Our latest update displays meter-gauge French steam in all its splendor, with a selection of pix from an open day at the Chemin de fer de la Baie du Somme, located on the Channel Coast below Calais. While this charming operation may be totally obscure to most Americans, it is one of the best-preserved examples of the narrow-gauge secondary lines that once helped to fill in the railway map of Europe.

In addition, we have stumbled on a large collection of steam-era builders' photos, primarily from Baldwin, in the family archives (we originally reported that they were Alco, but it turns out we misremembered the contents). We have commenced scanning these and will post them, a few at a time, as a regular feature of the REA.

The drama of the runaway train is an enduring theme in the movies. From the beginning of cinema, films such as Buster Keaton's The General, the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor farce Silver Streak, and of course, Runaway Train, have centered around the the powerful image of a roaring steel juggernaut, with no hand on the throttle, careening to a picturesque destruction. We've seen many versions of this story and most are riddled with technical errors, but hey, we'll overlook a few mistakes if they help to move the story along.

We cannot, however, overlook the absurdities presented as fact by NBC in its May sweeps-week offering, Atomic Train. The two-part telefilm, starring Rob Lowe, concerns efforts to stop a "runaway train" (and which just happens to be carrying a smuggled Russian nuclear weapon) from accidently blowing up Denver. The premise is silly to begin with, but as an ex-railroader, we were highly annoyed by the number of malicious falsehoods masquerading as fact, that seemed designed to paint modern freight railroading as a public menace.

The film begins with a montage of news footage showing various freight and passenger accidents from the past twenty years. The message is clear: trains routinely jump the tracks at high speed, causing massive death and destruction. Viewers are given no clue that several of the accidents shown were caused by external factors, including two well-known Amtrak derailments that were caused, respectively, by sabotage of the track and failure of a bridge after a barge collided with it. Likewise not mentioned is the fact that passenger railroading in the United States is by far the safest mode of travel.

The very next sequence, which has nothing to do with the main plot, shows a supposed near-miss in which a school bus loaded with children is nearly flattened by a freight. Here the producers clearly indicate that the problem lies not with the driver of the bus (who, for heaven's sake, manages to stall it in the middle of a grade crossing) but with the crew of the train, and their equipment, including a supposed 'sticking throttle'.

And that's just the first five minutes. In the first episode alone, we witnessed so many factual errors as to completely negate the basic premise of the film. We wonder how many of our readers noticed these howlers, large and small :

1. In the opening sequence involving the school bus, the engineer of the freight complains about a 'sticky throttle'. The throttle of a diesel-electric locomotive controls current flow to the traction motors, and with no mechanical linkage, it is highly unlikely that the throttle lever would stick.

2. For that matter, the engineer doesn't even attempt to use the brakes to slow the train.

3. The train containing the smuggled nuke is supposedly a priority manifest running from somewhere in Utah to Denver, yet there are only about six cars in the consist, all conveniently (for the plot) loaded with dangerous materials. One of the cars is a gondola loaded with oil drums containing some presumably hazardous substance, with none of the drums tied down or otherwise blocked in place. A real railroad would be unlikely to accept such a load for transport.

4. According to the story, this single-track line, operating through mountainous territory, has nothing running on it except the aformentioned six-car freight, plus one other manifest running behind it in the same direction. No opposing trains at all in 300 miles. How do they generate enough revenue to pay for maintenance?

5. Another revenue sink: the train has a five-man crew and sports a caboose. Most major railroads have operated their trains with two-man crews since sometime in the '80's; the caboose, sadly, is history in most locations.

6. The circumstances under which the train becomes a runaway are completely incomprehensible. Apparently, chemicals dripping onto the air line running under one of the cars cause the hoses between two of the cars (i.e. elsewhere in the train) to part; this event causes something (it's never explained what) in the lead locomotive to overload and catch fire. All this somehow results in the brake air pressure bleeding off, rendering the brakes inoperable. The writer of this nonsense doesn't seem to realize that a) the locomotive has two independent air brake systems, one for the train and one for the locomotive alone, and b) that railroad air brakes are set by pressure reduction (the parting of the air hose and resulting pressure loss would put the brakes into emergency). We grant that a complete loss of air pressure would make the train brakes inoperable, but in the scenario shown here, the brakes would have set, with air pressure remaining in at least part of the train, before this ever happened.

7. OK, so, for whatever reason, the air brakes don't work. What about the hand brakes, which equip every single car and locomotive used in interchange service in the country? The many shots of the crew standing around the brake wheel of the caboose, discussing what they might do to stop the train, had us weeping with laughter.

8. We've established that the persons involved with this production know nothing about railroading, but are they completely ignorant of geography too? We are asked to believe that a train that starts out in eastern Utah, a train which must cross several mountain ranges and the Continental Divide, can roll freely all the way to Denver, Colorado without stopping. If this were the case, one wonders why the railroad would bother to use locomotives at all.

9. Despite the presence of five experienced railroaders on board the "runaway", the plot requires stalwart Rob Lowe of the National Transportation Safety Board to commandeer a set of locomotives (boarding from a helicopter while the locos careen down the track, no less) and try to couple onto the "runaway" from behind. Here, we are told that that the making of a simple coupling, a maneuver done many thousands of times a day in yards everywhere, is a highly delicate operation that takes several tries to get right. And once the hapless engineer finally does tie on to the train, at the slightest application of the brakes the massive weight of the "runaway" (all, what, 600 tons of it? Many freights total 10,000 tons or more) yanks the knuckle right out of the coupler.

10. Lowe next leaps onto the caboose platform (from which, moments before, one of the crew fell to his death) and, making his way forward, attempts to stop the train by poking a crowbar into some 660-volt relays in the electrical cabinet of the lead locomotive. It is unclear what this is supposed to accomplish, nor why Lowe is not instantly electrocuted for his troubles. Miracle of miracles, this harebrained tactic causes the brakes on all the cars to lock on, even though they are air-operated and there is supposedly no air pressure. In an aside, the "runaway's" engineer mumbles something about "shorting out the electrical gear to lock the hydraulic brakes", which makes no sense at all. Trains don't have hydraulic brakes.

How did this embarrassment, which reads like the daydreams of a poorly-informed adolescent, ever get on the air? We have to wonder what NBC thought they were doing here. Was Atomic Train rushed into production without editorial review? Was this a misguided attempt to promote environmental politics? Most of all, was there a technical adviser with railroad experience for this production? Somehow we doubt it.

For more info on Atomic Train, see the Internet Movie Database

As everyone in the Northeast knows by now, June 1 marks the takeover of the bulk of Conrail (CR) by Norfolk Southern (NS) and CSX. With generally excellent weather this spring, railfans have been making their way trackside to document the last few weeks of CR. Many also lament the passing of yet another railroad into ever-larger, and ever-fewer megasystems.

Emotions are running highest over the the fact that one of the takeover partners is NS, with many railfans treating the issue as Darth Vader defeating the Rebel Alliance. While some of the disdain for NS undoubtedly has to do with the machinations of their attempt to buy CR, most apparently turns on a single factor: those damn black locomotives.

Yes, of all the issues that may stoke the fires of indignation over the splitting up of CR, the one that really seems to get our goats is having to look at that drab Norfolk Southern scheme. But is it really so bad? Conrail's institutional blue and that silly 'can opener' loco have never been considered classics of the genre. At least NS keeps their locomotives clean. And hey, weren't most locomotives black at one time? Yeah, we know, that was back in steam days.

So what's all the fuss about? Well, some of this may be due to bad memories of the Penn Central era, but we think that the crux of the issue is technical: black locomotives increase the difficulty of obtaining interesting and properly exposed railroad photographs.

It was not always this way. Until about ten years ago, the majority of railfan photography was in black and white, and although some of today's most respected photogs still work in that medium, the vast majority now use color slide films. Obviously part of the anti-black backlash is frustration over what some photographers would consider the waste of tonal range, but there is more to it than that. Determining the correct exposure for a black object is difficult, more so when the background is particularly light or dark. Moreover, black just doesn't seem to go well with the dark green foliage found in the East during spring and summer. No matter how carefully composed and lit, pictures of NS diesels against a green backdrop seem to make us go all queasy. Finally, the cleanliness of NS power actually works against photography, as details just seem to disappear into that glossy non-color. For photographic purposes, it would actually be better if NS would let the paint oxidise and fade a bit.

So what are our choices? Ignore NS? That's what many fans do anyway. While we haven't tried to take a count, we believe that one will find far fewer photographs of Norfolk Southern trains in the railfan publications, than for any other major railroad. But turning one's back on one of the country's largest railroads is not really an answer. Photograph NS only in black and white? We wouldn't be against it, but many would.

How about one small change, one that would cost NS perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars a year to implement, but return untold riches in goodwill? Keep the white 'thoroughbred' logo, but return to the deep blue of early Norfolk and Western diesels, or the green of the Southern. Either of these choices could turn NS's image from an abomination to a classic. How much extra can a bit of color cost anyway?

We are sure that some of our visitors have been wondering whether we were ever going to get around to updating this site, but we are just now getting settled after several months of turmoil that have made it difficult to perform routine updates. We think, however, that the worst is over.

Following hard on the heels of our February relocation from France to the States, we have moved once again, to, er, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philly. We remain within shouting distance of Conrail's Harrisburg Line, and have noted a weedy ex-Reading branch that runs just behind our property and requires further investigation. Oops, there goes that deadline again...