The last time I saw an F unit in a revenue run was in the late 1970s and it was in a lash up with more modern diesels. It was on a Conrail train and still painted for the Penn Central. This was in Columbus, OH in the late 1970s. Can’t say if it was an F3, F7, or F9 since I wasn’t that discerning back then. I have seen pictures of F3s and F7s in the same lash up.
I may be wrong, but I believe the FTs were normally an AB set with a solid drawbar between them–and the truck spacing was different from As to Bs. They were intended as freight locomotives and EMC (Electro Motive Corporation; they later changed the name to EMD, for Electro Motive Division when purchased by General Motors) knew you couldn’t replace one road steamer with one Diesel-electric, so they added the booster–which usually still wouldn’t replace steam on one-on-one. As the Zepher said, the railroads double-crossed them and replaced the drawbars with couple
www.HistoricRail.com has the original 1934 film, starring the new Burlington Zephyr, renamed the Silver Streak for the film, Stock #RV6073B, for $24.95, plus S&H (and MN sales tax if you live in our state). (I just went to their site, clicked on “Videos,” typed in “Silver Streak,” and found they have the Wilder/Pryor version for $9.95! How’s that?) They have a whole page devoted to other Hollywood movies involving RRs, such as one of my favorites, “It Happened to Jane,” starring Doris Day, Jack Lemon, and Ernie Kovaks. Warning: this catalog is full of goodies of every type and road name–and you’ll probably end up dropping a bundle! I did that when I came into some money some years back: bought $240 worth of prototype VHS videos.
lol yeah why did you have to post that link Ive found about $300 worth of DVD’s and art that I want now thanks! [(-D]
I actually had the chance to see some of that movie filmed when I was a kid. All the interior station shots were of Union Station in Toronto, Ontario. It was very BORING, lol. The lead loco is still kicking around supposedly but the trailing one was scraped.
Movie-making involves a lot of standing around waiting while everything is set up. I am absolutely fascinated watching movie-making, and doing the little bit of poor-boy low-budget movie making I have done, and researching movie making, visiting old movie sets and locations. (Bummer about much of Universal burning down over the weekend…) Movie-making is a little like practicing magic tricks over and over and over, a lot of tedium that produces the effect of instant magic to the viewer, and the satisfaction of long hard work paying off for the magician.
But perhaps an acquired taste…
My favorite chuckle with a train movie is when an actor risks life & limb to stretch across the gap to tug on the uncoupling bar , then make a heroic leap across the widening gap as the cars part. Hey, Hollywood ! There’s 2 of those things on every car. Stop endangering your staff.
I remember now, AMRail with a messed up copy of a CP Rail multi-mark.[%-)]
If I remember correctly, the train wreck was done ‘full scale’.
Chances are that until they were scrapped or traded in F3s - and F7s - ran in consist with just about any railroad’s locomotives configured with identical gearing. That is the primary reason why companies (usually) standardize - UP’s Fast Forties being an exception - gearing for their freight locomotives.
In the 1960s - and perhaps even later - with the demise of the passenger train you could probably have found F3s running in consist with E-units/P-units on those railroads which regeared their passenger power for freight power in order to squeeze a few more miles out of them. Erie/Erie-Lackawanna did this as, I understand, did Pennsy. Perhaps someone can enlighten the readership as to any other roads who did likewise.
Some interesting remarks here, a lot more than I had expected. I assume the movie is an older one, I found in in the cheap DVDs in wally world (I think) and thought it might be worth getting. I noticed several things in the movie that cought my eye, I would have never noticed if I were not a model RR builder.
Thanks for the input. Mike
As I understand it because of that final crash scene the American railroads refused to have anything to do with the production of this film; as a consequence we sent about 12 million smackeroos to Canada who - understanding that it was only a movie with a fantastic plot - were very cooperative in its production. Is it really any wonder that our bucks are becoming virtually worthless?
Silver Streak is indeed an older movie. It was released in 1976.
Could be, but the only movie I know of with a full scale train wreck was “The Fugitive”. Last I heard the loco was still resting on its side somewhere in western NC.
Frisco, which I model, ran their passenger A-A’s back to back. Freight trains were variable: ABBA if in that consist, but would run other less attractive (yes, I think there’s something beautiful about that ABBA symmetry!) one’s depending on what was available.
Jim
FT F3 F7 & F9’s were run with about every thing by one railroad or another. Not so with the Eddystone products. Baldwin used a pneumatic mu system where the other builders used electrical mu. That is the reason Baldwins can only be mu’ed with Baldwins.
I haven’t seen the movie for a while but I believe the name of the railroad was AmRoad. Obviously, a thinly disguised version of Amtrak which had begun operations just a few years before release of the movie. Can’t understand why Amtrak wouldn’t want their name to be associated with a runaway train.
If that train wreck was staged in 1:1 scale, did they demolish an existing abandoned station or did they construct a set for the train to crash into?
From what I’ve read everywhere online and other places, the station scene involved in the crash was a replica of the station in Toronto. The locomotive that crashes into it was a full-sized mockup on a truck trailer that was run in reverse into the set. If you have the DVD, look closely at the split screen of the train crashing into the mirror on the left side (people scattering in a panic on the right). If you look closely, you can see that the trucks and fuel tank of the locomotive are cleanly “torn” off and that the locomotive isn’t tearing up the floor as it slides into the mirror. Other than that, I thought the crash scene was very well done.
Kevin
The first F units were the FT’s of 1939-40 which were designed to be in A-B sets with a drawbar between them, so you could run them A-B or A-B+B-A…the only problem being 2 was often not enough power and four being too much. At the RR’s request EMD came out with the FTSB (FT Short Booster) B unit which could be used between two A units to form an A-B-A set.
Many railroads just waited until after WW2 and ordered F2 or F3 A units and put them together with the FT A-B sets as A-B-A sets. Later F units had B units that could have couplers at both ends, and so you could mix and match them however you wanted. A few railroads (like the SOO) had their F A-units set up so they didn’t have m.u. connections in the nose, so they would have to run on the “outside” of any lashup - like you could have an F7 and F3 with a GP9 in between.
The crash was filmed in a Lockheed hangar in Burbank, California using a full-sized mock-up of the FP-7A locomotive.
Click here for more Silver Streak trivia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075223/trivia
More interesting info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Streak_(film)
Rotor