The original ostensible reason for this thread was the speech given by Mr. T at the RNC where, for the 2nd time I've heard now, he has mentioned railroads. I couched the language so as to avoid any political discussions and keep it to a "what do you think it meant to you". The side track of the '64 Worlds Fair fits in beautifully though as does everything else that came up.
The fact remains at least one of your candidates is at least talking about railroads here and there in a positive way.
As a kid, we lived in the NY suburbs, and I went to the 64-65 Worlds Fair a number of times. I also remember that LIRR had a small exhibit that included the cab of a covered wagon type diesel.
Electroliner 1935 Firelock76 The action may not have been happening as fast as you think. It looks like that footage was shot with a 16mm silent home movie camera which operates at 18 frames per second. When you look at the motion of the people, some parts appear to be speeded up toward the end (2:50-end) but other parts seem to be slowed down.
Firelock76 The action may not have been happening as fast as you think. It looks like that footage was shot with a 16mm silent home movie camera which operates at 18 frames per second.
When you look at the motion of the people, some parts appear to be speeded up toward the end (2:50-end) but other parts seem to be slowed down.
There's always the possibility the mainspring of the camera was running down at certain points (I just remembered!) which would affect the filming speed. Also, from reading the YouTube notes I see these films have been digitally transferred, so there's the "wild card" thrown in of who did the transferring and how well they did it.
No matter. No matter at all. We should look at these films and literally thank God for them! Look at that color and quality! Seventy-seven years old and it looks like it was shot yesterday! All those years disappear in the wink of an eye.
And thank you Mr. Martens!
Firelock76The action may not have been happening as fast as you think. It looks like that footage was shot with a 16mm silent home movie camera which operates at 18 frames per second.
You are correct. When I ran the projectors in the 50's for a night school class at the University of Cincinati on the classic silent films, I had to set them to "silent" (18 fps) speed. This made the motion look normal unlike when silent films are speeded up to "sound" (24 fps) speed. TV used a frame doubling to match the video 30 fps. We were fortunate to have an organist that had accompanied silent films in the 20's to accompany the movie. And I got paid for it. How lucky was I.
Excerpt from Nothing Like It In The World by Stephen E. Ambrose (2000)
August 13, 1859, was a hot day in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The settlement was on the western boundary of the state, just across the Missouri River from the Nebraska village of Omaha. A politician from the neighboring state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, went to Concert Hall to make a speech. It attracted a big crowd because of Lincoln's prominence after the previous year's Lincoln-Douglas debates and the keen interest in the following year's presidential election. Lincoln was a full-time politician and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. The local editor called Lincoln's speech — never recorded — one that "set forth the true principles of the Republican party."
In the audience was Grenville Mellen Dodge, a twenty-eight-year-old railroad engineer. The next day he joined a group of citizens who had gathered on the big porch of the Pacific House, a hotel, to hear Lincoln answer questions. When Lincoln had finished and the crowd dispersed, W.H.M. Pusey, with whom the speaker was staying, recognized young Dodge. He pointed out Dodge to Lincoln and said that the young engineer knew more about railroads than any "two men in the country."
That snapped Lincoln's head around. He studied Dodge intently for a moment and then said, "Let's go meet." He and Pusey strolled across the porch to a bench where Dodge was sitting. Pusey introduced them. Lincoln sat down beside Dodge, crossed his long legs, swung his foot for a moment, put his big hand on Dodge's forearm, and went straight to the point: "Dodge, what's the best route for a Pacific railroad to the West?"
Dodge instantly replied, "From this town out the Platte Valley."
Lincoln thought that over for a moment or two, then asked, "Why do you think so?"
Dodge replied that the route of the forty-second parallel was the "most practical and economic" for building the railroad, which made Council Bluffs the "logical point of beginning."
Why? Lincoln wanted to know.
"Because of the railroads building from Chicago to this point," Dodge answered, and because of the uniform grade along the Platte Valley all the way to the Rocky Mountains.
Lincoln went on with his questions, until he had gathered from Dodge all the information Dodge had reaped privately doing surveys for the Rock Island Railroad Company on the best route to the West. Or, as Dodge later put it, "He shelled my woods completely and got all the information I'd collected."
The transcontinental railroad had been talked about, promoted, encouraged, desired for three decades. This was true even though the railroads in their first decades of existence were rickety, ran on poorly laid tracks that gave a bone-crushing bump-bump-bump to the cars as they chugged along, and could only be stopped by a series of brakemen, one on top of each car. They had to turn a wheel connected to a device that put pressure on the wheels to slow and finally to stop. The cars were too hot in the summer, much too cold in the winter (unless one was at the end nearest the stove, which meant one was too hot). The seats were wooden benches set at ninety-degree angles that pained the back, the buttocks, and the knees. There was no food until the train stopped at a station, when one had fifteen or fewer minutes to buy something from a vendor. The boiler in the engine was fired by wood, which led to sparks, which sometimes — often — flew back into a car and set the whole thing on fire. Bridges could catch fire and burn. Accidents were common; sometimes they killed or wounded virtually all passengers. The locomotives put forth so much smoke that the downwind side of the tracks on the cars was less desirable and it generally was on the poorer side of town, thus the phrase "the wrong side of the tracks."
https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/ambrose-nothing.html
schlimmThe phrase has nothing to do with smoke or laundry; rather it relates to class status.
And that class status can come from the fact that those of a lower class were forced to live in the "low rent district" - the area where property values were lower. That likely came from several of causes. Industry was often co-located and dirty on that side of town, and the wind did blow the coal smoke/soot in that direction, among others.
http://www.meghan-mccarthy.com/ wrong side of the tracks -Before there were cars, trains were an important means of transportation. Of course, pollution wasn't a big concern so when a train rolled by, heavy black smoke and soot went with it. Usually the wind blew the black smoke to one side of the tracks and only the poorest of people would endure living in that hard to breathe environment. No one wanted to be on "the wrong side of the tracks."
http://www.englishdaily626.com/In many American cities, the neighborhoods where poor people live are typically on one side of a city's railroad tracks, close to factories and sources of pollution .
http://www.phrases.org.uk/ In many American towns, the railroad tracks run through the center of town, and the homes downwind (prevailing winds) of the tracks usually received a disproportionate share of the smoke and soot from the train engines, especially in the early RR days when the engines were dirtier. So the real estate on the upwind side became more valuable than on the downwind side, and eventually the demographics followed...the more affluent built nicer houses, lived together, etc. etc. on the right (upwind) side of the tracks. This pattern was repeated in thousands of cities and towns. In most places, eventually there was a right side and a wrong side of the tracks.
There's no question that "the wrong side of the tracks" was the "bad side of town." The question is why it was the wrong side of the tracks.
Not all towns with rails running through them suffered that distinction of areas, although there was still often a section of town where the lower class gathered.
In Watertown, NY, the "sand flats" were home to many Italian immigrants - and that area, while adjacent to the rail yards of the day, is actually upwind from the prevailing winds.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Murphy SidingTrue, but didn't the powers that be site the middle- and upper- class residential and commercial areas on the upwind side of the tracks on purpose?
I do not think there is a consistent pattern. Looking at the western Chicago suburbs along the old CB&Q and C&NW lines, as they were in the 1800s, the prevailing winds are SW-W-NW. The better older housing is north of the tracks in some, south in some.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm tree68 Deggesty Housewives, with freshly hung out laundry, paid attention to such things as coal smoke. Hence "the wrong side of the tracks..." The phrase has nothing to do with smoke or laundry; rather it relates to class status. According to CITE: Wrong side of the tracks "The less desirable part of town. In many 19th- and early-20th-century America, railroad tracks divided a city or town.On one side was the middle- and upper-class residential and commercial area. On the other were factories and residential shacks and tenements. Since residents of the former made class distinctions and applied appropriate language, anyone from the other part of town came from the wrong side of the tracks."
tree68 Deggesty Housewives, with freshly hung out laundry, paid attention to such things as coal smoke. Hence "the wrong side of the tracks..."
Deggesty Housewives, with freshly hung out laundry, paid attention to such things as coal smoke.
Housewives, with freshly hung out laundry, paid attention to such things as coal smoke.
Hence "the wrong side of the tracks..."
The phrase has nothing to do with smoke or laundry; rather it relates to class status.
According to CITE: Wrong side of the tracks
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I remember the ATT exibit at the 64 fair that had a demonstration on voice recognition . I got called out of the audience to say some letters to the automated typewriter that would in turn type the letters. I used to be proud of that but now everytime I call ATT and try to get through their voice menus I curse the day that techonology was ever invented.
Soupy Sales, Marv Throneberry, Donna Summer, Douglas Macarthur, Weird Al. Best! Thread! Ever!
OK, but no "Love To Love You Baby," remember this site's supposed to be family friendly!
wanswheel
Why not put in more of the cantata? And have even more fun with it?
Nice job Wanswheel, that's what I'm talkin' about, glorious 16mm Kodachrome!
Not sure what kind of 16mm camera that is, but it looks very similar to the 1928 Cine-Kodak Model B that I've got and shot most of my movies with. What the picture can't show you is how heavy the thing is, at least a good five pounds. Hey, that weight helped you to hold it nice and steady!
Nice titles Mr. Martens made to go with his films, the man knew his stuff.
wanswheelGosh if only time travel was real. Heck with the World's Fair, I'd go to a Met game at Shea again.
What, to watch Throneberry and colliding outfielders? It was hard enough being a Giants fan in those years!
I'd go see the Beatles again, except it would be just as irritating to hear the girls scream through half the numbers again as it was the first time.
There were other things going on in '64 that would make the trip worthwhile.
I confess I repeatedly found myself thinking of BART in the section after Bob Moses pointed out how stainless steel was the perfect symbol and cy-no-shoa of the Fair, and the description of the enduring beauty of the stainless Unisphere started to roll. What we got was, it seems, quite radically different from the assumption and the clever publicity... How did we get from a shining world to burnt porkchops so quickly?
Many more home movies by Mr. Martens
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL63D7CF4C8827457A
Electroliner 1935 wanswheel What impressed me in seeing that footage is the people (actors) getting on and off the moving equipment and the speed at which the last train went across the stage with the people walking around the (albeit choreographed) stage. Looks like a safety issue. That said, I wish I had been there to see it.
wanswheel What impressed me in seeing that footage is the people (actors) getting on and off the moving equipment and the speed at which the last train went across the stage with the people walking around the (albeit choreographed) stage. Looks like a safety issue. That said, I wish I had been there to see it.
The action may not have been happening as fast as you think. It looks like that footage was shot with a 16mm silent home movie camera which operates at 18 frames per second. The problem is, if it's played on a 16mm sound projector which operates at 24 frames per second it speeds up the action and produces the "herky-jerky" effect we see on old silent films. It's only recently, say within the last 20 years or so, that vintage films have started to be shown at the proper projection rate, say on Turner Classic Movies or the various history channels.
I can speak from personal experience. When I was in the Marines I shot some 16mm movies of the outfit I was in, and when I showed them to the troops on the in-house projector we had for training films I got that "herky-jerkey" effect. The guys got a laugh out of it (imagine 1970's Marines moving like World War One Doughboys!) and then I noticed a switch on the projector labeled "silent." Threw it and low and behold, everything was back to normal.
In addition, a good-quality 16mm silent home movie projector should have a speed adjustment on it, I know, I've got one. I used to enjoy shooting 16mm movies until the cost got too prohibitive in the 90's. $50 for a 100 foot roll, that's six minutes! Developing cost almost as much. No wonder video killed conventional home movies, but it took a while for picture quality to catch up. 16mm Kodachrome made the early home videos look sick!
I remember Soupy's "Philo Kvetch" character, also his arch-nemesis "The Mask" and "The Mask's" henchman "Onions Oregano." Don't remember Philo driving past the World's Fair, (can't remember everything at this point) but it was some funny stuff just the same. Considering TV technology at the time I'd suppose there was an WNEW cameraman in the car with a hand-held 16mm movie camera taking the shots. Good times!
I sure remember that commerical and the trains. Weren't they light green and white? Only 15 cents!And speaking of Soupy Sales, Firelock, I do recall him playing a detective called Philo Kvetch and driving near the fair. That's about all I can recall of it but he was filmed driving a car on one of the parkways and you could see the fair from his car. I guess a camera was in the back seat.
Terrific stuff Wanswheel.
Firelock76 Thanks for that little bit of time travel Wanswheel!
Thanks for that little bit of time travel Wanswheel!
Gosh if only time travel was real. Heck with the World's Fair, I'd go to a Met game at Shea again.
Excerpt from The Age of Steam by Lucius Beebe & Charles Clegg (1994)
Of the three major railroads which set out across the Great Plains in the post-Civil War ‘sixties—the Kansas Pacific, Santa Fe, and Union Pacific—the Union Pacific was immeasurably the best publicized. The Kansas Pacific, building out of Kansas City with the Cherry Creek diggings of Denver as its proposed objective, was shortly merged with the competition as part of the UP, but not before it had contributed notably both to American folklore and to the language. It was at Abilene that Wyatt Earp* reportedly banished the town’s bagnios and fandango houses to a district south of the Kansas Pacific right of way and evolved the phrase “the wrong side of the tracks.”
*not Earp, possibly Wild Bill Hickok
https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-abilene-first-of-the-kansas-cow-towns/12833
In the classic film, "The Best Years of Our Lives," early on in the film, Dana Andrews character, Fred Derry is shown going to his parents home. You hear a train whistle. This, I suppose tells you just who he is.
Thanks David, I was hoping you'd spot the thread and weight in on it.
All that wonderful stuff, it must have been magical for a 71/2 year old like yourself!
And I'm not surprised you remember "Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis," I think all of us do, thanks to Judy Garland's bang-up rendition of it.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.