I enjoyed the film railroading in bygone days was far different than it is today..Railroading used to be quite a family affair but its rare to see several family members working on the railroad together in modern days..I spent 35 years working for an american railroad, retiring in 2000 I have had a long wonderful retirement..Still after all these years away from the rails I still miss it at times..Most of the small towns that used to be rail hubs for many years and depended on railroad dollars to keep families and small businesses operating have gone by the wayside now...
Grand-Dad worked on the Frisco line for 37 years - track foreman. My Dad remembered the old steam locos as a kid and always recalled them quite fondly. I love these old movies - a lot of these guys like Boomer were probably WWI Veterans and a lot of WWII Veterans in this too. I remember when there were a lot of these old guys around, solid, dependable men. Thanks for posting!
A great film about a little town in the middle of the Prairies. It was fun to hear how they talked in the 50's, and see the steam locomotives. Thanks very much, NFB!
I especially loved how they predict that dieselazation "may" result in some layoffs... turned out to be the single biggest contributor to reduced staff across then entire industry
Filmed in 1956 at the sea change from coal to diesel. My days, when a reporter mixed it up in these surroundings, hair groomed and attired in a suit and tie. I miss the civility and ease of language.
Boomer’s career is a close parallel to my granddad’s. Emmett Miller served the Louisville and Nashville from 1908 to 1959. He began as a “call boy.” Since not everyone had a telephone is 1908, whenever the crew scheduler needed someone from the extra board on short notice, they would send a kid on a bicycle to go knock on his door. When he was old enough, he got on as a fireman, then worked his way up to engineer. He didn’t like to be gone overnight, so he always bid on local freight and switching jobs in and around Nashville.
My Great Grand Father (Benjamin Chatfield) was an Engineer for the New Haven R/R back in the 1800's. He ran out of the Cedar Hill yard through the Naugatuck Valley (the fruit train from the docks). My online logo (to the left) . Yes the railroad is in my blood. I'm a railroad artist. The logo stands for Wall Road. All my work goes on the Wall.
As of today, Melville has grown by 62 people since this film was made. Wish my body did well in the cold weather. It would be nice to get back to small town living.
I started with CN Telecommunications in 1972 or about 17 years after this film was made. In 1975-1979, I was based in Capreol Ontario and much of my work was for the railroad along the main line. In those years I was often on trains, including the Supercontinenal and freights. I was first on the Super, when I took my vacation in July 1974, and went from Toronto to Vancouver and back. On that trip, I passed through Melville twice, but I don't remember it, as it was in the middle of the night.
I remember when there was many rails here when I was young, a large rail yard always busy with freight cars being shunted, now fast forward 25 years the yard is gone, all the remains is the old mainline, and abandoned locomotive shops, its actually sad to see an era that was so busy disappear, but im glad videos like this exist, so people can see what it was like, not just imagine it
I grew up in a railroad town myself. The Virginian Railroad had shops that employed a thousand men in the 1950s. They were closed down and the operation moved to Roanoke after the merger with Norfolk & Western. What happened to railroads? See all those eighteen-wheelers on the highway along with the cars driving down the interstate? That's what happened to railroads.
No doubt but rail service in my hometown ended in the early fifties, fifteen years before they moved the shops. An article about the railroads appeared in the local paper a few days ago. The Norfolk Southern is using longer trains (two or three miles long) and operating them with only one or two employees. Less coal is being shipped, too, I am led to believe. There used to even be a roundhouse in my hometown. Steam locomotives required more maintenance. And doesn't that man have slicked-back hair!
@@kennethquesenberry2610 People like us killed it as well, we want our cheap Chinese crap so nothing is manufactured here anymore. We don't want railroads in our back yards either so all kinds of switching lines are disappearing more and more, being replaced with intermodal service, trains don't service industries anymore, they service waypoints.
@@canuckster24 I take your point, yet more things are manufactured here than we get credit for. Many foreign car manufacturers have plants in this country now--though not in Detroit. In fact, something close to 20% of American autos are exported. We just import more than we export. The Chinese produce things that cost less than we might be able to make it for but that isn't to say Chinese products are necessarily of poor quality. Besides, there's a market for junk products. We just used to make them ourselves. But remember; if it isn't made where you live, it's imported.
Wow, very interesting to see and hear real everyday folks, their surroundings, town, steam and diesel locomotives, trains, railroad tracks, , functions, works, ... Thank you.
I had been riding my bike for years on a rail trail near me before I learned that it was my grandfather’s run on the Pontiac Oxford Northern to Caseville. Takes on new meaning now knowing the history.
Great story in Trains Magazine how the boys souped up those railroad carts to do 65 miles an hour and the RR knew nothing about it. They also built tops for them and put pieces on the front to deflect the wind. They had to go out in Minus 30 weather to fix tracks, check things, etc. Sometimes spending hours going thru deep snow drifts, 40 mph winds and minus 30 to 35F. Can you imagine, wee hours of the night, those conditions and several calls a night? The author did it for 35 years I believe. Special breed.
DWP, a subsidiary of CN was just up the street where I lived. Steam went out in 1957, two years after I was born. The neighborhood kids spent a lot of time crossing the rail yard to get to the hills beyond. In 1984 the DWP relocated over to Wisconsin.
Love the flannel checkered shirts My grandfather wore them and brought back great memories. I remember Fred Davis as a tv announcer. Seemed like a real classy guy.
I come from railroad town USA. The headquarters of the UP and where the owner of BNSF has his operations. This is a very well produced historical video and I very much enjoyed it and give kudos to the producer and staff. Truly railroading has changed immensely since then but one thing that has not changed is the love and dedication the men have to their jobs. Talking about change I worked on a project for BNSF testing the use of compressed natural gas for locomotive fuel. It was very successful but due to corporate politics was not implemented. That may change since the owner of the BNSF and the gas supplier and now the same person.
Yup, Remember this era. I worked for CP Rail as a trainman out of Nelson Yard back in the late 1970’s then transfered to Revelstoke. Was good until they took away the caboose. Left just before that happened.
It's a damn shame the cabooses are gone. I did a brief stint on Conrail as a brakeman in the mid , and I've been a commuter rail conductor in Boston for 17 years now. It definitely in the blood!
Virtual Railfan UA-cam channel has a camera at Revelstoke. There is a small bear which appears from time to time, crosses the road and disappears between two houses, then reappears later. They have named him "Revvie", I believe.
This is a great production and a window into what life was like for the working class family in a small town a few generations ago. Our "esteemed" prime minister just accused his conservative opponent of wanting to take the country back to the '50s -- we should be so lucky!
I'm a sream buff. Sadly those days are gone forever. My house was near a C&EI track. I miss those sounds. And now the AT&SF turned into the BN&SF. l remember "Santa Fe all the way". And the UP. etc. Thank you for this!!! Old times. Good times.
My house growing up was also near a C&EI track in Chicago on 100th st. It was this proximity to the C&EI that started my love for Railroads. As a kid we had a siding on 100th where they would park cars for a day or so. I spent many hours climbing on these cars and wondering where they were going. My friends thought I was a little weird, but I didn't care. The RR police would catch us now and then, but it wasn't severe, usually a lecture and escort of the tracks.
(Enjoyable film, which was clearly made with care and consideration. Also worth noting how all the folk are slim and trim -- before the convenience food overlook the dietary landscape; it's also nice to see the freight cars devoid of graffiti hieroglyphics -- initially an import from America's peculiar and violent gang culture...)
100% agree with you about the demeanor of people changing. Especially with how diet has affected us all and how we work. But from what I've learned from internet and people I've met rail graffiti truly started from the hobos and workings tagging the cars with paintsticks and grease markers to mark what cars they worked or traveled on.
Watching this video reminds me of my grandad. Southern rwy. 47 years. He too was a loco. engineer. Started on extra board as a fireman steam loco. 1950 promoted to engineer. Young people today should watch these black and white videos and learn rich history. 😊
As an old Front Page Challenge viewer, I was waiting for Fred to light up a Du Maurier. How grand would it be to drive the Studebaker to the station and board the cab of a steam locomotive?
I watched FPC here on YT.. great show back then..and I scored some vintage Du Maurier ciggies a while back... nice. Most of us kids were around 11 years old in 1955 and remember this world and sorely miss it....
Oh, the nostalgia! I was there, and I remember. People were more formal and polite. Being introduced as Mr Davis, not just Fred. For that matter a young Fred Davis. Imagine someone today climbing aboard a locomotive wearing a suit! Imagine a family today where everyone was working for the same company --let alone everyone working. It was a different planet. I regret they didn't shoot this in colour.
The NFB of Canada was federally funded and on tight budgets, so virtually nothing they produced was filmed in colour until the 1960's. Short docs like this were produced by the NFB for Canada's first national TV network the CBC. Since the CBC didn't begin broadcasting in colour until the 1960's it made no sense to produce these shorts in colour.
The locomotive in the opening shot (6503) and the one that pulls in with the banner on the front (6500) were sadly written off in separate accidents in the Rockies. 6503 also appears in the more modern CN scheme in the opening of the Rockumentary Festival Express.
Melville, Saskatchewan is still a stop on VIA Rail. They are restoring the old station, which is a good thing, but there is hardly anything left of CN's operation there. Track maintenance, I guess. This film was made in 1956.
@@spencerk4077 It is busy, more tons of freight moved now than ever in the past, but they don't stop in Melville, except for crew change. The car shop is long gone, let alone any locomotive servicing. Passengers getting on and of are literally a trickle, perhaps one or two. As for all aspects of railroading, times have changed. When I started at Weston shops with CPR we still had thousands of guys. I don't know how many people still work there but nowhere near what it once was. Better technology has greatly improved efficiency.
This is Awesome to watch! I'm very interested in the C.N.R. and I would like to see more documentaries on the C.N.R. or any other Canadian railroad like C.P.R.
There's another 30 minute NFB doc on UA-cam called Train 406 about a freight train's run from Toronto to Halifax in 1958 that shows all the work that went into moving freight cars and crews all that way. I just finished watching it. Some great footage of the long gone Montreal train yards, showing how the train's cars are moved from one train to another, and new cars added to 406. Good footage of the repair shop in Montreal as well.
It's not a new invention. "Tagging" has existed forever. For example, in the southwest, indian tribes used petroglyphs to mark their territory. Tribes in Central and South America did the same. Cave "tagging" by prehistoric man was used to mark possession of a habitat. These were not just artistic impulses, as modern man would like to believe.
30 YEARS, 3 MONTHS ON THE SANTA FE!! GREAT JOB!! GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL 1960 STARTED RAILROAD SEPT 1964 IF I COULD DO OVER, WOULD HAVE STARTED MAY 1960!!
Beautiful film. I hope Boomer and his wife had a long and happy retirement. He’ll now be driving loco's up there in that railroad in the sky having the time of his celestial life.
The part that they don't tell you in the film is the Boomer was injured ..... Boomer intervened when a prisoner that they were transporting on his train attempted to escape..... Boomer helped subdue the prisoner, but in doing so he was injured..... And he never really recovered.... That's probably part of the reason why he didn't live that much longer in retirement. @@taustin1977
@@taustin1977Boomer was injured...... They were hauling a prisoner by train, who attempted escape...... Boomer intervened and was beaten up pretty badly..... He never really fully recovered and that probably was a little bit the reason why he didn't live very long into retirement.
Maybe he started as a call boy Before the telephone when a train was order the crew clerk would give the call boy the address he was to go to with the train he was called for .Years ago there was an Engineer in Hamilton that still got called this way As long as his house was with in 2 miles of the yard this was aloud.There was a foreman in the same terminal that also started as a call boy who started at 15
The ONF or NFB have a huge great video clips and i like to see thoses all the time ... Since the date of 19 november 18 i was asking for another one as suggested on their site But it is not there at the moment ? I just dont know how much time it take to the ONF to add a new clip vidéo that i will see on you tube ? The best way is to be patient i think ? Anyway , congratulation to the ONF for all your good vidéos .
I remember finding a derelict boxcar with boxes of those torpedoes when I was a kid with a bunch of my friends. We were hitting them on the ground with rocks to set them off. At the time I wasn't sure what they were for. Now I know.
And the Canadian National is still alive and well. I just saw three CN locomotives with some Kansas City Southern de Mexico here in Meridian, Mississippi.
just looked up Fred Davis, he was married 5 times . FIVE TIMES! And here I thought Knowlton Nash held the Canadian journalist record for marriages (4).
Well, a quick look with Google maps and satellite view suggests that there is still a LOT of railroading going on in Melville Sk. today. There is a substantial size yard south of the town and literally hundreds of freight cars parked all over the place. There is no way this is an abandoned facility.
@@Vincent_Sullivan VIA's The Canadian now goes through Melville, as CN's old Super Continental used to. Melville is named for Charles Melville Hays, ex-CEO of CN ancestor Grand Trunk, who was killed in the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
It's great to see historic Canadiana like this. I've ridden the Supercontinental (as the CN train was called) and the Canadian (CPs train). These days only the Via train runs through Saskaton. I always thought that the schedule had both trains passing through Saskatchewan at night. I remember when CN converted to 100% diesel...the steam engines were taken to a "graveyard" near Barrie, Ontario to await demolition. My dad took me up there to play "engineer".😁 Fred Davis was slightly "overdressed" for this show, wasn't he?😉
Guess he didn't spend enough time on the "real" engine to get himself dirty 😁. I did the same once. One of the guards in my team at SNCF got rostered to a steam special with a 4-8-2 mountain (coal fired of course!). Being a steam nut I felt it was my duty to accompany him and make sure all was ok with the train 😉. When I got to the yard I couldn't resist climbing into the cab. SNCF guards uniform or not... and yes, dry cleaners the following day. I don't think the white shirt ever recovered from my turn on the shovel 😁😁😁
Yep. I took the Super to Vancouver and back, in 1974. IIRC, we hit Melville around midnight both ways. I guess they figured there was nothing worth looking at in Saskatchewan. 🙂
Unfortunately this often happened to retired railway men, whose only life was the railway. When I worked in the shops we frequently had to chase out retirees so we could get our work done. Those who had other interests and hobbies tended to live longer.
I hail from a CPR family; there were members on both sides of my family in the employ of the railway. On my mother's side, one was a baggage handler at Windsor Station in Montreal; his father-in-law worked for CP steamships. My father was a journeyman steam fitter, his brother was a boilerman and their father had the job I always wanted. He was a "hogger" until his retirement in 1950. He only ever knew steam. Like many men whose lives were the railway, he lasted about a year into retirement and was gone. I was only 7 years old when he died. I will forever regret that he didn't live long enough to take me down to the roundhouse and shops to show me around. I would have loved it!
I think it has to do with not having a daily routine once one retires. Some who have had a stressful job all the sudden retire and the body may go into shock and that is harmful to your heart and vessels. I would say to retire full time, get a part time job and slowly work into retirement if you can. Quitting cold turkey is hard for some on anything your body is use too. I wish everyone whom retires gets at least 10 years to enjoy what remains in life
my grandpa used to work for the railroad in the offices but it was the railroad idk which one but he lived in san romona ca so it was proble southern pacific but idk
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This Driver got a hell of a Retirement sendoff. He Earned it! God Bless this Gentleman and his family!
I ,as an old time trucker, can identify with these tough old birds. We really aren't much different. God bless the hard working folks.
My grandpa being a tough worker (trucker) like yourselves used to say as we met "shake the hand thats shook the world"
I enjoyed the film railroading in bygone days was far different than it is today..Railroading used to be quite a family affair but its rare to see several family members working on the railroad together in modern days..I spent 35 years working for an american railroad, retiring in 2000 I have had a long wonderful retirement..Still after all these years away from the rails I still miss it at times..Most of the small towns that used to be rail hubs for many years and depended on railroad dollars to keep families and small businesses operating have gone by the wayside now...
Grand-Dad worked on the Frisco line for 37 years - track foreman.
My Dad remembered the old steam locos as a kid and always recalled them quite fondly.
I love these old movies - a lot of these guys like Boomer were probably WWI Veterans and a lot of WWII Veterans in this too. I remember when there were a lot of these old guys around, solid, dependable men. Thanks for posting!
I grew up in Melville in the 60s. Real cool to see this. I knew Buck Morgan a bit. He was a friend of my Dad's back then.
do you know if Ted is still alive..I know Buck died in 2008,,what a fantastic family....
What was he like
This is the real Canada. Heartland.
A great film about a little town in the middle of the Prairies. It was fun to hear how they talked in the 50's, and see the steam locomotives. Thanks very much, NFB!
I especially loved how they predict that dieselazation "may" result in some layoffs... turned out to be the single biggest contributor to reduced staff across then entire industry
From 1945 to 1967 Canada was beautiful!
Yes! Before the Trudeau father and son destroyed Canada!
Filmed in 1956 at the sea change from coal to diesel. My days, when a reporter mixed it up in these surroundings, hair groomed and attired in a suit and tie. I miss the civility and ease of language.
Boomer’s career is a close parallel to my granddad’s. Emmett Miller served the Louisville and Nashville from 1908 to 1959. He began as a “call boy.” Since not everyone had a telephone is 1908, whenever the crew scheduler needed someone from the extra board on short notice, they would send a kid on a bicycle to go knock on his door. When he was old enough, he got on as a fireman, then worked his way up to engineer. He didn’t like to be gone overnight, so he always bid on local freight and switching jobs in and around Nashville.
My Great Grand Father (Benjamin Chatfield) was an Engineer for the New Haven R/R back in the 1800's. He ran out of the Cedar Hill yard through the Naugatuck Valley (the fruit train from the docks). My online logo (to the left) . Yes the railroad is in my blood. I'm a railroad artist. The logo stands for Wall Road. All my work goes on the Wall.
As of today, Melville has grown by 62 people since this film was made. Wish my body did well in the cold weather. It would be nice to get back to small town living.
This is just extreme classic Canadiana!
Oh the nostalgia of it.
I started with CN Telecommunications in 1972 or about 17 years after this film was made. In 1975-1979, I was based in Capreol Ontario and much of my work was for the railroad along the main line. In those years I was often on trains, including the Supercontinenal and freights. I was first on the Super, when I took my vacation in July 1974, and went from Toronto to Vancouver and back. On that trip, I passed through Melville twice, but I don't remember it, as it was in the middle of the night.
Magnifique reportage sur les "hommes du rail", leur organisation et leur travail. Passionnant.
I remember when there was many rails here when I was young, a large rail yard always busy with freight cars being shunted, now fast forward 25 years the yard is gone, all the remains is the old mainline, and abandoned locomotive shops, its actually sad to see an era that was so busy disappear, but im glad videos like this exist, so people can see what it was like, not just imagine it
I grew up in a railroad town myself. The Virginian Railroad had shops that employed a thousand men in the 1950s. They were closed down and the operation moved to Roanoke after the merger with Norfolk & Western. What happened to railroads? See all those eighteen-wheelers on the highway along with the cars driving down the interstate? That's what happened to railroads.
@@kennethquesenberry2610 don't forget about the airlines
No doubt but rail service in my hometown ended in the early fifties, fifteen years before they moved the shops. An article about the railroads appeared in the local paper a few days ago. The Norfolk Southern is using longer trains (two or three miles long) and operating them with only one or two employees. Less coal is being shipped, too, I am led to believe. There used to even be a roundhouse in my hometown. Steam locomotives required more maintenance. And doesn't that man have slicked-back hair!
@@kennethquesenberry2610 People like us killed it as well, we want our cheap Chinese crap so nothing is manufactured here anymore. We don't want railroads in our back yards either so all kinds of switching lines are disappearing more and more, being replaced with intermodal service, trains don't service industries anymore, they service waypoints.
@@canuckster24 I take your point, yet more things are manufactured here than we get credit for. Many foreign car manufacturers have plants in this country now--though not in Detroit. In fact, something close to 20% of American autos are exported. We just import more than we export.
The Chinese produce things that cost less than we might be able to make it for but that isn't to say Chinese products are necessarily of poor quality. Besides, there's a market for junk products. We just used to make them ourselves. But remember; if it isn't made where you live, it's imported.
Bravo!
What a treat, gave me a look at what my own family did back in the 30's and 40's.
Wow, very interesting to see and hear real everyday folks, their surroundings, town, steam and diesel locomotives, trains, railroad tracks, , functions, works, ...
Thank you.
I had been riding my bike for years on a rail trail near me before I learned that it was my grandfather’s run on the Pontiac Oxford Northern to Caseville. Takes on new meaning now knowing the history.
Great story in Trains Magazine how the boys souped up those railroad carts to do 65 miles an hour and the RR knew nothing about it. They also built tops for them and put pieces on the front to deflect the wind. They had to go out in Minus 30 weather to fix tracks, check things, etc. Sometimes spending hours going thru deep snow drifts, 40 mph winds and minus 30 to 35F. Can you imagine, wee hours of the night, those conditions and several calls a night? The author did it for 35 years I believe. Special breed.
DWP, a subsidiary of CN was just up the street where I lived. Steam went out in 1957, two years after I was born. The neighborhood kids spent a lot of time crossing the rail yard to get to the hills beyond. In 1984 the DWP relocated over to Wisconsin.
Caje1962 I worked in the old dwp yard on hwy 105 just outside Oliver wi
Love the flannel checkered shirts My grandfather wore them and brought back great memories. I remember Fred Davis as a tv announcer. Seemed like a real classy guy.
WOW...3500's with Vandy tenders. This was back when there was pride in railroading.
David Poor there was pride in EVERYTHING.
@@cjgangi0123 took the words right out of my mouth.
I come from railroad town USA. The headquarters of the UP and where the owner of BNSF has his operations. This is a very well produced historical video and I very much enjoyed it and give kudos to the producer and staff. Truly railroading has changed immensely since then but one thing that has not changed is the love and dedication the men have to their jobs. Talking about change I worked on a project for BNSF testing the use of compressed natural gas for locomotive fuel. It was very successful but due to corporate politics was not implemented. That may change since the owner of the BNSF and the gas supplier and now the same person.
Yup, Remember this era. I worked for CP Rail as a trainman out of Nelson Yard back in the late 1970’s then transfered to Revelstoke. Was good until they took away the caboose. Left just before that happened.
It's a damn shame the cabooses are gone. I did a brief stint on Conrail as a brakeman in the mid , and I've been a commuter rail conductor in Boston for 17 years now. It definitely in the blood!
Virtual Railfan UA-cam channel has a camera at Revelstoke. There is a small bear which appears from time to time, crosses the road and disappears between two houses, then reappears later. They have named him "Revvie", I believe.
This is a great production and a window into what life was like for the working class family in a small town a few generations ago. Our "esteemed" prime minister just accused his conservative opponent of wanting to take the country back to the '50s -- we should be so lucky!
9:55 _"Would you like to see one of our diesel locomotives?"_ "No thanks I'm good here"
I'm a sream buff. Sadly those days are gone forever. My house was near a C&EI track. I miss those sounds. And now the AT&SF turned into the BN&SF. l remember "Santa Fe all the way". And the UP. etc.
Thank you for this!!! Old times. Good times.
yeah I love those sream locomotives
My house growing up was also near a C&EI track in Chicago on 100th st. It was this proximity to the C&EI that started my love for Railroads. As a kid we had a siding on 100th where they would park cars for a day or so. I spent many hours climbing on these cars and wondering where they were going. My friends thought I was a little weird, but I didn't care. The RR police would catch us now and then, but it wasn't severe, usually a lecture and escort of the tracks.
Keith Purdue
909
@@nathanwatson01, good sreamin reply! What made the sream, maybe coal? And some wha-wha!
Funky old flick! Reminds me of a lot of films I used to watch when I was a kid... Almost half a century ago.
Fred's lunch bucket is a .50 caliber ammo can. Pretty neat.
That's Curleys lunch box NP.
Mom packed a Herman Munster size lunch in that can.
I thought the same thing. Love his lunch box. Look at Curly's size and look at how much his wife is packin'
(Enjoyable film, which was clearly made with care and consideration. Also worth noting how all the folk are slim and trim -- before the convenience food overlook the dietary landscape; it's also nice to see the freight cars devoid of graffiti hieroglyphics -- initially an import from America's peculiar and violent gang culture...)
100% agree with you about the demeanor of people changing. Especially with how diet has affected us all and how we work. But from what I've learned from internet and people I've met rail graffiti truly started from the hobos and workings tagging the cars with paintsticks and grease markers to mark what cars they worked or traveled on.
Golly! All these people were really swell!
I’ll take the 50’s lingo over the crap people say nowadays.
Watching this video reminds me of my grandad. Southern rwy. 47 years. He too was a loco. engineer. Started on extra board as a fireman steam loco. 1950 promoted to engineer. Young people today should watch these black and white videos and learn rich history. 😊
dang ole Curly looks rough for being 52 yrs. old. thanks for posting
As an old Front Page Challenge viewer, I was waiting for Fred to light up a Du Maurier. How grand would it be to drive the Studebaker to the station and board the cab of a steam locomotive?
I watched FPC here on YT.. great show back then..and I scored some vintage Du Maurier ciggies a while back... nice. Most of us kids were around 11 years old in 1955 and remember this world and sorely miss it....
I loved the pastel colors of the ciggies. Yeas, I'm a yank (colors not colours).
The car at 17:00 looks to be a Studebaker Champion 4-door sedan, circa 1954.
The engineers don't wave from the trains not like they did back in 1954.i still get a tear in my eye when I hear an old train in.the night
Oh, the nostalgia! I was there, and I remember. People were more formal and polite. Being introduced as Mr Davis, not just Fred. For that matter a young Fred Davis. Imagine someone today climbing aboard a locomotive wearing a suit! Imagine a family today where everyone was working for the same company --let alone everyone working. It was a different planet. I regret they didn't shoot this in colour.
What has happened to our world, it was so much better then.
Not really.@@allon33
Filming in colour would have been a greater expense, but filming it in black and white adds to the nostalgia.
The NFB of Canada was federally funded and on tight budgets, so virtually nothing they produced was filmed in colour until the 1960's. Short docs like this were produced by the NFB for Canada's first national TV network the CBC. Since the CBC didn't begin broadcasting in colour until the 1960's it made no sense to produce these shorts in colour.
Fred Davis spent many years at the CBC. What eventually became the CBC was started by the CNR to provide entertainment for passengers.
The locomotive in the opening shot (6503) and the one that pulls in with the banner on the front (6500) were sadly written off in separate accidents in the Rockies. 6503 also appears in the more modern CN scheme in the opening of the Rockumentary Festival Express.
Melville, Saskatchewan is still a stop on VIA Rail. They are restoring the old station, which is a good thing, but there is hardly anything left of CN's operation there. Track maintenance, I guess.
This film was made in 1956.
That’s not true. CN’s mainline still runs through Melville
@@spencerk4077 Their operations there are a fraction of what they once were.
@@tpxchallenger What are you talking about? They never ran 12000ft double stack container trains 60 years ago. CN’s mainline is very busy.
@@spencerk4077 It is busy, more tons of freight moved now than ever in the past, but they don't stop in Melville, except for crew change. The car shop is long gone, let alone any locomotive servicing. Passengers getting on and of are literally a trickle, perhaps one or two.
As for all aspects of railroading, times have changed. When I started at Weston shops with CPR we still had thousands of guys. I don't know how many people still work there but nowhere near what it once was. Better technology has greatly improved efficiency.
Good ol Canadian railroading!!!
The Speed Recorder instrument was made in Utica, NY, 30 miles from where I live.
Yeah, we USED TO make a lot of things.
Yes we did. Until we got sold-out by greedy corporations!
This is Awesome to watch! I'm very interested in the C.N.R. and I would like to see more documentaries on the C.N.R. or any other Canadian railroad like C.P.R.
There's another 30 minute NFB doc on UA-cam called Train 406 about a freight train's run from Toronto to Halifax in 1958 that shows all the work that went into moving freight cars and crews all that way. I just finished watching it. Some great footage of the long gone Montreal train yards, showing how the train's cars are moved from one train to another, and new cars added to 406. Good footage of the repair shop in Montreal as well.
The appearance of the rolling stock suggests that the spray can had not been invented in 1955.
"Tagging" hadn't been invented either.
It's not a new invention. "Tagging" has existed forever. For example, in the southwest, indian tribes used petroglyphs to mark their territory. Tribes in Central and South America did the same. Cave "tagging" by prehistoric man was used to mark possession of a habitat. These were not just artistic impulses, as modern man would like to believe.
People had more respect, greater work ethic also has to do with everyone's skin color.
Whites could tag just as good as blacks.
People were more afraid of the railroad bulls back in those days
I'm 60, I'm retiring next year. I'm done .. I don't mind railroading, but it's time to go.
I want out now and I’m not close to 60😳
2020 would have been the perfect year to retire lol
@@twizz420 agreed I've been welding for the railway for 4 years now
1953 I was 10yrs.old &we still had steam in N.J.
We were both born the same year!
@@JohnSmith-sd4yu I was born in 1953 and barely old enough to remember the last days of steam.
good little video. got some age on it. love to see an updated version of it.
Wow this is great with Fred and his family. Would be interesting to know how the sons fared in railroading as things changed so much after this.
Wonderful video. Thank you for uploading.
30 YEARS, 3 MONTHS ON THE SANTA FE!!
GREAT JOB!!
GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL 1960
STARTED RAILROAD SEPT 1964
IF I COULD DO OVER, WOULD HAVE STARTED MAY 1960!!
Great heritage...Great Nation..
Thank you for posting
Beautiful film. I hope Boomer and his wife had a long and happy retirement. He’ll now be driving loco's up there in that railroad in the sky having the time of his celestial life.
He died 5 years later in 1960, so not very long retirement.
@@taustin1977 Sorry to hear that😔 I still hope he’s happy driving locos and with his old friends and family who have passed on. RIP Boomer🙏
The part that they don't tell you in the film is the Boomer was injured ..... Boomer intervened when a prisoner that they were transporting on his train attempted to escape..... Boomer helped subdue the prisoner, but in doing so he was injured..... And he never really recovered.... That's probably part of the reason why he didn't live that much longer in retirement.
@@taustin1977
@@taustin1977Boomer was injured...... They were hauling a prisoner by train, who attempted escape...... Boomer intervened and was beaten up pretty badly..... He never really fully recovered and that probably was a little bit the reason why he didn't live very long into retirement.
What a sweet movie!
Wonderful film! Thank you for sharing!!!
that's awesome, thanks for the video, My compliments sir
Boomer started working when he was 15.?! Damn he’s seen some changes
Maybe he started as a call boy Before the telephone when a train was order the crew clerk would give the call boy the address he was to go to with the train he was called for .Years ago there was an Engineer in Hamilton that still got called this way As long as his house was with in 2 miles of the yard this was aloud.There was a foreman in the same terminal that also started as a call boy who started at 15
The ONF or NFB have a huge great video clips and i like to see thoses all the time ...
Since the date of 19 november 18 i was asking for another one as suggested on their site
But it is not there at the moment ? I just dont know how much time it take to the ONF to add
a new clip vidéo that i will see on you tube ? The best way is to be patient i think ?
Anyway , congratulation to the ONF for all your good vidéos .
Best acting ive seen
Rukkkis snarky. LOL
13:36 anyone know if they have any info on this horn anywhere or what type it is called?
I bet 'Ol Boomer was a real pleasure to spend 16 hours on a locomotive with.
LOL!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Depends on how he got his nickname
My father was born near Mevile. The old steam locomotives would come into town and he would take the truck in to pick up coal, salt, sugar or wood.
And now we know what Harry Truman did after he retired (Burt).
Great film! 👍😊
Frederic Ernest "Boomer" Cardwell b. April 24, 1890, N. Plantagenet Twp, Prescott Co., ON., Canada, d. 1960, Grey Nuns Hospital, Regina, SK., Canada.
Hi John.... many thanks for remembering particulars on "Boomer"... hope his boys did OK.
lived a whopping five years after retirement. Never knew anything but railroading
R.I.P.
@@samh3029 5 years, all too common back then. Plenty of folks didn't even live to see that much.
Sad! He only had 5 years after retirement.
Wonderful film, such interesting people, and of course, love those trains.
Boomer's wife don't let nobody stand between her and her man
That was a nice little film.
I remember finding a derelict boxcar with boxes of those torpedoes when I was a kid with a bunch of my friends. We were hitting them on the ground with rocks to set them off. At the time I wasn't sure what they were for. Now I know.
Finally she gets all the chores done and marked off that honey do list!
The days of my youth when things were much simpler, and I wanted to be a locomotive engineer!
At 20:37, 15 o'clock.........? What's up with that ? That's a new one on me. Maybe 1500 hours, aka 3:00 pm
And the Canadian National is still alive and well. I just saw three CN locomotives with some Kansas City Southern de Mexico here in Meridian, Mississippi.
just looked up Fred Davis, he was married 5 times . FIVE TIMES! And here I thought Knowlton Nash held the Canadian journalist record for marriages (4).
Maybe his wives got tired of him coming home with his suits all filthy dirty. haha
"What kind of a trip did ya have?" "Stay away from the brown acid, it's bad." says Jim.
Ah the good ole days when a freight train passed without every single freight car having graffiti tagged all over em
they werent parking them all over the place where anyone with paint could access them
@@warriorgaming1604 wrong.
@@warriorgaming1604 nice bull crap and lie. They were parked all over the place. What was different that parents spanked a lot in the old days
Yeah I agree
@@warriorgaming1604 yes they did
Does anyone know if there is even still trains in Melville Sask today?
Well, a quick look with Google maps and satellite view suggests that there is still a LOT of railroading going on in Melville Sk. today. There is a substantial size yard south of the town and literally hundreds of freight cars parked all over the place. There is no way this is an abandoned facility.
@@Vincent_Sullivan VIA's The Canadian now goes through Melville, as CN's old Super Continental used to. Melville is named for Charles Melville Hays, ex-CEO of CN ancestor Grand Trunk, who was killed in the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
@@smwca123 Nice tie-in, Bro. I surely didn't think it was Herman.. ha ha.
@08:18 WOW... that was not a safety issue back then!!!
Reminds me of shops yard where I grew up near I spent alot of time there as a kid
Damn, she blasted her way through at 3:12
It's great to see historic Canadiana like this. I've ridden the Supercontinental (as the CN train was called) and the Canadian (CPs train). These days only the Via train runs through Saskaton. I always thought that the schedule had both trains passing through Saskatchewan at night.
I remember when CN converted to 100% diesel...the steam engines were taken to a "graveyard" near Barrie, Ontario to await demolition. My dad took me up there to play "engineer".😁
Fred Davis was slightly "overdressed" for this show, wasn't he?😉
Jimbo Bogie I was thinking the same thing. Better have a good dry cleaner.
Guess he didn't spend enough time on the "real" engine to get himself dirty 😁.
I did the same once. One of the guards in my team at SNCF got rostered to a steam special with a 4-8-2 mountain (coal fired of course!). Being a steam nut I felt it was my duty to accompany him and make sure all was ok with the train 😉. When I got to the yard I couldn't resist climbing into the cab. SNCF guards uniform or not... and yes, dry cleaners the following day. I don't think the white shirt ever recovered from my turn on the shovel 😁😁😁
Yep. I took the Super to Vancouver and back, in 1974. IIRC, we hit Melville around midnight both ways. I guess they figured there was nothing worth looking at in Saskatchewan. 🙂
What year is this documentary
The good old days -- before I was born.
In todays railroading, Boomer would have been greeted by a whiz quiz and a charge letter.
🤣
Very good, thanks.
This guy would have probably trained my grandfather’s good friend who would have hired on as a fireman in 1953 and retired in the mid 80s.
Great film
Classic portrait. Dirt roads, Studebakers, Brylcreem in the hair!
Yes were still working 1955 on something to replace diesels.
Boomer looked more like 95 than 65.
I'm 70 and he could easily pass as my father.
My thought too. "Sixty-five?" He didn't age well. No disrespect intended.
That's what happens after years of amphetamine consumption.
16:55 NICE Studebaker!
A 1952 Studebaker to be exact with the so called "clam digger" front grille.
Boomer passed away only 5 years into his retirement. :(
Unfortunately this often happened to retired railway men, whose only life was the railway. When I worked in the shops we frequently had to chase out retirees so we could get our work done. Those who had other interests and hobbies tended to live longer.
I hail from a CPR family; there were members on both sides of my family in the
employ of the railway.
On my mother's side, one was a baggage handler at Windsor Station in Montreal;
his father-in-law worked for CP steamships.
My father was a journeyman steam fitter, his brother was a boilerman and their father had the job I always wanted. He was a "hogger" until his retirement in 1950. He only ever knew steam.
Like many men whose lives were the railway, he lasted about a year into retirement and was gone. I was only 7 years old when he died.
I will forever regret that he didn't live long enough to take me down to the roundhouse and shops to show me around.
I would have loved it!
I have a similar experience through the military. I've known many men who retired at 60, and were dead in a year - it's uncanny
Same thing here on French SNCF. I've known quite a few over the past 25 years who'd gone within a year of retirement.
I think it has to do with not having a daily routine once one retires. Some who have had a stressful job all the sudden retire and the body may go into shock and that is harmful to your heart and vessels. I would say to retire full time, get a part time job and slowly work into retirement if you can. Quitting cold turkey is hard for some on anything your body is use too. I wish everyone whom retires gets at least 10 years to enjoy what remains in life
What year is this, I lost track….
'55
Picard was a railroad engineer ?
Melville, SK has an almost unchanged population since this film was made.
I looked it up on Google Earth with Streetview. Station is still there really nice to see some things remain more or less constant.
At 3:15 lady pressing through the crowd abruptly pushing spectators out of her way!
That brand new diesel cab looks pretty beat up.
I don't know the date of this, but wasn't Fred Davis on CBC's The National at one time?
Actually, he was host of "Front Page Challenge" for years.
Thank you, NFB, for sharing this!
Poor editing 9:30 They should be showing thengine's controls and meters while the men are talking about it.
where is this and year?
my grandpa used to work for the railroad in the offices but it was the railroad idk which one but he lived in san romona ca so it was proble southern pacific but idk