Does anyone know where to get a video or better CD from John Allen’s Gorre & Daphedid Layout?
Thanks
Truthfully, the video, if it’s the same one I have (and it looks like it is), of the G&D, pretty much sucks. Probably 50 percent of it is stills that have been published Many times. The rest is 30-60 second clips (if that)… It was a big let down but I don’t know what I really expected, the layout has been gone for over 30 years. You would be FAR better off with the Book, Model Railroading With John Allen, which, from what I understand, is still available here.
http://www.con-cor.com/bookvids/modelrr.htm
I don’t know if that’s true or not, didn’t care enough about it (and still don’t ) to argue with the person who pointed it out.
I don’t know about the video, but I agree that the book “Model Railroading with John Allen” by Linn Westcott is very good.
Enjoy
Paul
The video isn’t bad, but the book is better. You can learn a bunch from the book whereas the video just kind of brings the book to life. There’s not a lot of info in the video, but it’s cool to watch anyways.
Say what you will about the video. I use it to play before groups of modelers and non-modelers alike. It draws folks like a magnet. They’ll sit and watch it all or for 15 or 20 minutes depending upon their interest in model railroading.
I just finished an eight week exhibit of prototype and modeling photos and displays and the G&D video was a tremendous draw. The book is good, but the video brings it to life.
Thanks for the info, I was wondering about the video since it is all gone, don’t know if John Allen had any video’s that survived.
Read a book a few years ago from a Public Library about John Allen, was very interesting, don’t remember the title.
I did see an advertisement in ‘Historic Rail’, says 36 minutes in color. Any body knows what that is?
I just realized that the ‘Historic Rail’ video is the same as from sundayriverproductions.
I wil read the book first then probably get the video.
Thanks.
If I remember correctly, the video was a fairly recent find (last 10 years???). For a long time, it was thought that there were only still photos of the G&D but someone discovered some old 8mm film that was converted to video tape.
That is an interesting “generation gap” there–I would be almost certain that no “videos” of the G&D were taken (videotape in consumer hands was still pretty unknown) but that someone had almost certainly filmed the G&D with Super 8 or 16mm home movie cameras. Super 8, for those who remember it, is fairly grainy–imagine a third-generation dub off an old VHS tape…
The video is a very amatuerish production, with narration by someone clearly reading almost cold from a script that it sounds like they’ve never seen before. At times the script is out of sync with the pictures.
Even just a new narration would improve the video enormously. But I guess the narrator was a friend /operator with Allen, and that’s somehow significant enough to justify the poor script and weak presentation.
I’d say if you are interested in John Allen both the book and video are worth getting. It’s interesting to note the trains slowed down over time from the earliest clips to the last ones. The video has some flaws but it’s not fair to compare it to a modern Allen Keller production shot on video with stereo sound and digitally edited/mastered, these are basically home movies made with a 16mm or 8mm (probably wind-up) camera by some fans/friends of John. But after reading the book and looking at the pics, it is neat to see them come to life.
The book is sold out, out of print, at con-cor.
The book written by John Allen and Lynn Westcott which is out of print can be purchased quite often on ebay and usually auctions off at around $50.00-$60.00. Great,informative book with lots of pictures and history of the Gorre and Dephited. The starting plan that John Westcott used is in 101 Track Plans For Model Railroaders,page 12 on my copy in the 1976 printing. This first layout was later incorporated into his famous pike.