TV ALERT 6/05 History Channel

[Soo 6604]

Thursday June 5th, 10pm Eastern/9pm Central On the History channel. Tougher in Alaska-Railroading.

"Railroading"
Geo Beach hops aboard the Alaska Railroad for a trip through some of the most perilous and unforgiving terrain on the planet, a region where avalanches, earthquakes and giant mountains test railroaders and their equipment.

Paul

[Ted Marshall]

Good tip... I'll set my DVR in case I forget to tune in. I'll bet it'll be a good one.

[Soo 6604]

Saw a preview of it, looks very interesting

[tomikawaTT]

Let's hear it for the Hysterical Channel...

First cookie out of the box, they dropped that long-discredited horse biscuit that standard gauge is based on the width of the south ends of northbound Roman horses...

ROFLMAO.

Chuck

[SchemerBob]

I was laughing myself silly when the guy busted the head off the hammer when he was trying to nail down spikes.... L O L

This was not made for railfans, for sure. It was made for all the people out there who like reality shows and jerky camera work. You could barely take in the old photos they showed in the program for all their zooming in and out. And I don't think they showed more than two shots of passing trains traveling at their actual speed. When they were replacing the ties on the mainline, the guy, whatever his name was (was it GEVO? ) talked like the train was going to run over all of them if they didn't get it done in time. Then when there were moose on the tracks, he talked as if they would just stand there and the train would send their guts flying in all directions. And, they never showed the engineer in the cab. They only showed the guy on the left side of the cab, and called HIM the engineer - never saw the controls or the real engineer!!

But for what the show is, "Tougher in Alaska", I suppose it was okay. It wasn't horrible or anything, but I get discouraged at the way 'documentaries' are made now. It made me laugh, at least.

[CSXDixieLine]

Wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the parts where he was part of the tie replacement gang and also the coal unloading at U. of Fairbanks. The combo one-way rail/road tunnel at the end was very interesting, but then again I did not know much about this rr to begin with.

[fredswain]

I'm glad that others saw issues with what I saw. The gauge based on roman chariots was funny. I thought the Moose were funny. Zoom in on them with the camera so they look closer and add some dramatic music and suddenly they're in danger. Then tell everyone that your 25 mph train is really doing 50 mph and closing in fast. He said that moose have terrible eye sight so they can't see the danger coming at them. The fact that their eyes are in front of them rather than behind probably also contributes to this! I'm sure they can hear and that engine has a really loud horn on it.

I was actually waiting for him to break the hammer. Mike Rowe did the exact same thing on Dirty Jobs.

[videomaker]

  The story about the roman chariots is news to me ,I had always been told that  standard track width (4' 81/2") was based on wagon wheel widths,at least in the US anyway...That stands to reason seeing how the B&O's Dewitt Clinton pulled stagecoaches on the first train..

[fredswain]

That's another myth. Here's a good history of track gauge on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge

 

[trainfan1221]

I made a discovery last night that if you really tried you could spend..well probably the rest of your life on Wikipedia.

[SchemerBob]

I made a discovery last night that if you really tried you could spend..well probably the rest of your life on Wikipedia.

LOL

[cnwfan51]

    Am I the only who noticed that the reporter was calling the  conductor the engineer.  Even mywife saw this mistake   Civilians what are you going to do   Larry

[Ted Marshall]

    Am I the only who noticed that the reporter was calling the  conductor the engineer.  Even mywife saw this mistake   Civilians what are you going to do   Larry

I recall the narrator referring to the crewman in the left seat as the "engineer" but am in no position to make a correction to his report. For all I know the crew hay have changed positions.

[miniwyo]

I made a discovery last night that if you really tried you could spend..well probably the rest of your life on Wikipedia.

LOL

 

All I gotta say is this...

 

[CShaveRR]

    Am I the only who noticed that the reporter was calling the conductor the engineer.  Even my wife saw this mistake   Civilians what are you going to do   Larry

I recall the narrator referring to the crewman in the left seat as the "engineer" but am in no position to make a correction to his report. For all I know the crew may have changed positions.

If he was the engineer, the conductor was at the controls!  And there's no way that this guy couldn't have known who the real engineer was--either he or the cameraman was probably annoying him mightily.  Do you suppose he did this because that is the side of the "car" that the "driver" is supposed to be on? 

I'm sure that running things in "real-mo" would have been too much of a drag for the reality-show crowd.

The History Channel's coverage of things railroad has something in common with comedy, but it's cliche and slapstick--not the kind of stuff that makes people laugh.