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WhiteRiverProductions.com 26 NOVEMBER 2015 • RAILFAN.COM


Does your organization publish a calendar? Send it to RAILFAN & RAILROAD for possible in- clusion in this section. We will be accepting 2016 calendars through November 15, 2015. To have your calendar considered, send to Calendar Call, RAILFAN & RAILROAD, P.O. Box 554, Andover, NJ 07821. Be sure to include ordering information. The Minnesota Rail Calendar 2016 is available from the Northstar Railway Histor- ical Society. This all-color calendar has scenes of Minnesota’s railroads past and present in- cluding Chicago & North Western C44-9Ws in snowy Owantonna; North Shore Scenic Rail- road’s ex-Erie Mining F9A No. 4211 switching hoppers at Rices Point in Duluth at sunset; Twin Cities Rapid Transit streetcars passing the Great Northern station in St. Paul; a GN SD9 and caboose at the Grand Rapids depot; former Twin Cities Rapid Transit streetcars with a historic bus at the Minnesota Trans- portation Museum; a Northern Pacific doo- dlebug on a fantrip at Brainard; Amtrak’s Empire Builder passing the tower at Newport behind an A-B set of Burlington E8s; North- ern Pacific’s North Coast Limited at the GN station in Minneapolis; Milwaukee Road 4-8- 4 No. 261 smoking it up at Norwood on the Twin Cities & Western; TC&W’s St. Paul Turn at Orchard Park; a Minnesota Com- mercial B36-7 running long-hood forward at Bald Eagle; and a pair of Canadian Pacific ES44ACs powering a freight through a snowy scene at Red Wing. The calendar is available for $21.50 to Minnesota residents (includes tax) or $20.50 for others (both prices include shipping) from Northstar Railway Histori- cal Society, P.O. Box 120832, New Brighton, MN 55112. More information is available at www.MnRailCal.com.


Book Reviews


Hollywood’s Railroads, Volume 1: Virginia & Truckee by Larry Jensen; Cochetopa Press, 801 E. 1st Street, Suite B, #153, Cle Elum, WA 98922; www.CochetopaPress.biz; Cochetopa- Press@yahoo.com; 72 pages, softcover, b&w and color photos; $24.95 includes shipping. Trains have always been a large part of the movies turned out by Hollywood, and this was especially true during the golden age of movies. This new se- ries from Larry Jensen and Cochetopa Press gives a comprehensive look at the trains that served the movie indus-


try, starting with the Virginia & Truckee in this first volume. Movies utilizing V&T equipment were shot


both in studio backlots starting with “High Wide and Handsome” starring Randolph Scott in 1937 and on the V&T itself with “Chicken Every Sunday” starring Natalie Wood in 1949. Along the way, dozens of movies and televi- sion episodes featured V&T’s rolling stock. The book opens up with a brief two-page


overview of Hollywood and the railroads, followed by a brief overview of the history of the V&T, getting right into its role in mov- ies. It all starts when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer


inquires about V&T 4-4-0 No. 12, Genoa, in 1935; alas, MGM decided against purchasing the locomotive, but Paramount Pictures came calling two years later for the aforementioned Randolph Scott film and wound up buying 4-4-0 No. 22, Inyo. Subsequent sections of the book describe


the Inyo being moved to Hollywood where it was joined by 4-4-0s No. 11, Reno, and No. 18, Dayton, along with 2-4-0 No. 21, J.W. Bowker. Ample coverage is given to Cecil B. DeMille’s classic historic film “Union Pacific.” A sidebar looks at Mickey Rooney’s train films. Studios were always leasing their sound-


stages and equipment to other studios, so the V&T locomotives under the control of Para- mount soon found themselves in demand for others’ projects. The next movie to get a lot of coverage is MGM’s “Harvey Girls” featur- ing Inyo. Other movies given spotlight treat- ment are “Duel in the Sun” and “Whispering Smith,” while shorter sections look at movie backlots, various actors, on-location settings, and more. The book continues to follow the V&T locomotives into retirement for some, while others continued into television. A sec- tion on the television show “The Wild Wild West” (starring Robert Conrad) reveals that all the railroad footage for the series’ four- year run was shot in only three months. Also of note is that Inyo was renumbered to 8 so the film could be printed backwards, doubling the amount of stock footage available. The book is illustrated with numerous pho- tographs, mostly in black & white, showing many of the incarnations of the V&T locomo- tives as they went through a variety of fic- tional railroads for various movies. Of special interest is the film list in the back of the book that lists the dozens and dozens of movies and television shows the V&T locomotives ap- peared in — it’s an impressive number, rang- ing from the 1937 film right up to the series “Legends and Lies” featuring No. 11 in 2015. This is the first book of a planned six-book


series. Volume 3 is currently available, cover- ing the Colorado narrow gauge railroads. Vol- ume 2 is almost finished, profiling the Sierra Railroad. Volume 4 will cover various studio backlots, while the final two volumes will look at various tourist railroads and museums that have been used for movies. The V&T vol- ume is an interesting glimpse at a colorful era of railroading. Check the publisher’s website for information on the other volumes as they become available. — STEVE BARRY


Chicago Streetcar Pictorial: The PCC Car Era 1936-1958, CERA Bulletin 146 by Jeffrey L. Wien and David Sadowski with Bradley Criss as Photo Editor; Central Electric Railfans’ As- sociation, P.O. Box 503, Chicago, IL 60690; www.cera-chicago.org; 312/987-4391; 448 pag- es, hardbound, over 600 illustrations, $70.00 postage included (USA) plus sales tax where ap- plicable. Your loyal and trust-


worthy reviewer here has never been accused of being short on words so this is absolutely a first for me. I don’t even know what to say here except a whole bunch of


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