Steam & Excursion > Carbondale, 1938

I'd only gone to see a man about a microphone cable...

Across the street from the old Illinois Central station in Carbondale is Sound Core, a store for those looking for musical instruments and recording gear. Last Monday we had recorded the script for the show I am doing for the small museum housed in the old depot, and the mike cables I had around the studio were the long ones I use out in the field. I figured Joe would have something a little more suitable for the studio. As I was picking up a six-footer, we got to talking about the project I am working on for the museum.

"I have some film from 1938 right here. You ought to use it."

And boy, did he!

This footage is definitely pre-1940. The granddaughter of the division superintendent seen in the footage runs Mary Lou's Cafe next door to Sound Core, and she said he passed away around 1940. She came across the street to the depot to see this film, and was thrilled to see her grandfather among the brass at the division office.

Railfans often like to see photos showing the railroaders of a bygone age, but rarely do we see anything like this. Illinois Central employees passed before the lens of this cameraman at the yard office, the roundhouse, the freight station and the division office. We see everything from the head of the division to the lowliest laborer.

Add to that several Mikados, a light Pacific and a Mountain under steam. A flagman holds traffic at Main Street, doing the job now done by the ubiquitous gates and flashers. How about the personnel handling the baggage and express work as The Southern Express makes its station stop? And then the old wooden coal tower which was replaced by concrete tower in 1949; the shells of which still stand today.

My mind was blown!

And all because I went to see a man about a microphone cable.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Mary dear Mary.....that film is fantastic! And so is the music and steam sounds you added. You have prewar documentation of America. How we looked. What we drove. How we dressed . From bosses to workers. People RODE the trains. People SHIPPED packages on trains. The railroad station and the locomotive facilities were the center of the town. The stores and businesses encircled it. Mary you have an early pictorial landscape of the community...of course with steam locomotives...when America was coming out of the depression, and getting ready for WWII. Beautiful, Mary, simply beautiful. Is there any more?

Well that was worth the price of admission for a year on Trainorders !!

Amazing !!

What stories those old timers could tell.

And I swear along with all the rest of the scenes that I could actually smell the tobacco from the cigarette the crossing flagman lit !!

Just wow ! You know I wonder if it were not for film footage such as this that you could convince anyone that this stuff actually happened and existed.

Thanks !!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/17 16:52 by train1275.

Great to see something with great production values for a change...
Thanks for sharing!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

You were definitely at the right place at the right time! You are right. Seldom do we get to see scenes like these showing the people that kept everything rolling! Thanks for giving us this early Christmas present!

Wow!This was simply terrific. What a find....makes one wonder how much more of things like this are out there waiting to be found.

By God THAT WAS WONDERFUL! I get a tear in my eye watching it! I reminds me of my Grampa and my Father who were part of that railroading generation! Thanx-a-million Mary!

I'm trying to think of a word that describes your beautiful contribution of sight and sound. I'm not sure.... but 'charming' comes to mind.

Thank you,

-John

There is little I can add to these favorable comments about this great film. We usually see a series of stills at best, but the movements here show little nuances, such as the fireman shoving up the coal loading arm, making obvious how well balanced it is.

Great footage Mary.

Mountain 2452 pulled an excursion from Louisville to Central City Ky and back in Oct., 1957.
You might want to invest in a Rank transfer of this footage as it will be much sharper.

JH

Wholly Mackerolly Mary...where to begin? First, lovely prose in your story leading to that excellent video! I'm always inspired by your writing. And the footage: what I enjoy about it is most people featured were smiling and happy, looked at others (and at the camera) eye-to-eye with a smile, or obvious pride as they went about their work, and they were dressed in the clothing of their craft or profession. All interesting studies; so much to enjoy here. And, personally for me, seeing my old college town's railroading vignettes were a real bonus; I always enjoyed the history there in Carbondale.

Well Done, Mary! And thank you for this.

-Tom

Well done!

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

Oh, Mary..... What an astounding and stupendous
and wonderful find!!! Jaw. On. Floor!!!

I really enjoyed your story leading up to this
stunning video. I always look forward to and
enjoy every one of your posts, even though I do
not always say that.

I just LOVE all the fascinating details in this
incredible video. And all the men were SMILING
and happy!! And including EVERYONE -- men in all
the various crafts (and, man, were they EVER real
craftsmen back then!!) and most of the film was the
regular workers, and only a little bit was the top
brass. And oh, MY! -- the conductors were VERY well-
dressed, in immaculate three-piece suits and ties with
the proper conductors' hats.

I agree completely with every one of the compliments
your prose and video has gotten.

That is an incredible find!! And worth 10 years
membership in Trainorders! Thank you very much for
digitizing and posting this treasure.

Panamerican99 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mountain 2452 pulled an excursion from Louisville
> to Central City Ky and back in Oct., 1957.

With LOTS of extra white paint! Footage shows up in the DVD Mid-America Glory, along with a Mark-I program featuring Jim Boyd's snide comments about all that white trim.

The format I got this in was the loan of a DVD copy made from the original tape master of the film transfer that was done some years ago. There are around three more minutes of footage I cut to get down to the six minute limit here, but it is just extensions of the scenes shown here. I dropped several minutes of the same people standing around, and of the 1394 spinning around on the turntable. So while there is more footage, it just duplicates what is seen here.

I transferred it to QuickTime digital video files. Then I corrected the frame rate, as the original film was shot at a slower frames-per-second rate (probably 18fps) than the standard 30fps rate of modern video. Rendering it at 60% the speed of the original transfer gives it much more natural motion; think of all the old film you've seen where people walk around like penguins and you'll know what I mean. I also adjusted the image to keep the edge of the film frame off screen (thanks to the poster here that suggested I do that some years ago).

The live audio I used consisted of recordings made of Ohio Central 1293, Southern Railway 401 with the I.C. whistle we put on it this summer, and 4501 recorded last year.

The sound of cars going over the tracks was recorded one block south of the filming location. It was lifted from some of the first sound recordings I ever made in 1984. The thing I have found is that even though the audio recorded back then on a cheap tabletop recorder is lousy, elements from it mixed with other sounds and an image really do work well even if it doesn't stand up well on its own. Several scenes have three or four sound elements mixed together to give a reasonable approximation of what would have been heard at the time.

I also created the music track. While I am a musician of debatable proficiency, this music was a software creation and I didn't actually play anything here. Thanks to Apple for their Garage Band software! This was the result of experimenting with the software's capabilities over the weekend.

I appreciate the feedback as always!

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

One additional note: Pacific #1036 was a 1906 Schenectady product. A number of these early light Pacifics were rebuild with low drivers for branch line freight service by Paducah during I.C.'s great fleet overhaul of 1937-1943, but I don't have information on whether this was one of the locomotives that was rebuilt. Regardless of whether it was rebuilt, it was off the roster by 1955 as the 2000 series Pacific rebuilds still listed were different locomotives.

Mikado #1802 seen passing the yard office was still on the roster in 1955, carrying the number 1650.

#1394 had been renumbered recently when this film was shot, as it carried its original number in 1937. Since my rosters cover the fleet in 1937 and 1955, the chain is broken there and I don't know where this engine started or where it ended up.

Unlike many other I.C. locomotives, #2452 carried only one number during its career. It may have still been on the property in 1960, but was soon scrapped. None of the 2400's were among the last locomotives to be reactivated during the traffic surge of late 1959 to early 1960.

How many other railroads replaced its last steam locomotives with GP18's?

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/17 02:22 by MaryMcPherson.

Thank you, Mary -- just wonderful.

This is incredible! Thanks for posting.

Terrific. A treasure that gets the chance to tell the story. Very nice job.

Thanks, Mary for a great video and all the wonderful, sound dubbing ... very realistic and in sync with the film. Super job.

I hired out as a switchman going to SIU in the late 60s so I remember some of these scenes like the Div. office, I think the yard office was the same structure, the roundhouse, depot and maybe the freight house? The original Illinois Central Railroad was a class operation and it shows in the film.

Would it be okay to post this to another site of prototype, modelers?

Thanks, for sharing this.

exprail

Ponder for a moment how many railroad towns there were just like Carbondale in 1938.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots