Just like Numbers we need a realistic TV show about railroads.

[Anonymous]

If Numbers can get kids intrested in becoming mathmatics genuises,Then can we get a realistic drama about working for the railroad in 21st century America.
By the way I love Becker. He does a good job of potraying a inner city doctor.
We have had shows like TAXI so "Subway" or "Metro North" could be a hit. The Union Pacific needs people so geting a drama about railroads could be recruiting tool. Of course CSI Union Pacific Police would be a dud. But the ongoing fight between the workers and the sut and ties who think they they know how to runa railroad could be the basis for some great comedy with out the laugh tracks[:)]

[dharmon]

They already did. It was called "Wall Street" and covered the down side of mergers and acquistion.

[coborn35]

Tracks Ahead wasnt really a CSI type show but it did cover major railroads and also had model railroads too. I do agree that a show about trains would be interesting. Try PBS, they might be intersted.

[Anonymous]

The key word here is "realistic" I doubt the networks would get it even close, then it would upset all of US. If they did, though, it would make for good thread topics.

m

[coborn35]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mehrlich

The key word here is "realistic" I doubt the networks would get it even close, then it would upset all of US. If they did, though, it would make for good thread topics.

m

Alot of the U.S. would not even care, just us railfans.

[dharmon]

Okay.....Opening scene set against a setting sun.......electric guitar music playing in the background as a pair of AC4400s slowly approach a switch.

The switchman throws the switch as the signal turns green.......he gives a kick and salutes the engineer as a huge blast of black smoke erupts from the stacks and he turns to shield his eyes from the dust as the train goes roaring by....

...The Kenny Loggins kicks in as the music comes up and starts singing ".....Highway to the railroad zone....." as scenes of yard switching are flashed as the credits roll.....

....then we break to the cab, as Maverick and Goose, pulled in from the extra board are running notch 8 with a hot load of orange juice for the inauguration.......

something like this?

[cherokee woman]

Dan, think they would let you write the scripts for the show?

Also, Dan, HOW hot was the orange juice? Wouldn't it be just about
room temp, or cold?

[dharmon]

As the wife would say, "cold, but not as cold as your heart" (meaning me)

[coborn35]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

Okay.....Opening scene set against a setting sun.......electric guitar music playing in the background as a pair of AC4400s slowly approach a switch.

The switchman throws the switch as the signal turns green.......he gives a kick and salutes the engineer as a huge blast of black smoke erupts from the stacks and he turns to shield his eyes from the dust as the train goes roaring by....

...The Kenny Loggins kicks in as the music comes up and starts singing ".....Highway to the railroad zone....." as scenes of yard switching are flashed as the credits roll.....
[yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah]
....then we break to the cab, as Maverick and Goose, pulled in from the extra board are running notch 8 with a hot load of orange juice for the inauguration.......

something like this?

[yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah][yeah]

[Anonymous]

Im actually trying to put together a movie on real trains & railways with a twist.
Although the trains talk, the story is based mostly on real event's in history. Some of
the charactors include N&W's streamlined 4-8-4 661 named sally, PRR's GG-1 (I
haven't chose a number yet) called gloria, & UP's 4-8-8-4 (I'll have to ask the UP about
using their name) named robert.

[tree68]

Let's face it, real railroading is 8-12 hours of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror and occasional bouts of tedium (how else would you describe walking a 100 car train looking for what set off the HBD?)

Hollywood would want at least one crossing collision per episode, along with some other act of daring-do. Couldn't set the show in a bar (Rule G), and the bunk room of the Y wouldn't be all that entertaining (well, I suppose it could be....). Maybe from the perspective of Nora in her taxi.....

Would be nice to be pleasantly surprised, though. Hey CSX! Ready for your close-up?

[ericsp]

If Trains Unlimited on the History Channel could not make it, then a show on the networks has no hope. I think some railfans think there are a whole lot more serious railfans then there really are.

[tatans]

Sorry guys, it's already been done, it was called "Petticoat Junction" with Smiley Burnette as a hogger.

[Anonymous]

What about an episode using a rotary snowplow to clear a mountain pass after a blizzard? Seeing one of those in operation really catches the interest of even non-railroad types.

[spbed]

Some time ago The History Channel had a series on the RRs. You can contact them & I think the entire series could be bought for $60.00 or $70.00. [:D]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dunkirkeriestation

If Numbers can get kids intrested in becoming mathmatics genuises,Then can we get a realistic drama about working for the railroad in 21st century America.
By the way I love Becker. He does a good job of potraying a inner city doctor.
We have had shows like TAXI so "Subway" or "Metro North" could be a hit. The Union Pacific needs people so geting a drama about railroads could be recruiting tool. Of course CSI Union Pacific Police would be a dud. But the ongoing fight between the workers and the sut and ties who think they they know how to runa railroad could be the basis for some great comedy with out the laugh tracks[:)]

[ValleyX]

Ratings would be abysmal. It'd be cancelled after the first four weeks or so. You'd run out of plots, I mean, how many terrorists taking over the train plots could you do, after you've done the highly toxic tankcar episode, and (gulp) the deranged engineer episode, or maybe (and I like this better) the deranged dispatcher episode.

[mhurley87f]

While I doubt that many viewers would wi***o have a show dedicated to Railway enthusiasts in prime time, what's wrong with broadcasting a daily programme in the wee hours of the night? How many people have yet to have Video-recorders? In any case it would give the programme makers a few hours to pull together / edit the raw material, say shots from the various web cams around your Continent, add in items on the commodities moved, origins and destinations, history, geography and geology, safety issues, personalities, etc., etc., and you've got the makings of a show that might sell to a lot of people.

Not feasible, well what about American Footballand Baseball in the UK? They're still minority sports by our standards, but off-peak TV programmes make them available to afficionados.

Minority interest subjects can be viable if given the right treatment!

Go to it, and quickly !!

Regards,

[ValleyX]

And you can watch soccer here, too, any soccer viewers on this board? My son, after spending several months in Spain, came home with a new appreciation for soccer.

[Anonymous]

I have an alternative, but you have to have a dish...There is a show called "Trains and Locomotives" on the RFD channel. It comes on Monday at 5 pm central, and is reshown several times during the week. Since it's the "real deal" and not a scripted tv show, it's a lot more interesting. Every week is a different place. This week it was about steam engines still in use in Russia. It's pretty much eye candy, but a lot of fun. It's one of the only programs on tv that I look forward to watching.


m

[tree68]

What you'd probably end up with would be a prime-time soap involving people who happen to work for a railroad. Think ER- a prime-time soap that happens to occur in a hospital... While most of the action would happen in yards and locomotive cabs (alas, no cabeese, which would be a prime location), and railroad terms would abound, the rest would just be the same-old same-old.

Of course, folks like us would revel in picking out the inconsistancies. On the ground-breaking show "Emergency" they often used "stock" shots that were inconsistant with the rest of the story line. Things like the wrong pumper parked in the station, or using the wrong sirens on the wrong vehicles. Opportunities abound for such mistakes on a RR show - a stock shot of the "Super Chief" for a commuter rail, or mistmatched interior/exterior for the locomotive used for the set, improper control action, you name it...

When ER first aired, some EMS people watched it religiously. But you can only watch so many heart attacks and broken arms.

[mnwestern]

As most have already said, a weekly "realistic" drama about railroads probably would derail in a matter of weeks due to a severe lack of viewership. But something I would like to see is documentary producer Ken Burns do a series on railroads and their impact on the development of this country, sort of along the lines of some of his other great PBS series such as on the Civil War and Baseball. Maybe 10-12 hours of great footage, commentary by historians in several fields of history (industrial, military, pioneer, finance, business, etc.). There could be segments on the earliest railroads, their coming of age in the Civil War and the years after, the development of transcons, the rail barons, railroad's role in the opening of the Wild West (pushing the Indians and buffalo aside), how they led in the promotion of lands to new settlers in order to develop their potential customer bases, the crack passenger trains, the decline and consolidation and abandonments, and the revitalization of recent decades and how important they are to our modern economy (something lost to most citizens), Amtrak, and today's tourist roads.
This, I think, has greater potential than a network drama to portray to many in this country how railroads shaped, and continue to some extent to shape, our country.
Mr. Burns, I hope you see this. Loved the other series, and can't want for this one.

[dharmon]

Okay....so Top Gon isn't the right idea....how about this one.....

An engineer and conductor on a small southern based railway...and they're cousins. They have one locomotive that they always use with a big confederate flag painted on the roof and the cab doors are welded shut so they're always jumping in through the windows. And the Nathan M5 sounds "Dixie" when it's sounded. And there will be a female dispatcher, who is also their cousin that wears only halter tops, cut offs and high heels to work. Their nemesis will be a greedy fat railroad owner of another railroad and his inept henchmen trying to shut them down......

[M636C]

Dan,

You have spent far too long watching TV and Movies!

Just a moment - I must have too or I wouldn't know that!

Why not a remake of "Petticoat Junction". How would that transfer to this century? Can Sierra No3 still steam? Would anyone recognise that it was a locomotive?

Peter

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M636C

Dan,

You have spent far too long watching TV and Movies!

Just a moment - I must have too or I wouldn't know that!

Why not a remake of "Petticoat Junction". How would that transfer to this century? Can Sierra No3 still steam? Would anyone recognise that it was a locomotive?

Peter
Peter

Yes, it appears that number 3 is still operating.
http://www.csrmf.org/railtown/doc.asp?id=165

Regarding Dan Harmon's idea, maybe some elements of "The Six Million Dollar Man" should be added, espicially since they would have to make some considerable jumps.

[trainmanj]

RFD-TV is also on cable, at least mine. Along with the 5:00 pm CST Monday show, they have a half hour show Thursday nights at I think 6:00.

[Anonymous]

As others have said, this probably will never happen and if it did, it would probably be failure. However, it could be possible.

One thing for sure is that it would have to be a show that first and foremost would appeal to ordinary viewers and secondly, to railfans. What people have been suggesting so far have all been shows that involve people such as engineers, brakeman, etc. and the freight side of railroading. A show that focusses on a passenger train and the people who work on board would probably be much more successful. Now this has been tried and failed with Supertrain back in the 70's, but that involved a ridiculous cruise ship-sized atomic-powered train. Something a bit more reality-based could do better. This show could be a drama or a sitcom. Simmilar to others' observations, a drama would probably end up a primetime soap opera set on a train. I personally think that a sitcom would do much better. There's really no limit to the crazy situations that you could come up with involving the employees as well as the various eccentric people who might ride the train. I don't think the fact that it is set on a train woud hinder or help it. Like any sitcom, it would be the characters and stories that would make the show work.

Now, here's one idea that I seriously think could make a good show, if done right. Have a sitcom that involves the corporate side of railroading about the people running the railroad. Actual trains probably wouldn't be in it too much.

Back in 2000, when Sidney, Austrailia hosted the Summer Olympic Games, there was sitcom called The Games. It involved the people in charge of the planning and organizing of the Olympics (accomodations, ticket sales, drug testing, corporate sponsors, etc.). The characters faced dozens of hilarious problems and had to figure out how to deal with them (with mixed results). It was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen.

My idea is to have a show simmilar to this that involves people working at Penn Central. I thought of this after reading about PC in Trains' 70's issue. As we know, PC was a financial disaster and the company made a lot of dumb decisions and had many problems. The characters will have to deal with the many agonizing problems facing the company. Of course, these problems would be highly fictionalized in order to be made funny to the viewer. On many sitcoms the characters make decisions that end up failing. This show would have a historical background on which this would take place.

The opening could go like this: [Show footage of NYC and PRR trains.] On February 1, 1968, two of the largest and most powerful railroads in the country, the New York Central and the Pennsylvania, decided to coem together to form one huge, collosal railroad, the largest transportation company in the North American continent, Penn Central. [Show a PC train. Then cut to footage of PC derailments.] But things did not fare well. Penn Central would go down in history as one of the biggest financial disasters of the twentieth century. And here's why... [Start playing theme music and showing cast members and credits.]

[West Coast S]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

Okay....so Top Gon isn't the right idea....how about this one.....

An engineer and conductor on a small southern based railway...and they're cousins. They have one locomotive that they always use with a big confederate flag painted on the roof and the cab doors are welded shut so they're always jumping in through the windows. And the Nathan M5 sounds "Dixie" when it's sounded. And there will be a female dispatcher, who is also their cousin that wears only halter tops, cut offs and high heels to work. Their nemesis will be a greedy fat railroad owner of another railroad and his inept henchmen trying to shut them down......

[:D][:D][:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

Trainnmanj,
That show is Trackside, right? It's also a great program. Watch the host's eyebrows when he talks. Hilarious.


m

[M636C]

Eric,

Thanks for the link on Sierra No 3.

I hadn't thought about how high (and how accurately) the crew would have to jump either!

Sask's suggestion about the "Games" team doing the Penn Central is brilliant! That was an amazing program, which ran to two seasons, but we were never sure that the plots were imaginary - too much was based on the barely believable reality of the time. John Clarke, who wrote the "Games" as well as playing a main character, a New Zealander resident in Australia is still writing comedy and does a short (but brilliant) political comedy spot on Thursday nights (and I'll miss it tonight!)

I'm sure I could interest him in a program on the Sydney Suburban rail system right now, owing to the poor state of the system and the extensive political involvement (the system is operated by the state government and we are on our third responsible cabinet minister in twelve months.

But Penn Central deserves that treatment!

I didn't know "The Games" ran in Canada. Like the British "Yes Minister", a lot would be transferable. I've actually had "Yes Minister" used as a Public Service training aid!

Peter

[dharmon]

Now Peter Peter has me thinking again..........sometimes I get overcome by national myopia....

Okay ...a game show....."You're railroad is the weakest link, prepare to be absorbed by UP....Goodbye!"