Steam & Excursion > "Headin' Home" with 8444 -- a series 4 of 10

After winding through Shreveport, LA, Marshall, Longview and Palestine, TX the special steamed into Houston, tying up at the Westfield auto ramp. As we began our grand entrance at local TV station set up a camera in the dome car and amid a great amount of cabling and fussing with equipment they went live. I was told it was quite a feat to broadcast live from a moving train with the technology of the time. Not be "overshadowed" a blimp flew over the parked train for this picture.

My wife flew down from Omaha to join me. She commented during the ride to the train from airport how all the autos in Houston were cleaner than the winter grimed cars back in Omaha. We made ourselves comfortable in Bill Ferrel"s MP business car No. 8 for the trip home. Also joining the train was Gordon (Sandy) McCulloh from Atlanta, GA, my good friend from my earliest encounter with 8444 in Salt Lake City. We met when I was going down to the Salt Lake shops to do a TV spot with the engine when a UP guy ran up to me and pointed at Sandy and said, "The guy is an airline pilot!" After that whenever he had layover in Salt Lake he would come over to my office and we would go out for lunch. He authored what I think is the best history of UP steam. He rode with us up to Fort Worth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/18 15:02 by Copy19.

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Great series John. Sort of like the tike Boyd Madsen came out and we did the grand stint with both locomotives for NBC.
Sandy is a good friend of mine and I miss his visits to Cheyenne. His History of UP Steam book is a prime resource for me.
That and Jim Ehernberger's 1946 UP Form 70 inventory book as well.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

John, by the way today is Mary's birthday.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

I remember that trip quite well John, I was one of the two broadcast engineers on-board handling the live television broadcast. We used a 2 GHz microwave transmission system that certainly wasn't plug-n-play requiring us to bring about 300 pounds of equipment with us to make it happen. We did several live broadcasts for the local 'Live At Five' news magazine show and more liveshots for ABC's six o'clock news. It was indeed quite the event for the time and we were profiled in several broadcast trade magazine's as to how we pulled it off. Part of the fussing was from the wacky voltage coming out of the dome's electrical outlets which was never at a constant level requiring us to switch to battery power. There were several Ham radio operators on-board working their radios from a compartment that were having the same problems too. We went live as the train moved between Spring Junction and Belt Junction in the north suburbs of Houston and turned on the wye at Belt Jct then went back north to the Westfield auto ramp that is pictured.

The trip was great. We flew up to Palestine in our company helicopter, shot some video of the service stop on the ground (with some locomotives still wearing WP paint in the background) then got back in the chopper and chased the special south from the air at times flying along sideways down in the weeds with the side door open shooting video as we paced the train. During the service stop at Trinity we landed on the high school's football field and the local sheriff gave us a ride over to the tracks where we loaded our equipment on-board.

We set up all of our TV gear in the dome-which was mostly empty-then got to enjoy the ride. All the UP folks were great and rep Mark Davis took care of everything we needed. We had a good time out on the rear platform of MP business car No. 8 watching all the foamers driving like idiots trying to keep up with us as we rocketed through the piney woods. I sent some photos of the event to Trains Magazine which weren't used but I got a nice handwritten thank you note from David P. Morgan.

BTW- I still have one of those posters.

Tom Kline
Houston

Copy19 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After winding through Shreveport, LA, Marshall,
> Longview and Palestine, TX the special steamed
> into Houston, tying up at the Westfield auto ramp.
> As we began our grand entrance at local TV
> station set up a camera in the dome car and amid a
> great amount of cabling and fusing with equipment
> they went live. I was told it was quite a feat to
> broadcast live from a moving train with the
> technology of the time.

cuontv Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember that trip quite well John, I was one of
> the two broadcast engineers on-board handling the
> live television broadcast. We used a 2 GHz
> microwave transmission system that certainly
> wasn't plug-n-play requiring us to bring about 300
> pounds of equipment with us to make it happen. We
> did several live broadcasts for the local 'Live At
> Five' news magazine show and more liveshots for
> ABC's six o'clock news. It was indeed quite the
> event for the time and we were profiled in several
> broadcast trade magazine's as to how we pulled it
> off. Part of the fussing was from the wacky
> voltage coming out of the dome's electrical
> outlets which was never at a constant level
> requiring us to switch to battery power. There
> were several Ham radio operators on-board working
> their radios from a compartment that were having
> the same problems too. We went live as the train
> moved between Spring Junction and Belt Junction in
> the north suburbs of Houston and turned on the wye
> at Belt Jct then went back north to the Westfield
> auto ramp that is pictured.
>
> The trip was great. We flew up to Palestine in
> our company helicopter, shot some video of the
> service stop on the ground (with some locomotives
> still wearing WP paint in the background) then got
> back in the chopper and chased the special south
> from the air at times flying along sideways down
> in the weeds with the side door open shooting
> video as we paced the train. During the service
> stop at Trinity we landed on the high school's
> football field and the local sheriff gave us a
> ride over to the tracks where we loaded our
> equipment on-board.
>
> We set up all of our TV gear in the dome-which was
> mostly empty-then got to enjoy the ride. All the
> UP folks were great and rep Mark Davis took care
> of everything we needed. We had a good time out
> on the rear platform of MP business car No. 8
> watching all the foamers driving like idiots
> trying to keep up with us as we rocketed through
> the piney woods. I sent some photos of the event
> to Trains Magazine which weren't used but I got a
> nice handwritten thank you note from David P.
> Morgan.
>
> BTW- I still have one of those posters.
>
> Tom Kline
> Houston
>

Thanks Tom. I was racking my brain trying to remember how and where we turned the train. Also what luck it was you on the broadcast crew. Your recall really adds to my post. I also remember you sent me photos for the UP calendar. In those days you were one of the very few photographers in the South who
contributed.

Thanks,

John Bromley - Omaha



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/18 09:37 by Copy19.

John great pictures and great memories, I remiember working for weeks before setting up water stops with local fire departments and then shadowing the train on it trip in case there was a problem. I remember the helicopter landing in Palestine and those WP units were a friend in opcon who did me a favor and sent the WP units to Palestine for the locals, The crews liked them for the air conditioning . I still have some good pictures of the trip I need to scan and post John and Bob it was great working with y’all on these projects.

Have a great and safe week

Dave B

Dave: Looking forward to your pix of the trip. It was a ride of a lifetime made possible by so many.

John Bromley - Omaha

Happy Birthday to Mary from Don

And please wish Mary a very Happy Birthday from Dan and myself. She's a very sweet lady.

Thank you Copy 19 for posting that great image ...

Ya sure don't see a steam engine and a blimp's shadow
in the same image everyday! ... a true classic!

Odyssey
Evergreen, CO