Jeff -

Obviously an advertisement for some car company. Advising that an illegal ride down the FEC right-of-way and over their track was "OK"! I wonder about the one round trip per day that they mentioned. Was that a passenger train round trip? What about freights? Interesting short clip though of the FEC 4-8-2 on one of the viaducts (I didn't catch the engines number).

This gets me to thinking again about how a short stretch of using one of those original viaducts with a genuine FEC engine and replicated train would be an historic addition to the railroad preservation story and especially the story of the Florida Keys.

Thanks for finding and posting this.

Les

While that's a neat idea and it would look very cool, it would only look cool for a VERY short while. I can't imagine a worse environment to try to preserve anything made out of steel.

Probably an ad for a tire and schock absorber company.
Nice shot of a pretty 4-8-2 though.

The car looked like a 1935 model, possibly a Chevrolet. That would make the movie date back to right around the time hurricane damage put the railway line out of service permanently.

Hugh -

Maybe. But I would forsee a climate controlled enginehouse/shop where the steamer and two or three coaches would spend their "non-working" hours, only out in the atmosphere when running. It's interesting that the Florida East Coast was an all-Florida railroad yet six of their steamers still exist. At least part of their lives had to be in that salt laden atmosphere.

Les

Oh, I thought you meant a static display. Yea, a working section of the railroad with a building to store the equipment when not in use would be very cool. The Key West portion of the route was truly an amazing piece of engineering.

A friend of mine spent some time in Key West a few years back and brought me back a spike he found in the surf near one of the FEC bridges. I sat it on my "collectibles" shelf and it has pretty much completely disintegrated since then. Judging from what I've read about the preservation of the Hunley I would have been much better off to put it in the refrigerator in a container of fresh water that I changed periodically. After a year or two of that it might have stayed in one piece sitting on my shelf.

The same intermodal stunt was also done on the Alpine Division of Pacific Electric Rwy. near the top of Mt. Lowe, Calif. There are photos, but I'm not sure about a movie.

A good source of FEC history is Seth Bramson's book Speedway to Sunshine It contains extensive info on the overseas railroad.

Bill

Regarding the Mt. Lowe railway auto trip--I recall a segment on this in a video about Mt. Lowe; as I recall, it was filmed by a crew hired by Ford Motor Co. back when they were touting the Model T as the "Universal Car."

Jeff -

I found out that the company that put out this segmemt stating that it was "okay" to ride your car down the Key West extension of the Florida East Coast bouncing over the ties, was Chevrolet. This was only one segment of a number filmed by Chevy in various parts of Florida. The last one featured a bunch of "25 bathing beauties" draped all over the Chevy going slowly down a Miami road. Imagine this kind of advertising today!

Les

I wonder if that clip on the FEC was made before or after this film was put out by Chevrolet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlFxPD5_hNU

Of note is how much railroads were a part of American life in that time that even an auto company would see parallels that would be used in marketing.

Also of note is the actual production company, Jam Handy, which apparently specialized in work like this, including films done for railroads. I wonder what became of it and other such firms over the years.

Jam Handy's New Haven promotional film from the early 1940s, "A Great Railroad At Work." I love the intro, which turned out to be very similar to what I wrote for a never-sold TV series. I guess it's true, great minds think alike! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9gGu97lcbc

I know it's going off topic, but I can't resist including the Max and Dave Fleischer animated short, "Play Safe." Again, this illustrates how much railroads were part of the landscape back then--and also how safety was a concern as well, and still is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgyWhKlH78

Jeff -

Speaking of Pullman's, I believe that in the few film clips I have seen of the Key West extension in operation, Pullman sleeping cars are in evidence. Were these cars on FEC trains from Jacksonville, or was there through service on trains from the north?

Thanks.

Les

And connecting with ferry service to Cuba and ships to other ports. Caya Hueso was big stuff back in those days.

I can't see any likelihood of a new preservation enterprise recreating the extension on the keys in full scale. I think there's ample room at South Campus in the old blimp base if the Gold Coast decides to make that a priority. Whether that is sustainable....I've been gone for so long I have no clue.

There's a lot more Miami that is a lot less specifically Miami than when I was a kid there.

dave

My Dad retured from the Florida department of state lands in 1990s and he told me that the state owns the old RR bridges that weren't taken over by the highways, and they reverted back to state control after the original bridge piers were abandoned in favor of another vridge system for the highway to Key West. There are a lot of gaps in these bridges now for various reasons. You wouldn't get very far with a train, that's for sure. And with environmental regulations in those parts (for example, all the explosions and damage shots from the movie, "True Lies" weren't actually filmed on that bridge at all, they were filmed in other locations and with a lot of model and CGI work), it'd be about as likely as building a new FEC steamer to run on it. I can't imagine the state not laughing loudly at such a suggestion.

Lee -

Laughing loudly? Maybe so. However, the "gaps" in the bridges would be to an advantage for a replicated operation. Going far, wouldn't be the idea. A half mile might well be enough. Remember that today, the Keys mostly live on tourism. Building a new FEC steamer makes no sense. Today the 113 sits in pieces at last report. The 148 appears moribund. Not much heard lately from the group restoring the 253. The original FEC Key West extension probably meant more to the establishment of what the the Keys are today, than any other single historical event. And most tourists have no idea of that history. I agree that nothing will probably ever happen, but that doesn't make me feel sad that it won't.

Les