking at this, I am reminded of an acquaintance who runs a local media company. He does have some movie and television background, and one of the things he told me was that the traditional use of models (i.e., train wreck sequence in "The Greatest Show On Earth") is still the most economical way to represent many things in film; seems digital animation, even at its current state, is extremely labor intensive, and thus expensive. Watching the work for "Hugo" makes me believe him.

Re the original post, I like the way the con rod flies off ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAUjV2hGuW4
Can't wait until a patron asks if ours "do that too?"

Great video of how the the train sequences where done in the Lone Ranger A lot more live action than I had guessed there to be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdXTXWpIYgQ

A lot of movies have more live action than one might suppose from the finished product. My favorite has been "The Great Train Robbery", starring Sean Connery. All of the train scenes were shot on location and the scenes with Connery climbing out of the carriage and walking on the roof were all live action with the camera on a helicopter. That complicated things as the helicopter had to operate out of England due to security requirements of the time.

The filming was done on a preserved railway line with instructions that the crew should drive the train at 30 mph. However, the vintage locomotive had no speedometer and apparently there were no mile posts that could be used for timing. The speed of the train ended up being something much more than the instructed speed. Connery was buffeted about pretty good and as I recall, when the film crew radioed the helicopter to get an indication of the train's speed, the pilot remarked that he was doing something like fifty knots and that the train was pulling away from him! I think the final estimate was that the train was running at about 60 miles an hour during some portions of the shooting.

The scene with Wayne Sleep climbing the prison wall and the train station were also done on site as live shoots. Sleep did both as free climbs without a safety rope. The prison wall was a real challenge due to the height and the fact that no one realized that the wall was topped with rotating iron spikes that were designed to prevent just such an escape. Sleep was small and agile enough that he was able to wriggle through them.

Wanna see something along the same lines but done in a far more entertaining way?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqD7PVHrI64

Oh, my, "Steamboy," one of the best "steampunk" works of any kind in my opinion.

Sure, it has lots of technical errors, but visually, it looks so much better than a lot of other things, I'm willing to forgive in this case.

Why is it we have to see cartoons (such as this and "The Polar Express") to see railroads (and the steam era in general) portrayed in a superior fashion?