AV Geeks Lunch 5-9-2025

Hello, this is Skip. Welcome to the AV Geeks Lunchtime streaming show where we watch old 16 mm films. And I'm on a train going from Raleigh to Charlotte. And uh today we're going to watch a bunch of films about trains. How about that? Uh, so we're going to watch um Fred McLad's album of Steam Engine, Steam locomotives, uh, which has captured sound, but I don't think it's actually was captured at the same time that they shot the film. Uh, Fred was a amateur filmmaker who sold a lot of footage to Blackhawk and other entities, uh, and was a big train enthusiast. Then we're going to watch Railroad Engineer. Um, no, actually, I'm sorry. We're going to watch Railroad Station. Then we're going to watch uh Passenger Train, uh, Railroad Engineer, and then finally uh, The Troop Train. So, these are all films either from the AV Geeks archive, National Archive, Pinger Archive, or Go Archive. So, um, here's the train. If you want to see, we just left Berlin. Um, my laptop is about to die and the outlets they provide on here um don't work. So, and also the Wi-Fi is not good enough to support live streaming. So, that's why you're getting a recording. Anyways, everybody have a great Friday and uh we will see you next week. Everybody take care. Bye. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hello. Hey. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Yeah. Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Someone's going away on a trip. The traveler is Bobby Watson. He's going out west all by himself to spend his vacation on Uncle Ray's ranch. And while Bobby gets all scrubbed and polished, cleaned, and combed, down in the railroad yards, his train is being showered, soaked, and steamed all at the same time. Before every trip, passenger cars are pulled through an automatic washing machine where they're scrubbed and polished until they shine. The big diesel electric locomotives, already cleaned and oiled, wait to be called for work. In another part of the railroad yard, fresh linen and towels are put on the train and food for the dining cars where the passengers will eat while they ride. The Watsons live in a big city. Just now, Bobby and his father are coming to the station in a taxi. Some passengers arrive on foot, some in cars, and some by bus. The station is a busy place. Many trains come and go in this station. The bulletin board shows what time each train should arrive and leave and whether it's on time or late. At the baggage counter, people may check their bags and suitcases to be carried in a special baggage car. Mr. Watson prefers to carry Bob's suitcase right onto the train. There are stores and news stands in the station, too. Bob thinks a magazine may help to pass the many hours on the trip. Let's go, says Mr. Watson. The sign tells him where to go. Passengers pass through this gate to get to their train. Each passenger shows his ticket to the gateman so that the gateman can be sure that each passenger gets on the right train. Track number one, says the gateman to Bobby. Here's Bob's train all put together, ready for theers. In the rear is the observation car. As he walks by, Bob wonders if he can ride in it. Yes, says his father. But first, we must find your seat on the train. The engineer and his helper are climbing aboard the big engine. They're all set for the trip. Here's Bob's car. The porter takes his baggage. Mr. Watson asks the conductor to keep an eye on Bob because this is his first train trip alone. On a board. You're on your own now, he says. The engineer gets the go-ahad signal. He opens the throttle. The huge locomotive sets the train in motion. Slowly. At first, the signal light is green. The road is clear. Through the railroad yards, the train travels slowly. Bob's riding in a small room of his own called a rum. It has a comfortable seat in the daytime and can be turned into a bedroom at night. A wardrobe is built into the wall of the rumat and a wash basin. Bob sees a neighbor open the wash basin. The tracks gradually lead out of town and join the main line. The engineer watches every road sign carefully. The safety of the passengers is in his hands. Traveling in a rummet is comfortable. Tickets, please. Bob has two tickets, one for the train trip and another one for his place in the rum. The Pullman conductor gets the rumette ticket. The train conductor returns half of the roundtrip ticket to Bob to use when he travels back home again. Now Bob can go and explore the train. On his way, Bob first passes through a chair car. Many people like to ride in chair cars like this one, especially for short trips. It costs less and is quite comfortable. The attendant tells Bob that the observation car is three cars farther back. On his way, Bob sees the dome car, a car with a roof of glass. Through the glass dome, the passengers can watch the landscape all around them. Here is the observation car. Now Bob understands why it's at the rear end of the train. While the passengers relax and enjoy their trip, many people work to keep them safe and comfortable. In the train kitchen, cooks prepare meals for the 200 passengers. Now, the train's hurrying through farm [Music] country. At lunchtime, the waiter rings chimes to tell the passengers to come to the dining car. In a moving train, waiters have to learn to keep good balance when serving food. Many people leave their coach seats to go to the dining car. A dining car is like a traveling restaurant. Here, while they eat their meals, the passengers can enjoy the moving landscape. For passengers who don't want a big meal, this train has a lunch car. Bob has ordered a sandwich for lunch and a glass of milk. And while he eats his sandwich, the train is approaching a [Music] station. It's just a small one, but it's important for the train crew because here the engineer and his helper are leaving the train and a new crew takes over. This way the train has arrested engineer every few hours. Say, "Hey, look who's here. This is Clyde." Bob has company. Now the boys can watch the landscape together, and they can talk about the things they've seen on the trip so far. Bob tells Clyde about the ranch he's going to visit. After a while, they decide to go to the observation car where they can play checkers. In good company, the afternoon passes quickly. The boys don't even notice that the sun is gradually setting. It's already bedtime for small children. This room is larger than Bobby's and is called a bedroom. Already the evening meals are being [Music] served. While the train speeds into the dusk, the porter prepares beds for his passengers. The shadows grow longer and the countryside [Applause] darkens. Guided by signposts and signals which tell the engineer the safe speed at which he may travel, the train speeds toward the sunset. One by one, the lights go out and the passengers go to sleep. This is how a passenger goes to rest in a rat prepared for the night. Now it's morning again. Uncle Ray's ranch is just across the mountain range, but the train won't have to climb over it. The tracks are cut into the sides of the mountain. And sometimes the train goes through the mountain itself, through a tunnel, or it rushes across rugged country, over bridges and trestles. "Are you ready?" asked the Pullman conductor. Bob will get off at a small station where the train stops only for a moment, but he's all packed and ready. [Music] Come on, Bobby. Here we [Music] are. The porter carries a step for passengers so that they can get off the high cars easily. And as he had promised Mr. Watson, the Pullman conductor sees Bobby off the train. Here's Uncle Ray shouting, "Hi there, cowboy." The long ride is over. Uncle Ray's Jeep is waiting. The train starts off again, and off goes Bob to the ranch, to new adventures with cowboys and horses. But the train goes on, on across more mountains, more valleys. across desert country until it reaches its destination, California. [Music] [Music] In America today, the heart of railroading lies in the mighty diesel electric locomotives that make the railroads go. This one is new, just out of the factory and ready to roll, being tested before delivery. These huge power plants on wheels are called locomotives by the men who make [Music] them. To the rest of us, they're simply engines. And in the lore of American railroading, the men who drive them are still called engineers. But the men who design these big prime movers are professionals, university trained mechanical engineers whose specialty is the design and construction of locomotives. Anderson Mazoka of Zambia is a professional engine building engineer. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Anderson Campbella Mazoka, 25, came from his home in Lusaka, Zambia, to study mechanical engineering at Union College in Skenctity, New York. He graduated in 1969 and went to work at the General Electric Company's locomotive plant in Erie, Pennsylvania. Here he will learn the practical aspects of engine building and eventually railroad operation. General Electric has been building locomotives since 1893. But the needs of railroading throughout the world change and engineers like Mr. Mazoka and his colleagues must adapt the mechanical design of the locomotives. Now the boss wants us to lower that engine. So what you have to do is find out what that angle is and find a device or a coupling that will be able to drive that required horsepower. But we we can't restrict this area. You can move the radiator down and still have plenty of area to discharge the air. Well, what do you say about the exhaust tax here? And you think that if we raise it too high, you might have little but you know limited room here to blow out the air. The story of an engineer I think the way I look at it is where you start from the paper paperwork and then you gone to the hardware and you put this hardware together and in the final stage you have an equipment that's running like the locomotive and that's I think the greatest theory we have and that locomotive after you've done it is going to do a purpose that's going to serve the community and the people. My duty as an engineer is to advance the technology of the country and I am looking forward to put all my force and all my energy in developing the technology of my country by the way of the railroads. The time Mr. Mazoka spends in the shops at the General Electric plant is as important to him as working on locomotive design. The job of putting these giants together is one that takes equipment as powerful as the locomotives [Applause] themselves. But many delicate machine operations are involved in construction and assembly. The engineer must understand and design for the skills of workmen and the limitations of machines with which his locomotives will be [Music] manufactured. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] engines like men wear out. Old locomotives come to the factory to die. Once proud survivors worn with years of service, they hauled passengers and freight from coast to coast and border to border over the network of rails that covers the United States. Now they stand waiting to be scrapped for whatever salvage value might be left in them while new ones roll out of the factory to take their place. [Music] I love to see a locomotive that, you know, putting pieces together and see them run and serve a purpose. And at the same time from my own experience a locomotive is a prime move of goods which are so vital to the economy of the country and for that reason I find that's one of the exciting things the amount of load you can move on a you know by use of locomotives is so large compared to any other means of transportation. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] In the United States alone, almost 400 billion ton miles of freight a year travel by railroad. To meet the increased demand for more goods, the railroads have had to adopt new methods. 19 [Music] Jacks say that again. Here at the Penn Central Railroad Freight Yard near Albany, New York, technology controls mechanics. Electronic equipment and computers do the work of men. [Music] Cars are automatically identified, weighed, and switched to any one of more than 60 tracks in the yard, leaving little for men to do but check the process, making sure that equipment is operating as it should. [Music] [Applause] One thing hasn't changed. The locomotive is still the backbone of railroading. Although they may all look alike, each one is designed for a special job. Some are for pulling passenger trains, others long freights over mountains. Still others just to switch cars around the yard. [Music] Equipment is important and so are the goods that are carried, but nothing is more important than the men who operate the equipment. They keep the railroads going wherever they run. here in America or in Africa as in the Zambian National Railroads where Mr. Mazoka plans to [Music] [Laughter] return. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Move the train back the other way. Go ahead. For Anderson Mazoka and his family, Eerie, Pennsylvania is a temporary home until he can return to Zambia and participate in the growth and operation of its railroad system. How pretty. Where are you going now? My daughter's name is Machen. Machen Florence Mazoka. The name Machen comes from our family. It was the name of my my aunt and the name Florence this is the name of my homestead mother. So when I come to this country who stay with the family for two weeks or so before he go to college and in honor of the lady of the house I decided to name my daughter Florence. Well, it's time to go to bed. It's time to go to bed. Come here. Come here. No, not on the couch. Dad is going to change his mind. Okay. I don't think we're going to get out of bed tonight. The world is changing and technology is changing. The more education you have, the better you're off. Now, for instance, the college degree I got in mechanical engineering is good enough for the present. But if you to look in the future as far as technology is concerned, a graduate study is quite a necessity. And that's why I thought that if in this spare time I have like after work I should go to school and get as much knowledge as I can. And as technology looks to the future so do the engineers and designers with a sketch. And what we have here is one of the first ideas uh for a new locomotive. Uh if we can step over here a minute. Uh, as you can see up here on the on the board, uh, this locomotive, Andy, is a U50, uh, which we made about 5 years ago. Uh, of some of the locomotives that we've made in the past, probably one of the one you're really interested in would be this Zambian locomotive. Did you design the colors? Yes. Uh when we were originally proposing uh locomotives to your railroad, uh I made colored sketches very similar to these here. You mean and we uh we picked and followed your national colors in order to uh uh come up with a nice design in our uh Moskegan straight electric locomotive is shown in this picture here. Mhm. Uh, we do have an operator's cab, although it's it's not really used because this locomotive is automatic. Railroads have been in existence for almost a century and a half. In this day of moon rockets, they may seem old-fashioned, but they are, as they will continue to be for a long time, the only effective carrier of large quantities of goods and people. And under the guidance of inspired and experienced men like Anderson Mazoka of Zambia, they will continue to respond to the challenge of the future. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hello, Fort Morris, California. Lieutenant, the westbound movement will be made by Chicago, Denver, and Salt Lake City. The transportation officer at Miami, Florida says 47 flat cars are spotted now. You've got the green light. Report when you clear Cleveland. Hello, operator. I have a call in for Seattle. This is a hot move. Give it a high priority. I just talked to San Antonio, Texas, and train number 21778 left the camp at 11:05 a.m. Colonel Fitz, uh, will you please carry these orders into effect? Yes, sir. This is Colonel Fitz, Army Ground Forces. The commanding general has decided to move the 20st Armored Division by rail. Alert traffic control and everyone concerned. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat up [Music] here. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] 1 2 3 1 [Music] Hey, hey, [Music] hey. [Music] Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] May have your attention, men. There's going to be three men in each section asleeping tonight. Two in the lower birth and one in the upper birth. What are you find out tonight, boys? We're pulling out now, men. So, at ease. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Attention men. We're stopping at the next station. Be ready to get off. [Music] Thank you. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, what was going on up here? That's why you got to sleep tonight. Hey, are you [Music] kidding? Hey, what's that? The best. Where'd he get it? Come to [Music] him. Attention men. Anyone I catch smoking in the Perths will get KP for the whole trip. Is that clear? [Music] What? Can you tell me where this train is going? No sir, soldier. That's one thing I'm now allowed to kill. I think we headed to San Francisco because now we are in Tennessee. Nah, Tennessee is not there. It's down [Music] here. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music]