I watched Flags of our fathers last night. Great movie. But what have it to do with railroads you ask. Well there is a simple reason. The movie have a lot of trains in them. Short glimpses of beautiful diesels and passenger cars. For someone in Sweden who rarely sees this it was great. Just thought I mention it.
Magnus
Diesels? I thought that was WWII movie?
Well, lets see. EMD FT’s and F3’s were produced between 1939 and 1946 or so and WWII was from 1939 - 1945. There were also Aclo diesels and EMD E units as well. Plus switchers.
I saw parts of the movie, The trains appear courtesy of the Illinois Railroad Museum.
The WWII scenes were flashbacks. The “present” in the movie was actually later.
Now, when we look back on those days, we have to remind ourselves that trains were the way people travelled long-distance. They were much more a part of people’s lives than they are now.
FT’s yes, F3’s no. The FT demonstrators toured the country in 1939-40, IIRC production units started being delivered in early 1941. Production ended in 1945 when the FT was replaced by the F2 which was replaced by the F3 in 1946. The F2 was originally going to be a 1500 HP engine, but due to a problem getting a part it was limited to 1350 HP like the FT. When the part became available and horsepower was increased to 1500, they changed the name to F3, although externally it was identical to the F2.
Also, production numbers of the FT were severly limited by the demands of war production.
George
Well I watched 2 films this weekend both with trains the first was Superman returns and Kevin Spacey had a rather large layout and Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracey. Oh and an episode of Star Trek with the Orient Express in the Holodeck so it was a trains on tv weekend for me this weekend.
Shaun
What made me snicker in the “Flags” movie was the large picture of a PA-1 in the passenger car lounge scene, the PA wasnt introduced till well after the war…oops!
FYI, wartime restriction brought an end to ALL new steam locomotive production, but Diesels, like the FT and the NW-1, were considered 'vital" to the war effort and production actually increased during wartime.
Well I caught a portion of a flick last night with Jean Claude Van Dumb in which he and some babe crawled through the ductwork above the cars from one end of the train to the other. I found that amazing and then turned it off.
Actually, the exact opposite was the case. Steam engines were a proven entity and their construction used far fewer “critical resources” as did those new fangled diesels, thus their productioin was not as tightly regulated by the War Production Board. With few exeptions, traditional locomovite builders were prevented from building anything but steam locomotives.
EMD being a “diesel only” manufacturer was allowed to continue production, but then only of freight locomotives and only for the railroads that the War Production Board thought needed them most.
George
This is true. Steam engines used raw materials that where easy to find and didn’t “steal” motors that could be used for submarines for example. WWII held diezalisation back and made sure that certain RR got new steamers instead of diesels. They had to ask the ****Board(something about war production) for allocation of resources and diesels where hard to get.
Also remember that fuel in the form of oil was short after the “second happy time” by the German subs of the US Atlantic coast in 1942. It was better to be able to use the oil and diesel for the war effort when coal was more readily available.
Magnus