ALL:
I recently viewed Laurel and Hardy's "Berth Mark's". This movie was one of the first Laurel and Hardy's talkies. First of all, a freshly polished ATSF steam engine and train arrive at the ATSF depot. The boys try to get into an upper berth with a small base violin! After wrecking the section and the bed, they try and get a good nights sleep, only to be awakened that their stop of "Pottsville (PA) is next. The next scene shows people tearing clothing of the other passenger and Pullman Conductor. Stan and Ollie are left standing at the Pottsville depot in their long johns and carrying their clothing. A steam train is shown leaving the depot with a Harriman baggage on the rear of the train. I can see cantinary, so I assume that this was shot on the P.E. Great train picures for 1929. By the way, Pottsville, PA in on the LV, PRR, and RDG.
Ed Burns
With all due respects, a bass and a violin are different instruments. I'm aware of this because my granddaughter formerly played the cello.
How about Central California Traction?
Hollywood in the classic era usually did most of their filming in the greater LA area, so most train sequences (contemporary for the time) were either filmed on the Southern Pacific or the Santa Fe. TV productions nowadays do pretty much the same, with some exceptions.
For films with antique steam they had to go further afield, the Sierra Railroad for example.
The one major exception I can think of in the early talkie era is "Danger Lights," filmed on the Milwaukee Road.
The boys did board a train at the ATSF station, but I don't remember what it's name was nor do I remember the station they detrained at. I will try and research this more. The departing train (they got off) had a Harriman style baggage car as the rear car.
I just watch "Berth Marks" on U-Tube. The outbound train was ATSF,but I can't make out its name. The train they got off was SP, but there were overhead wires, so I suspect it was on the PE.
SP passenger trains operated under wires into the SP Oakland Mole before the Bay Bridge was constructed and Interurban Electric, the SP electric suburban operation, rerouted over the Bridge . I do not know of any SP passenger operation on PE tracks in the LA area, but perhaps there were, and someone can inform me. Freight operations with steam, yes.
Dave:
I suspect this was a special train to conclude the film, but I don't understand why the producers did not have L&H get off an ATSF train as that was the railroad they boarded.
That's why the big studios like MGM, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox had continuity people assigned to the film making, just to make sure everything matched. Smaller studios like Hal Roach, who Stan and Ollie worked for, usually did things on a much lower budget and "on the fly," so I'm not surprised the boys got on a Santa Fe train and off an Espee one.
Or who knows? Maybe they did it on purpose, just to see if anyone noticed? We'll never know at this late date.
I recently saw Sullivan's Travels (highly recommended), a 1941 Paramount release by Preston Sturges, starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. The film opens with a view of the left side of an unidentified loco, flopped to appear to be the right side. McCrea and Lake leave Los Angeles as hobos in a stock car behind SP 2-8-0 2853. Before they leave, an SP 0-6-0 switcher is seen. Views of their train enroute include a distant view of "their" train, led by a loco with a high headlight. Then we see "their" train being hauled by a pair of Santa Fe 3800 class 2-10-2's as it pulls into Las Vegas, Nevada, which is on the LA&SL, rather than SP or Santa Fe. As they leave the train at Las Vegas and it pulls away, we see that it is composed mostly of SP boxcars and stock cars, with an SP caboose bringing up the rear. Later, McCrae gets a ride in T&NO double sheath boxcar 35504 as it is being switched by SP 2-8-0 2856. Then there is a dramatic head-on nighttime shot of an unidentified express train with an air horn. I'm guessing the engine was a GS 4-8-4.
So it looks like most of the action shots were taken on the SP, with a few file shots of Santa Fe and some other road thrown in for seasoning. This sort of thing happens all the time in film. I recall a train that was supposed to be running in the Chicago area. Power was an SP Cab Forward. Wish I could remember the name of that film.
Tom
CSSHEGEWISCH With all due respects, a bass and a violin are different instruments. I'm aware of this because my granddaughter formerly played the cello.
I have at last determined the difference between a violin and a fiddle. If you are playing "Turkey in the Straw," you are using a fiddle. If you are playing "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair," you are using a violin.
Johnny
However, classical violinist Itzhak Perlman often calls his instrument a "fiddle".
BTW not so sure the 'big studios' continuity people are all that great re trains. I seem to recall Bing Crosby et al in "White Christmas" going from I think Florida to New York City on the ATSF Super Chief.
In fact, there are palm trees in the background as the actors supposedly detrain in New England. Yikes. Our mind is good at blending things to make them believable in a story.
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