Friend sent me these two youtube links. A lot of slapstick, but the old engine and coaches (made from stage coaches) were interesting:
A 1925 silent short from “Educational Film Exchange, Inc.”, they seem to have taken some liberties with the truth!
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The replica Dewit Clinton loco was good to see, however
Kind of reminds me of operating sessions at a club near me !!! -------------Ken
Probably true. But from what I understand, their operating personnel resemble some of the operators I see at the operating sessions on the famous model railroad near me.
Except that’s not a DeWitt Clinton replica that you saw in the Iron Mule.
I thought it looked familiar (I have been watching some Buster Keaton silent films over the past year - including the Railrodder), and wiki confirmed that it was the Stephenson’s Rocket replica that Buster Keaton had constructed for his movie “Our Hospitality” (and since Buster Keaton is indeed in “Iron Mule”, uncredited role as one of the Indians, it makes some sense).
“In 1923, Buster Keaton had a functioning replica built for the film, Our Hospitality. Two years later, the replica was used again in the Al St. John film, The Iron Mule, directed by Keaton’s mentor, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.The subsequent whereabouts of the replica are unknown.”
Buster is the indian that climbs on and sits down on the top of the car. That’s a film for the permanent collection.
I loved this movie, and I had never heard of it before. One other thing it has in common with Buster Keaton’s The General – the actresses were all expected to be both pretty and extremely athletic and ready for just about anything in the way of stunts.
I also suspect that, as with the railroad scenes in the General, there is a pretty high degree of authenticity in the scenes of discomfort of the passengers riding those early stagecoach type passenger cars.*
Dave Nelson
*amended post, I meant that both films offer a certain authenticity of the trains of their era – for The General it is in how the headlights got their oil, how the throttle and brake worked, the link and pin couplers, how boxcar doors of that era worked, water tanks, that sort of thing. For the Iron Mule the authenticity is in the jerking caused by the chains between cars (and engine and tender, the crude brake on the locomotive, and how that translated into passenger discomfort
True - welcome to the Hollywood Studio System of the 1910s/1920s. But, who’s complaining about attractive, fit women?
IIRC, ‘The General’ was set in a later period, the Civil War (early 1860s), with much more developed locomotives and rolling stock. Since it was more of a chase/spy/adventure , I don’t recall the average passenger comfort being a major plot point in the film. BTW, a major plot point in this film is actually common sense - the Recruiters for the CSA army reject Buster’s character because they feel he is more useful to the Confederacy as a skilled locomotive engineer than a so-so infantry man (spoiler alert - he ends up capturing a Union general) - now if they had only told him that…
OTOH Buster’s film ‘Our Hospitality’, about the decendant of a long-standing fued in Appalachia returning to his ancestoral home during IIRC the 1830s, may be what you are thinking of - the Rocket replica featured in this ‘Iron Mule’ film was constructed for that film, so the same stage-coach based rolling stock and same slow paced travel (Buster’s dog tags along with the train in ‘Our Hospitality’ and is waiting for Buster when he gets to his destination) and resultant passenger discomfort - the first third of the movie (after explaining the feud premise) is based on this train journey from NY City to some back-woods Appalachia/Southern town (point to point in 1830, apparently across the Hudson river - try not to think too