I recorded a PBS special on KVIE in Sacramento Saturday called a Train is Coming. If you get a chance, watch it in your area. It is a one hour special on the Union Pacific Steam crew with many scenes of their trips and backshop work that goes on to allow the two engines to run on trips.
Steve Lee and his crew really do a great job and this special interviewed them and many of thier supporting cast.
Hope you get to see it and I think you will enjoy the program.
Many thanks to the crew and the Union Pacific for running the engines.
It ran Sunday afternoon here in Kansas City on KCPT (KansasCityPublicTelevision).
Great show! I used to live in Scottsbluff, NE and have chased and photographed 3985 and 844 running across the Cornhusker State. It was great fun the see the challenger pulling a passenger train past Chimney Rock near Bayard, NE. The interviews with Bill Kratville were outstanding as well. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Kratville once at Oregon Trail Hobbies in Gering, NE. He just happened to be in there when I came in. He is a genuine nice man as well as an outstanding rail photographer. It was a great hour of television.
Well, I just checked my local PBS website and see they broadcast the “Tracks Ahead” series and also the program “Trains of the American West.” Unfortunately it is on their HDTV channel. I only barely get the “Low Defintion” channel and on snowy days like today, it’s “No Definition TV.”
over here on the east coast in NY the two local pbs stations are doing nothing but beg for money. they abandon their regular programing for weeks at a time whining and carrying on about how they need funds. i don’t expect to see that here.
I’m also in NY State. I’m also a member of the local PBS station as well as my local public radio station. Both are non-profits and supported by members who pay annual membership fees. No money comes from advertising, a little comes from “underwriting” or corporate sponsorship and a very small percentage comes from public funds. The primary source of funding is from members who respond to what you call “whining and carrying on.”
I’m not sure what you mean that you “don’t expect to see that here.” However, I can tell you what to expect without fundraising efforts by public broadcasting stations: Reruns of “Three’s Company,” professional wrestling and other brain-numbing sitcoms with frequent interruptions with beer ads, “Ask your Doctor if DrugX is right for you” ads and other noxious ads ad nauseum.
You could call in a pledge and perhaps help end the fund drive early. Or you can whine and carry on about not getting something for nothing.
Hear the trains a comin was telecast here in Winnipeg two weeks ago. It was part of the month long pledge drive. I watched it, taped it, then pledged my hundred bucks and received a DVD of it. I consider the DVD well worth the pledge and I do watch other PBS programs as well. (big TV, sit close)
Blind Bruce
I just checked my local PBS listing and I will be getting “Trains of the American West” but still
no “Tracks Ahead”. On the flip side, I do get RFD-TV on satelite which has several train related
shows.
Wayne, how in the world do you get by on broadacast television alone[%-)][:D] Dave
Not only is it broadcast alone, it is by some minor miracle that the only station that I can get with rabbit ears up here in the mountains is the PBS station from Plattsburgh, fuzzy as it is on a good day. (Some of you younger members may have to search out an old geezer to explain “rabbit ears.”)
Otherwise, since I work at home, it’s two broadcast public radio stations, a couple others that I listen to regularly online and sometimes the CBC in French or, on a clear day, in English .
I’m not a big TV fan and less of a fan of Adelphia, the local cable TV company. I have internet service through them because they are the only game in town and they are currently extorting an extra 8 or 10 dollars per month from me because I don’t want to buy their television service. It was with some pleasure that, while visiting a friend at his restaurant, we sat at the bar watching the news as the heads of the company were led away in handcuffs after systematically looting the company for years. Watching it on their own cable TV network , I might add with only a trace of a smirk. Alas, they are still extorting their monthly fee from me, that I might be online.
My daughter down south in the Albany NY area, has a satellite TV system and gets a million channels. Life’s a lot simpler up here in the mountains.
When I occasionally want to see a train show, she’s happy to plug a tape into one the the VCRs & send it up to me. And here’s a tip for everyone: My regional library system has a catalog of thousands of video tapes. I order books & videos online from them & every couple of weeks the bookmoble comes to my litle town & I pick them up & return them there. I just watched a video of Amtrak’s Adirondack and a Vintage Rails video on D&H and Reading steam. Check with your local library. Around here, the loca
It should be KVIE Channel 6, which is the PBS station. Sorry about the call letters as I moved up here in October and we watched KCET in LA. It was on last week as a fund raiser, but I would believe it would be on again.