shot on regular 8mm, this film features trains from the b&o and c&o railroads. Lots of great Trainspotting. this film is part of a large collection we recently purchased, all content is by the same enthusiast
Fourth generation B&O railroader here. I love the footage of the freight and passenger trains in some pretty famous places. I also worked one summer on the C&O in Newport News Va. thanks so much for sharing this!
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing. 4:52-4:33 is Hinton, WV. Then heading east over the mountain and arriving at Clifton Forge at 5:48. Great shot of the Gordonsville cabin-operator running back up the stairs after roll by inspection at 6:43. 6:55 is obviously Richmond, from there on out it looks like the Peninsula SD. Wonderful old film.
6:50 is Bumpass, VA. It looks almost identical today but no signal tower and there’s a historical marker. The video is sometime after 1963 because the station was still there in 66’
Note the set out sleepers at Clifton Forge. Some were routed to Hot Springs, others to the Greenbrier at White Sulphur Springs--both from Washington DC.
Well done. My uncle was a brakeman on the C&O in Clifton Forge, Va.back in the late 60s. As a kid he'd take me right out onto the yard and into the locomotives and cabooses that had quite a lasting impression on me.
Wow what an awesome video. What a colourful time to be a rail fan. No Amtrak, pre-merger of CSX,Metra was just beginning so was the MBTA in Massachusetts
I lost all my old super 8mm film from the 60s thru the 70s. I had a bit of film showing the B&O 20th Century Limited pulling into Chillicothe, Ohio for a passenger stop. I can still hear in my memory the rhythmic high pitch bell dinging slow as it pulled in to a stop, followed by the loud hiss of the air brakes being set for the stop.
Fantastic film! Would love to find a set of films like those at an estate sale some day!!! Brought back a lot of memories of riding the Southern Rwy in the 70’s
Nice stuff. Clearly the B&O steam is no later than early 1958, when steam officially ended for them. However, I do not think that the fan trip with the gondola was the last trip. Photos I have seen of that trip (from Cleveland to Holloway, Ohio) do not show a gondola full of fans at the front of the consist (can you imagine the fit the FRA would throw today if a railroad did that!?). Concur that at least some of the scenes on the C&O on the New River and Mountain subs were shot after Amtrak started, probably into 1972, when cars started getting the Phase I "Pointless Arrow" logos. Charlottesville, VA was clearly shown, and the first C&O scenes were at Hinton, WV. In one scene, one of the coaches is painted light blue. Could it possibly have been used in the 1969 Golden Spike Centennial train, which I believe was painted a similar color?
Nice film! My guess is the train from approx. 3:45 to 4:35 is the "Shenandoah" due to the presence of a dome sleeper with a mostly heavyweight consist. Love the eclectic consist. Thank you for sharing.
Earliest clips with steam and double digit numbered diesels are from earlier than 1957 as that was the time of the big renumbering - renumbering diesels that held 1 to 3 digit numbers to 4 digit numbers and renumbering steam that had 4 digit numbers were renumbered to 3 digit numbers.
Some possible locations: 0:15 - Washington, D.C.? - because of the Pennsy-style catenary towers 1:45 to 2:10 - Philadelphia 2:11 - Point of Rocks, MD 3:22 - Oakland, MD? 4:30 to 4:45 - Cumberland, MD? 4:46 - Grand Central Station, Chicago 5:55 to 6:30 - Charlottesville, VA 6:45 - Gordonsville, VA 6:55 - Main Street Station, Richmond
The overhead wires at 0:15 look more like of Reading Railroad design (black with a criss-cross metal work pattern) - so perhaps this is in Philly? The other Philly scenes starting at about 1:14 are mostly crossing the Schuylkill River in the East Falls section of the city and heading into Center City where the station stood - across the river from Pennsy's 30th Street. At 0:53 I think (check me) this is the bridge across the Susquehanna River near Havre de Grace, MD. What I especially like about this film is that we get to see entire trains - not just of the locomotives passing as I think too many photographers seem to cut away once the locos pass. Great stuff!
Definitely looks like the Oakland, MD station at 3:22. I used to ride excursion trains from Baltimore to Oakland in the Fall back in the 1960s and 1970s.
0:30 -0:47 is anyone going to point out the fact a B&O Mikado is pulling a fantrip/excursion?? I never realized this happened, what was the number of that Mikado?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any information about who originally shot the print, I acquired this film from a deale, It is very similar to his work however, I understand he mainly shot on 16 mm, this is from a 200 foot real of reg8 mm film.
