Producer: Pentrex
Locations: Donner Pass, Tehachapi, Roseville, Great Salt Lake…
Timeframe: 1952- 1973
Length: 54 minutes
Pentrex has assembled archive footage of various mishaps on Southern Pacific.
A single DVD. Push play or Chapter Menu. Promos. David Drui narrates most of the show.
Widescreen image. Color, plus black and white films. Musical background on the silent reel portions.
The Chapters are presented as collection of movie shorts. Hence, this review shall follow the pattern.
Eel River Canyon 1964
South Fork Bridge is partially destroyed. Note the logs on the surviving spans. Around 100 miles of trackage was damaged. Helicopter tour of the line. A 2nd tour of reconstruction.
Recovery of the 8946. 1971
Donner Pass. Morrisen- Knudsen was tasked with recovering wrecked Railroad equipment. An SD45 is pulled upright. The badly damaged locomotive is dragged up the mountainside. 8946 was rebuilt.
Great Salt Lake Trestle Fire. 1956
The Lucin Cut-off. Focus is on the rebuilding process.
Earthquake on San Joaquin Division. 1952
Tehachapi line. Bealville to Cliff. A separate vintage film. Different narration. Powerful earthquake. Interior tunnel damage seen. Tunnels were repaired, daylighted and closed. Tunnel 4 is blocked by landslide. This tunnel was daylighted. Major reconstruction in Tehachapi area is shown.
Traffic was moving again. Only 25 days later.
Flooding along Rio Grande. 1954
A vintage movie short. Producer was Southern Pacific. Narrated by Taylor Branch. Typical 1950s official railroad movie short. Hurricane Alice damage near Del Rio, Texas. Sunset Limited was stranded. Reconstruction.
The rebuilding of the line is featured.
Two days later. Southern Pacific recovered from another Weather related devastation.
Roseville Yard Explosions. 1973
KCRA with Mike Bord news special report. Extensive information on the 7 boxcars carrying bombs. Live footage of explosions. Town of nearby Antelope was destroyed. The Roseville Yard was rebuilt in six days.
Tough Times on the Southern Pacific
A collection of six movie shorts. Official Railroad, News Station and Pentrex. Each is a good document of the event.
There are not a bunch of wreck shows in the market. This is a good show of unfortunate incidents on Southern Pacific.
Rating: 4 Stars
American Train Video Reviews 