It’s a regularly scheduled program…
Does it always come on at the same times each day that it’s listed? Does it always show those days? if so, i could just record those constantly since I usually lack a schedule and don’t know about those in advance.
This week’s episode - the last “new” one of the series - will be on at 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Tues. 30 Dec. 2008 - and also 4 hours later, at 2:00 AM Weds. 31 Dec. 2008 - per:
http://www.history.com/schedule.do?action=daily&NetworkId=&linkDate=200812302100&timeZone=EST
See also: http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=389316
and http://www.history.com/content/extreme-trains/episode-guide
Extreme Trains: Transcontinental
“In this episode, host Matt Bown rides the busiest freight line anywhere, Union Pacific’s Omaha to Sacramento – on a route that crosses the world’s longest rail causeway, through the world’s largest rail yard and over the fearsome Donner Pass, where Matt and the train crews must free the tracks from huge blocks of ice. The episode also covers the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.”
Interestingly, the Histroy* Channel’s schedule says this one is to be followed by the “ICE COLD EXPRESS” epsiode.
[* - You know, I was going to correct that typo, but somehow “Hi -stroy” just seems more appropriate in this context, as in “de-stroy” ! A “Freudian slip”, perhaps ? - PDN.]
I’ve also seen that a couple of these will be rerun on Sat. 03 Jan. 2008 at (these times are also Eastern), per:
http://www.history.com/schedule.do?action=daily&NetworkId=&am
Tues night 10/9c This is the last show of 8 week series unless they repeat it again…Some one posted the reruns are on Sat at midnight…Hope you catch it…
In my area, the Saturday ones are in the afternoon, already programmed into the VCR. I didn’t see a listing for midnight, but that may depend on which area you’re in (maybe he doesn’t have the afternoon ones anyhow). The tape will be full as it is with the 5 episodes I’ll be lucky to get (if I’m lucky). It likely won’t be for 2 weeks that I’ll get to pick up the tape, and hope they’re still rerunning them that week. I really wish series like that would run an adavance-listed, predictible shedule. I asbolutely hate how SO MANY stations just run what they want whenever they want, even common series appearing on different nights and times. Thanks for all your help, BTW.
Tonight is the night ,LAST EPISODE ! for us who watch this program…
They keep advertizing “Season 1” on DVD. Could this be an implication that they are filming a season 2?
Can 
NYSubway18 Confirm this?
I dont know,I do know they sell a lot of DVD’s weather they show them on tv or not,some are are a couple of years old…
Well, I watched it tonight. I could have spent my time better otherwise.
I do not believe that Matt knows anything about the shipment of hazardous materials. He pointed to a tank car, and said that it had a hazardous material in it; I did not see a placard on the car. Indeed, I saw only one tank car with a placard. I am confident that the UP would not handle a car with any hazardous material if there are not four placards on the car (one on each side and each end) that indicate the hazard. Any violation of the regulations concerning the transportation of hazardous materials carries a heavy penalty (it’s more than two years since I was certified to ship such, but some of the regulations have stayed with me).
He also does not know where the Wasatch Mountains are; he spoke of them as being where the Promontory Mountains are. The UP crosses the Wasatch before it reaches Ogden. At least, the meeting of the CP and UP was described as being at Promontory Summit, and not Promontory Point. Promontory Point, which is on the Lucin Cutoff (which originally used a trestle and not a causeway {which was built in the fifties as I recall}), has been named by too many people, even people around here, as the location of the joining of the the railroads.
A question for anyone who is far more familiar with dynamic braking than I am: would a traction motor generate 2000 amps when the dynamic brake is used? I can understand that one could possibly draw that much current, but the diagram indicated that it generated that much.
Johnny
I would guess that he’s only reading a script that someone else wrote. For the most part I liked the episode but if you want to poke a few holes.
I don’t think Council Bluffs originates any westbound manifests that go farther than North Platte. So while some of the cars may continue west, it technically wouldn’t be the same train.
He talks about the GE AC4500, then gets on board an EMD SD70 ACe.
At North Platte, when they were servicing the engine and the onboard “facilities” it looked to be one getting ready to go to Proviso, not continuing on west. The cab signal had both the ATC (left lights) and CCS (right light) indications lit up. The only reason the ATC would be on at North Platte would be to test it.
I think that the new crew that got on wasn’t at North Platte, but I would say Salt Lake City. Again, it’s because of the cab signal. It’s turned off. It would be needed leaving North Platte, but wouldn’t be needed west of Salt Lake City on the ex-SP.
Does anyone else recognize the first conductor, the one out of Council Bluffs?
Jeff
UP would; I have seen tankcars that have placards on the ends, but missing the placard on the one side. Normally I am not able to see the other side, so I do not know if that side is placarded. I have also seen a string of LPG tankcars where someone spray painted black paint over the numbers. Perhaps it was a frustrated vandal with only black paint and only black cars.
I have also seen a general service tankcar with a 1075 placard (BNSF), hopefully that was the wrong placard. I have seen tankcars stenciled with ethyl ether and placarded 1987 and tankcars stenciled for LPG and placarded 1203 (or vice versa). Those were at an oil refinery, so perhaps they were changing the commodity (assuming the received would not care about some contamination).
…Thought last nights program was at least watchable. Matt was not quite as “loud” as many programs before.
Enjoyed seeing sights of the UP line out thru the flatlands…
They seemingly had to stop to change a traction motor on one of the units and again noted they got to their destination…“on time”…Maybe so, just seems duobtful if in fact that engine would have been put back on that train after the task of removing and replacing the traciton motor, that might have put them behind schedule.
Enjoyed seeing some of the snowy winter shots up in Donner Pass area. Track really did seem “upgrade” traveling in that Hi Railer…Wonder just what the grade is up through that area.
I don’t think his inaccuracy in pointing out what was being hauled in any particular tank car is relevant in any way. It doesn’t matter. He was mentioning things that do get hauled in them. Nitpicking what may have been in the one he just happened to be in front of is just plain silly. I guarantee he doesn’t know what was in it. That wasn’t the point. It’s what could be in it that counts.
Luckily most engines today look very similar so the average person would have no idea that they were first showing a C44 to which he immediately referred to a C45 which is actually what he was standing on. Few know those weren’t the same engines. Then his trains leaves with an SD70ACe on the lead. At times during the trip they showed “his train” as having anywhere between 1 and 3 engines and being led by an SD70ACe, an SD70M, a C44, or a C45. The average public just doesn’t know these things and in the end it doesn’t matter. They even had a few shots of the Missouri Pacific Heritage unit leading!
You need to remember that the show is intended for the average viewer who knows nothing about trains. Absolute rivet counting accuracy is not important and only serious railfans would notice anyways. Generalizations will be common so these details don’t bother me. I actually find it kind of fun to see how many things they can “mess up”.
The only thing that bothers me about the show is the host. Matt Bown is downright annoying!
I’m no expert on such things, but I must agree here that logic would seem to dictate U.P. would assign another unit to this “hot” train rather than have it sit and wait while the bad traction motor is changed out. Also, would they really scrap the old and bad traction motor or rather rebuild it for use on another unit at a later date? I also watched the episode last night and found it to be a bit “patched together” and somewhat disjointed to me.
Greetings Everyone,
( He talks about the GE AC4500, then gets on board an EMD SD70 ACe.)
And the cameras kept showing EMD’s I commented to my wife about it and she said “Im gonna go read” HA ! So,I watched the rest of it and thot it was interesting that the guy at the NP service facility made Matt clean the toileto in the one engine…That was a hoot ! I may have missed it ,but they didnt mention SteamTown this time did they? Being an ex MOW man I enjoyed watching the Tampers and tie machines working…
Matt must be ready to go home,he didnt seem excited at all in this episode…I too thot there was something wrong with the Promitory Point info he gave…
This is the last original show so I dont know if I will watch it again or not,I’ll tune in next week and see…
This has been an interesting topic and has been a long running one ,I congradulate all who participated for your comments and insight…Thanks to all of you !
Exactly…Those obviously would be very espensive items and I too wondered if they didn’t have a program of rebuild to reuse it after it possibly was refurbished.
After watching most of the episodes I am pleased overall with the show. It does not have the vast amounts of information or spicifics that a pentrex video might have but for a mainstream program, it exceded my expectations.
JUST STOP POINTING AT THE SCREEN YOU IRRITATING SHMUCK!!!
I, too, thought Matt was a bit more subdued in the final episode. Maybe he was just in awe of a well-run railroad.[;)]
Sometimes the problem isn’t his fault at all. In the historical flashback while they were describing the problems avoided by the Lucin Cutoff in 1900 (I know, wrong mountain range!), a shot of modern streamlined passenger equipment was shown, presumably from the 1952 Donner Pass incident.
No mention was made of replacing the trestle across Salt Lake with a fill–that confused Pat.
Steamtown, thankfully, stayed in Pennsylvania!
Jeff, you wouldn’t think a train was extreme enough unless it went from one end of the “Transcontinental Railroad” to the other, would you? They chose to ignore our end of the line, unfortunately. I figured that the second crew was the one that boarded at Ogden.
Yes, the traction motor would have been rebuilt, most likely, but I doubt that it was in and out of the shop in time to run on the same train.
UP classifies its ES44AC locomotives as “C45ACCTE” units. I didn’t see what he climbed on, but the description of the unit (4400 horsepower, 12 cylinders) was consistent with what he was narrating on camera.
The biggest problem with this episode was that–in spite of their penchant for speeding things up, including grade-crossing signals–it takes 'way more than an hour to do this line justice. Back in 1995, Trains devoted its entire 55th-anniversary issue (greatly expanded) to the UP, concentrating on the line from Council Bluffs to North Platte. This was in the days before the triple track, before CNW was merged, and before the service meltdowns which would taint subsequent reports. One could have concentrated on the “extreme railroad” here instead of a fictitious “extreme train” and gotten a story that would still have taken well ove
UP has C44ACCTE and C45ACCTE engines. The way to tell them apart is to look at the cooling vent sizes in the rear. The C45ACCTE’s are larger. From what I can tell, and there’s probably a little bit more to it than this, the C45ACCTE is nothing more than a C60 (AC6000) with a 4500 hp motor in it. They originally showed a C44ACCTE. Matt mentioned and climbed aboard a C45ACCTE. The trip was done on an SD70ACe.
UP’s “Convertible” units (built with the possibility of installation of a 6000-horsepower prime mover) are classified as CW6044ACs. There never has been a 4500-horsepower engine in UP’s, or anyone’s, diesel locomotives. UP has:
CW44AC: GE’s AC4400CW
CW44ACCTE: GE’s AC4400CW, with controlled tractive effort.
CW45ACCTE: GE’s ES44AC, and possibly some AC4400s with modifications that were a precursor to GE’s Environmental Series.