Category: Videos

Title	Silver Zone Pass
Producer	Railway Productions
Format	DVD Wide Screen
Playing Time	1 Hr 10 Min
Purchased From	RailFanDepot.com
Date Purchased	10/10/12
Price Paid	$24.95

This is the latest addition to my collection of RR DVDs and it is a very, very good video.

“Silver Zone Pass” gives us an excellent look at the northern Nevada portion of the old Western Pacific right of way from Salt Lake City to San Francisco.  Construction on the WP route from Salt Lake City to San Francisco began in 1906 and was completed in 1910.  This is now, of course, Union Pacific trackage, since their purchase of the WP in 1983.  One special treat in the video is the appearnce at about the 47 minute mark of UP 1983, an SD70 ACe painted in the WP heritage scheme.  This loco is used in regular service by the UP on the old WP trackage.

The image quality is superb and the wide screen format really enhances our ability to appreciate the beauty of the Nevada desert and mountains.  For some reason this old WP line in Nevada has been ignored by the video producers; I don’t remember seeing any other videos on this subject in all of the browsing I have done.  In many scenes there is desert in the foreground and snow capped peaks in the background.  This line is traversed at night by both the westbound and eastbound California Zephyrs so that the spectacular scenery of the Sierras can be seen by the passengers in the daylight hours but it is a shame that this scenery cannot also be taken in by those on board.  Yours truly rode this stretch of track as an 11 year old kid in 1960 when I accompanied my sister on one of her round trips from Chicago to San Francisco (Oakland) as a Zephyrette.  I was sound asleep as we rode along these rails.

The journey begins at Burmester, just west of Salt Lake City, and we head west into Nevada until we are just east of Winnemucca.  There is a 42 mile stretch of track across the Salt Flats that is perfectly straight.   We then encounter the Arnold Loop which was constructed in 1914 to reduce the grade up to Silver Zone Pass to 1%.  The summit of Silver Zone Pass is at 5875 feet in elevation.  West of Silver Zone Pass we see the 5675 foot long Hogan Tunnel, Palisade Canyon, and the Humboldt River, and the Carlin Tunnels.

This is a DVD that I will watch again and again.  I highly recommend it.  Nice job, Railway Productions!

 

 

 

 

 

Title	Rotaries, Avalanche on the Mountain
Producer	BA Productions
Format	Wide Screen DVD
Playing Time	1 hr 3 min
Purchased From	TrainVideoDepot.com
Date Purchased	11/2/2011
Price Paid	$27.89

Fellow Railfans, this one is a must for your collection of RR videos!  If the contents of this DVD do not excite you, then you had better check for a pulse.

The location is Donner Pass, where the Union Pacific RR crosses the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the time is late March of 2011.  There has been record snowfall and more snow is coming down.  The battle to keep the rails cleared of snow so that trains can get through is being lost.

At Donner Pass the order of battle is to first deploy the flangers, which are rail cars with belly blades to plow the snow.  The flangers cannot push the snow very far and become ineffective when the snow gets very deep.

When the flangers cannot get the job done, the Jordan spreaders are then deployed.  These machines have enclosed cabs and sport huge front-mounted blades that can be adjusted to throw the snow to either side.  They also have retractable wings that work in conjunction with the blades to push the snow even further from the tracks.  The spreaders are pushed along by trailing locomotives.  For the vast majority of winters, the Jordan speaders are able to keep the rails cleared.

Last to be deployed in the order of battle are the rotary snow plows.  Very rarely a winter will come along in which the snow depth exceeds the capability of the spreaders, and then it is time to call out the rotary snow plows.  In this video we see the rotaries put into service for the first time since 1998, the first time in thirteen years!  What a rare treat!

The rotaries are nothing short of amazing in their ability to remove snow and watching them in operation as they throw snow high into the air is a joy to behold.  We see them in this video clearing snow that appears to be all the way up to the cab.

We are taken inside the cab to ride along with the crew and we are also shown spectacular scenes from outside the rotary as it eats its way through the deep snow.  There are some great night scenes.

You simply cannot go wrong by adding this one to your collection.   This is probably going to be the video that I share with you guys the next time I am scheduled for entertainment but don’t wait for that; get one ordered for yourself.   I promise you, you will watch it over and over again.

 

Title	The Milwaukee Road Volumes I, II, & III Combo DVD
Producer	Pentrex
Format	Full Screen
Playing Time	2 hr 46 min
Purchased From	TrainVideoDepot.com
Date Purchased	8/27/2009
Price Paid	$22.96

If you found Gary Ostlund’s presentation at our March meeting interesting, you will like this DVD. Some of the still pictures in his presentation were taken at the same locations covered in this video.

The video was shot during 1972 and 1973 and the action takes place on the electrified portion of the Milwaukee Road in western Montana and the Idaho Panhandle. The eastern end of the electrified rail was Harlowton, MT, and the western end was Avery, ID. There was another section of electrified rail in Washington State but that was not covered in this DVD.

The image quality is surprisingly good considering the technology of the times in the early 1970s. Digital enhancement was used to great effect on this DVD. The narration is very informative.

We see box cabs, steeple cabs, and Little Joe’s in the video and we are treated to some nice shots of RR action at the tunnels and trestles between the St. Paul Pass Tunnel on the ID-MT border and Avery, ID. This section of right of way has been converted into a bike trail, which I have ridden twice. It is a beautiful area.
You will like this one!