If Numbers can get kids intrested in becoming mathmatics genuises,Then can we get a realistic drama about working for the railroad in 21st century America.
By the way I love Becker. He does a good job of potraying a inner city doctor.
We have had shows like TAXI so “Subway” or “Metro North” could be a hit. The Union Pacific needs people so geting a drama about railroads could be recruiting tool. Of course CSI Union Pacific Police would be a dud. But the ongoing fight between the workers and the sut and ties who think they they know how to runa railroad could be the basis for some great comedy with out the laugh tracks[:)]
They already did. It was called “Wall Street” and covered the down side of mergers and acquistion.
Tracks Ahead wasnt really a CSI type show but it did cover major railroads and also had model railroads too. I do agree that a show about trains would be interesting. Try PBS, they might be intersted.
The key word here is “realistic” I doubt the networks would get it even close, then it would upset all of US. If they did, though, it would make for good thread topics.
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Alot of the U.S. would not even care, just us railfans.
Okay…Opening scene set against a setting sun…electric guitar music playing in the background as a pair of AC4400s slowly approach a switch.
The switchman throws the switch as the signal turns green…he gives a kick and salutes the engineer as a huge blast of black smoke erupts from the stacks and he turns to shield his eyes from the dust as the train goes roaring by…
…The Kenny Loggins kicks in as the music comes up and starts singing “…Highway to the railroad zone…” as scenes of yard switching are flashed as the credits roll…
…then we break to the cab, as Maverick and Goose, pulled in from the extra board are running notch 8 with a hot load of orange juice for the inauguration…
something like this?
Dan, think they would let you write the scripts for the show?
Also, Dan, HOW hot was the orange juice? Wouldn’t it be just about
room temp, or cold?
As the wife would say, “cold, but not as cold as your heart” (meaning me)
[yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah]
Im actually trying to put together a movie on real trains & railways with a twist.
Although the trains talk, the story is based mostly on real event’s in history. Some of
the charactors include N&W’s streamlined 4-8-4 661 named sally, PRR’s GG-1 (I
haven’t chose a number yet) called gloria, & UP’s 4-8-8-4 (I’ll have to ask the UP about
using their name) named robert.
Let’s face it, real railroading is 8-12 hours of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror and occasional bouts of tedium (how else would you describe walking a 100 car train looking for what set off the HBD?)
Hollywood would want at least one crossing collision per episode, along with some other act of daring-do. Couldn’t set the show in a bar (Rule G), and the bunk room of the Y wouldn’t be all that entertaining (well, I suppose it could be…). Maybe from the perspective of Nora in her taxi…
Would be nice to be pleasantly surprised, though. Hey CSX! Ready for your close-up?
If Trains Unlimited on the History Channel could not make it, then a show on the networks has no hope. I think some railfans think there are a whole lot more serious railfans then there really are.
Sorry guys, it’s already been done, it was called “Petticoat Junction” with Smiley Burnette as a hogger.
What about an episode using a rotary snowplow to clear a mountain pass after a blizzard? Seeing one of those in operation really catches the interest of even non-railroad types.
Some time ago The History Channel had a series on the RRs. You can contact them & I think the entire series could be bought for $60.00 or $70.00. [:D]
Ratings would be abysmal. It’d be cancelled after the first four weeks or so. You’d run out of plots, I mean, how many terrorists taking over the train plots could you do, after you’ve done the highly toxic tankcar episode, and (gulp) the deranged engineer episode, or maybe (and I like this better) the deranged dispatcher episode.
While I doubt that many viewers would wi***o have a show dedicated to Railway enthusiasts in prime time, what’s wrong with broadcasting a daily programme in the wee hours of the night? How many people have yet to have Video-recorders? In any case it would give the programme makers a few hours to pull together / edit the raw material, say shots from the various web cams around your Continent, add in items on the commodities moved, origins and destinations, history, geography and geology, safety issues, personalities, etc., etc., and you’ve got the makings of a show that might sell to a lot of people.
Not feasible, well what about American Footballand Baseball in the UK? They’re still minority sports by our standards, but off-peak TV programmes make them available to afficionados.
Minority interest subjects can be viable if given the right treatment!
Go to it, and quickly !!
Regards,
And you can watch soccer here, too, any soccer viewers on this board? My son, after spending several months in Spain, came home with a new appreciation for soccer.
I have an alternative, but you have to have a dish…There is a show called “Trains and Locomotives” on the RFD channel. It comes on Monday at 5 pm central, and is reshown several times during the week. Since it’s the “real deal” and not a scripted tv show, it’s a lot more interesting. Every week is a different place. This week it was about steam engines still in use in Russia. It’s pretty much eye candy, but a lot of fun. It’s one of the only programs on tv that I look forward to watching.
m
What you’d probably end up with would be a prime-time soap involving people who happen to work for a railroad. Think ER- a prime-time soap that happens to occur in a hospital… While most of the action would happen in yards and locomotive cabs (alas, no cabeese, which would be a prime location), and railroad terms would abound, the rest would just be the same-old same-old.
Of course, folks like us would revel in picking out the inconsistancies. On the ground-breaking show “Emergency” they often used “stock” shots that were inconsistant with the rest of the story line. Things like the wrong pumper parked in the station, or using the wrong sirens on the wrong vehicles. Opportunities abound for such mistakes on a RR show - a stock shot of the “Super Chief” for a commuter rail, or mistmatched interior/exterior for the locomotive used for the set, improper control action, you name it…
When ER first aired, some EMS people watched it religiously. But you can only watch so many heart attacks and broken arms.