Did anyone catch this Tuesday’s episode of Mega-Movers on History International? It had three segments with a railroad orientation.
I will deal with Segment 1 lastly. Segment 2 dealt with the relocation of Madame Queen from her perch in front of the old Santa Fe station in Amarillo, Tex; she was moved on a shoofly approximately one mile to a new location in a park which, if I understood it correctly, will have a railroad theme and she will become the showpiece. In Segment 3 a Southern Pacific/Texas and Louisiana Lines F-1 #982(???) was moved via flatbed across town in Houston, Tex.
The theme of Segment 1 was the movement of the depot in Morton, Wash from its built location to a museum location, a distance of approximately one mile; the station was jacked off of its foundation and moved on a dolly system to its new home. Near the end of this structures journey it was necessary to squeeze the building through a gap between a tree and a building with only seven or eight inches total clearance; it was breathtaking just to watch.
I do not know just when this program will rerun but watch for it on either History or History International channels.
I have daydreamed - that’s really the only way to put it - about a diorama with a train depot being moved from its location on the mainline out onto the street. This was prompted by a feature in Invention and Technology magazine of several years past which dealt with the subject of relocating structures such as was done with this train depot.
Has anyone ever included a building being moved on their layout?
We Forumites rather hammered that particular episode of Mega Movers back on May First - not because of the content (which was interesting) but because the (fillintheblank) who writes the announcer’s script does such a great job of making professionals doing their jobs seem like a bunch of daredevils balancing on a knife edge over disaster.
Imagine him describing Madame Housewife preparing breakfast. Deep, dramatic voice. “She’s about to flip the fried egg. Will she get it all the way over? Will the toaster pop up before the bread starts to burn? We’ll be back to see…” Followed by seven end-to-end commercials and a detailed description of how the egg got into the frying pan (which they had shown us ten minutes before.)
What got me was the way they turned the corner with Madame Queen. Kind of like twisting a piece of flex on the kitchen table. That might make an interesting scene, and justify all of those bulldozers and front end loaders I’ve accumulated.
I didn’t know for sure whether this was an original broadcast of this episode or not; I’ve only seen - maybe it should be ‘paid attention to’ - one previous episode and that involved relocating a (highway) truss bridge. I found the program interesting, not just because of its railroad theme, but because there was a measure of technology involved. And I will admit that sometimes script writers get a little overzealous with rhetoric - I never do that of course!!!
Anyway, I’m gonna’ an eye on this program to see what comes up in weeks and months ahead.
If the third segment involved a complex straddle crane to lift the loco, and a really complex modular flatbed to move it (hmm, that may have been another episode) then it is a repeat (I do remember them moving the depot - had to really shore up the foundation first, and then the segment about moving the loco via ‘panel’ track).
There are a lot of decent (if dramatic & overblown) ‘technology’ shows on History & Discovery which appear somewhat randomly - I didn’t even realize until recently that there are over 430+ ‘Modern Marvels’ episodes, with almost a dozen episodes involving railroad technology (modern is obviously relative, as they had a ‘roman technology’ episode!). There’s loads of spin-offs and one-off series too - like Mega-Machines or Extreme Salvage or whatnot) - check out wiki or tv.com, and… be amazed.
One show that’s surprizingly interesting (and has been on for awhile) is “How It’s Made” - half hour episodes covering the fabrication/construction/manufacture of various materials & objects - usually 3-4 items per episode, such as pianos, cymbals, rope, paver blocks, pool-tables, electric motors, tools, etc.
OK, so it has a cheesy habit of panning past the item (or models of the item) on a pedestal, with various backgrounds (often a waterfront scene, sometimes a expressway