After viewing John Allen’s film/DVD of the G&D I was wondering if the fast train speeds depicted were the speeds that Mr. Allen and his crew(s) operated at? They seem mighty fast, even for an earlier time. I’m assuming that the speeds were increased for filming time constraints?
By the way, if anyone here owns the video/DVD, the Wescott book truly shows the artistry and scope of the layout. The DVD is meant to be humorous but the layout appears to be much less impressive/toy-like to my eyes than it does in the book.
This book needs to be reprinted IMHO. Anyway, I know that Andy S. operated with John Allen and hoped that he might fill us in on the speed of John’s (continuously running) trains really was. Thanks very much.
I have a lot of admiration for John Allen’s work and imagination, but not firsthand experience seeing his layout in person. But I do have experience with film-based motion picture photography.
Minature photograph tends to have a depth of field problem- keeping near and more distant objects in focus at the same time. Smaller aperture helps depth of field, but lowers exposure. To get more exposure, either use more light nor longer exposure time. For most movie cameras, you get longer exposure time by running camera slower. When film taken at slower speed is projected at normal speed, it appears faster than it did when it was taken.
Perhaps this is what happened when Allen’s layout was filmed.
Remember that John Allen was a photographer so the still photos are naurally going to show off all the good stuff at the best angles were a video gets everything from any which perspective.
Train speeds on the Gorre & Daphetid were generally pretty slow. John’s 4-6-2 fast passenger engines were geared for a top speed of 50 scale mph, but I doubt that I ever saw any of them run that fast. The fastest 2-8-2 freight engines were geared for 40 scale mph, but most of the other freight and switching types ran at 35 mph or less in scale speed.
Port to Great Divide was about 2.6 scale miles, and a slow freight train was scheduled to make that run in about 3 hours and 15 minutes by the fast clock, or 16.25 actual minutes. That schedule includes stops, so it averages a bit less than 10 mph. A fast passenger train was scheduled to make the same run in an hour and fifteen minutes by the fast clock, 6.25 actual minutes, or about 25 scale mph including stops.
Andy, thank you so much for your personal response. I couldn’t remember this specific detail (speeds/time) being addressed in the book. From everything else I"d read, regarding his respect for prototypical operations, it seemed very unlikely that John Allen ran his trains as fast as those shown in the film/video/DVD. Thanks for the eyewitness account!
http://www.trainvideodepot.com /Sunday-River-Productions You can get it a few bucks cheaper than I paid for mine. The sale is alway AFTER my purchase As I’ve said above, if you haven’t seen Allen’s own photos or “the Kalmbach book” things look a little “primitive” in the video. What I DO like about it is that the film (DVD) makes it look more “real” and achievable than the book does. The book is out of print and not cheap on the used market, unfortunately.
Thank you, Captain! Just ordered my copy of the DVD. Every few years I check out the book prices on abe.com, but so far the prices have always seemed too steep. Someday I might break down and get it anyway.
Glad to be of help. The video/DVD is a bit “silly” narration wise, but will be fun for kids because of that. After a couple of viewings I mostly watch it with the sound/narration off, like a lot of prototypical DVDs. Hope you enjoy the experience. It would be nice if Kalmbach could offer to reprint Wescott’s book on a pre-order basis so that they could be assured of a profit without regard to inventory stocking like the loco manufacturers do. I’m not a fan of that system but if it would make the book more affordably available…
As I’ve said above, if you haven’t seen Allen’s own photos or “the Kalmbach book” things look a little “primitive” in the video. What I DO like about it is that the film (DVD) makes it look more “real” and achievable than the book does. The book is out of print and not cheap on the used market, unfortunately.