Clear Iron, 1950s

[Music] In only a century and a quarter, our civilization, huddled along sea coasts and the shores of rivers, has moved along steel rails to the conquest of the great rich virgin American heartland. Rails carried the tools to carve a new empire, richer and more powerful than any history is known. And Rails brought the hardhanded, dreamdriven men to create the new cities. From the great marshalling yards, the trains go forth, weaving a network of parallel rails 4t 8 1/2 in apart and a quarter of a million miles long. Mighty stainless steel giants now span the country from the bustle of the industrial areas of the east across the entire continent through the frightening grandeur of the Rockies. In minutes passengers go comfortably through mountains it took many men many painful years to pierce. And the toil and genius which penetrated the rocky spine of the continent brought the two oceans closer together and made of the land lying between one [Music] country. Each day to each American city. The freight brings food and warmth and luxuries. And the streamliner brings new men and new ideas and new [Music] growth. A train is a machine. It is made by men in factories. But as America grows, the jobs the train must do keep changing and the problems they create increase. Today, it's better engineering for more speed. Vista domes for a full view. More efficiency, more safety, more comfort. Each year a train must do more and do it better. And now a new tool. A car of stainless steel which is its own train carrying its own power. Self-contained, compact, and flexible. The engines move easily in or out for simpler maintenance. The car can go anywhere. operate where the transcontinental giants could not do so [Music] economically. Spur lines abandoned because of the pressure of economics have reopened. Rights of way which for years have seen only an occasional local freight are busy again. Better service, new jobs. So the rail diesel car has in a short time fitted itself to every varied vista, every contrasting horizon. From the waving corn fields of the Ohio River Basin to the endless miles of the desert, from the round hills of New England to the exotic scenes of Southern California, throughout the entire American expanse, there's a new way for men to travel. [Music] The new and the old rail diesel car crosses the oldest railroad bridge in the country. [Music] The New Haven has a line to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where the marine biology laboratory is and where the ferry comes in from Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. [Music] Summers, trains of these cars travel regularly from Boston to stop at the ferry slip. But even when the vacationers have gone home, single units still provide the yearrounders with good service. [Music] [Music] down among the piny sand dunes of South Jersey. The Pennsylvania Reading Seashore runs a threecar unit into Tuck. Both engines are running in each car and the three pull smoothly into the station. The train is split without endless backing and switching. One train moves in two directions, east and south, and two schedules are met. All over the country, the abandoned spurs are reviving again under the impact of this new method of travel. The grass which grew wild between the rails is being pushed back [Music] again. Of late, the traditional American restlessness has taken a new form in a great movement away from the cities. Our tradition says we're a rural people, but the facts of our industrial life make us urban. So, we compromise. Whoever can moves out to the country while continuing to work in the city. Thus, the great American phenomenon, the commuter. Leaving the city from work every evening in search of his private little bit of green, up early every morning to travel the long way back to the city again and the place where he earns his living. Oh yes, we say, but it's worth the inconvenience. And then, not being a terribly logical people, we turn around and demand that there be no inconvenience. We demand more speed, more trains, more comfort and safety, which the railroads must provide, or else. And the railroads often do provide. They have long learned it is better to keep their passengers happy than to lose [Music] them. American rails have always depended more on the goods they carry than on the people they move. The development of the one car train has taken this into careful account and where required combination cars carry mail and express as well as passengers. [Music] This is Utah. Not far from here is Promontory Point where the east first met the west by rail. And on May 10th, 1869, gold and silver spikes were driven into the ties of the first transcontinental railroad. But history always builds its shrines and abandons them. The train no longer go through Promontory, but cut right across the Great Salt Lake. The tracks with the gold and silver spikes have been torn up. History is fine, but only the new pays [Music] off. The California Zephyr tying the Midwest to the Pacific. and the Zepharet traveling the same rails on a different mission. Not to bind together two halves of a mighty country, but to serve the small towns and way stations that lie between our large cities. The restless wheels America are now on one car, moving swiftly and surely through a thousand miles of deserted vastness to small places where it fills the needs of a few people. America is growth and movement, striving and expansion. Its rails are its symbol, providing paths for its wandering, unifying its diversities. But even a symbol must adapt. As each day is met on its own terms, the rails are kept shiny by constant use, and the signal on ahead is clear iron. Heat. Heat. [Music]