End of the Line

Donnie right trottle Tommy's throttle throttle thank you where you going to throttle to your right to figure out all right is where you've already Prato or you don't be excuse they we're making a film on the end of the steam locomotive going around asking people some people are interested some people are not interested you know if they're sorry to see the steam locomotive goal and the leaves will come is there anything you'd like to say about it no I have nothing to say about it I'm sorry you couldn't it doesn't matter it must make any difference to what what pose is true I think this legend is cleaner you think it's clean it I think people have changed then I mean the steam engine belong to one area and the diesel to another area you have yeah how do you think people changed well I'm not sure people have changed everything's become more streamlined you think it's for the Badger of the worst I think it's a shame I think if we're losing some of the romance or head out of the railroad but what's the Roman system look what do you know a sound that's early working the steam Li there's so many different things that dinner what you don't have at the dee4diesel seems to be something that hasn't got no experience just another mechanical house that you like a diesel bed Oh what about you I like a diesel to diesel diesel - what'd you think of the steam at lunch and then you look at it yeah the one with the big wheels and I think the smoke Gary gets in your face and if you look at the wind or how much fun you think it's all fashion-y is very old-fashioned the age of steam in Canada is over 1955 to 1961 these years marked the end of an era and the end of all the noises and smells and sights that go with it the coal dumps understand pipes associated with the age of steam for more than a hundred years people of the many railway towns across the country Canora Makena Revere Doodle Revelstoke are getting used to new noises diesel is more efficient than steam but some people have mixed feelings about the change okay how many years you worked on the railroads 1980 about 9 1980 1918 you two seen a lot of changes quite a few would you like to say about the old steam locomotive well we still like tamale old-timers ubers like everything else changes had to come and we just got to put up with a change that's all which would you prefer steam or diesel well on our own initiative on our trade we still prefer the same but it's like everything else it's just the same with the old man that like the old horse a muggy you have to finally take over the automobile if you want to cooperate with modern competition what you get to do with it so diesel that well we'll just have to follow on so I'll take it up in on our minds enjoy all along the best we can the beside you see the steam engine go yes one way because we used to work with this team for many years you see because I work for the company for 30 years and I used to be worked with the steam but the diesel is a very good power one way see because very clean and is more don't don't change much because they all employee is still working the same thing you know how do you feel about it yourself just to make your own interest well I feel I feel bad you know one way see because I don't know why can I can explain much in their heyday the old steam engine seemed immortal to a boy 40 years ago they were the most powerful thing he knew 200 tons of Steel tugging grain freights a quarter of a mile long across the prairies now on the sidelines the Mancala not a junk heap but the graveyard as though they think of the steam engine as something that once was alive finally sold as scrap at $40 a ton to end up perhaps as the railings round a park a hundred years of steam a million trips out and back home to the Roundhouse logging trains work trains the annual excursion of the Knights of Pythias the wildflower specials of the old days the milk runs at dawn then each engine maneuvered back into its berth to be ready for another run and sometimes they came back from epic journeys from journeys in the mountain passes where they were trapped by avalanches for days journeys through summer nights to the Seaboard to catch a troopship The Roundhouse was the place where the stories were told and the legends grew and in its last days it is sometimes haunted by those who loved the age of steam the big fascination of an old locomotives like this way well the fascination to me is that these things should endure over so long a period this engine is a very good example of this it was built in 1872 and it's been around now for what 85 87 years it has been able to fit itself into modern railway technology so long as to become a museum piece it's mr. Omer Lavallee of the CPR in Montreal for a century his family has been intimately connected with railroading a photograph taken on his first birthday shows a miniature train circling a cake with the bell of regular old Portland Valkyrie there are people today who have never ridden a train I myself I have I've met youngsters teenagers living today who have never been on a train who know a train only is something that ties them up at a crossing this is unfortunate I think that they've missed something the they missed an experience they've missed becoming acquainted with the prime moving force of civilization I think that well Canada is a very good example Canada wouldn't be Canada without the railway I think Canadians don't appreciate at all how much the railway is meant to Canada without the railway Canada wouldn't I I don't think Canada would be any more of an independent member of the Commonwealth and well some of the smaller African colonies when I was 17 I went on the harvester excursion the Winnipeg mr. Austin cross is a well-known columnist with the Ottawa Citizen family legend holds that the sight of a steam engine when he was a baby called forth his first spoken word it was a wonderful world because he went down ahead you southern couple on new engine saw the old and disappearing for years and years every divisional point was a must with me day or night I get down watch them uncouple the engine put the new amount in the states are in Canada but that little world the mines all gone - now you put an engine on goes to Vancouver and who cares what's up ahead could be a steamroller as far as I'm concerned if it's diesel but there was steam it was always something interesting something vital about it I fear we have we had a special era we have a good century I didn't live at all but we had one good century of locomotives one good century trains it's gone are more or less and then I'm one of the last of the old-timers I guess who still gets a kick out a travel I know I'm going to bump tree on the 21st I'm looking forward that with some enthusiasm I'm going up to Pontiac and by writing the last train the CPR has said that if they could they'd put a steam engine on that day I'm going to wall some 81 miles upon my wife's gonna meet me ain't going to come back but I'm going to ride that last train I ride last I'm I'm The Undertaker and chief Tyrell with around here I buried it quite I buried the Prescott line I bury the brothel in Westport I buried oil I buried the the steam train to Barry's Bay I buried the train from Golden Lake to Pennbrook when I was a rail with these to be buried mind you I would seem to be opening them up but all right so I'm a mortician that's all let's do it I'm not too interested in the diesel they seem like sardine cans or something to me mr. Elden Rathburn has a distinguished canadian composer the numbers I mean them I liken the locomotive to a human being it breathes knit pant and gets old gets rusty gets bald it's like a human being you know you we have setbacks it goes up the hill and it will stop in the back sparks coming it gets mad it grunts snorts if the hisses it belches smoke out and swears maybe a diesel seems to have everything John Wayne oh no struggle it's it's wrong to be sentimental about it because no doubt the diesels are doing a better job but the company's wouldn't have them the cheaper imagine but there's something about the the steam the steam engine it just isn't a passing thing it seems to be a something symbolic about it's hard to explain a lot of people feel this you know a lot of different to these rail fan trips you see people from all walks of life women I was out to the Angus shops a couple years ago watching them I wasn't watching my speaking through there because you're not allowed wasn't allowed in but what seeing the older engines of cotton too you know and maybe it's sentient endless I would love to take one hold of me with this yeah on May the 9th 1959 one of the last team doubleheaders made a run from Belleville Ontario to Bancroft a little over a hundred miles away hundreds of steam fans from Montreal Toronto New England came to catch the look of it and even to record the sounds it made for almost everyone there will be sights and sounds from the age of steam that will quicken the memory but above all I think we will remember the smells the acrid bite of the smoke the fragrance of pine wood and swamp and countryside mixed with the smell of cinder and soot and the smell of the coach's cigar smoke orange peel the indefinable smell of plush above all the passing of the age of steam stirs the memory of men who spent their lives in it well there is nothing more fascinating than sitting in the cab of a locomotive at night particularly if she's handing a good heavy train and it's an experience that once you have had it you never forget it you sit there and look toward the front and see the classification lamps either green or white is it mr. Bob Walker of Montreal was a locomotive design engineer with the Canadian National Railway for more than 40 years being a late piercing out into the darkness to the side the headlight beam shining ahead probably half a mile you look up toward to the stack and there's the stack full of smoke and steam shooting up in the air as the occasional spark with it the vibration under your feet the clatter of the rods the clicking of the firebox door and all these things see me a secret feel that the engine is trying to tell you that she's got a job to do and she's going to do it and you find yourself unconsciously leaning forward as if you were trying to help her and her on the main thing you had to depend on sometime cans of beans mr. George Phillips started as a fireman with the CPR in Moose Jaw in nineteen six and you could always put a can of beans up on the top of the boiler head to get warm the only ways you had to punch a hole in it otherwise it might explode and spatter you scald gin and spoil the interior the cab because we used to have to keep them clean but we used to carry beef tape pork chops bacon eggs cook them in the shovel fry eggs and bacon or beefcake or pork chops just on the Norden area fire travel in the fire did the engineers have their own locomotives in your day yes yes they had their own locomotives and they used to take a lot of pride in keeping him up in good shape and things like that who had to do the punishing on the fireman the firemen had to polish everything inside the cab outside everything above the running board and that was left quite a jog you did that for nothing how did that take oh that would take two hours when the diesels come around what we were feeling about Diesel's my feeling of what the deal were that there are a wonderful piece of mechanism wonderful machine but they didn't appeal to me half as much as the old steam locomotive didn't do the no kimochi is vary from one to another than OS oh yes there was none there were no two were like one would be actually a good locomotive and you might get one the same design and everything that wouldn't be very much good in other words she was a misfit the age of steam left behind it innumerable tall tales and stories that are becoming legends and especially in the early days it gave rise to a lot of homespun poetry passed on often just by word of mouth oh that is the dying lament of engine 444 and drawbar Hollow well I don't know it all but I can remember a little bit of it and its tragedy now that I am old and dying in the scrap heap I am lying had they but used me half as well as they abused my sister I roll along and ring my bell no mogul ever could go faster what about the what about the engineer arriving at pearly gates that one I don't know how old that is or where it came from but no not for quite a long time a railroad man stood at the pearly gates and his face was scarred and old he stood before the man of fate for admission to his fold what have you done son Peter asked to gain admission here I've been an engineer he said for many in many a year the pearly gates swung open widest and Peter touched the bell come right inside and choose your heart you had another hell is that a favorite one well it was a favorite one to me it always appealed to me in some way I don't know why oft when I feel my engine swerve as or strange rails be fair I strain my eyes around the curve for what awaits me there as Swift and free she carries me through yards unknown by night I look along the line to see that all like throw weight the blue light marks the crippled car the green light signals slow the red light is the danger light the white light let her go once more the open fields we roam and in the sky is fair I look up in that scary dome and wonder what's up there for who can speak where those who dwell beyond that curving sky no man has ever lived to tell just what it means to die Swift Ward's life terminal I trend the way seem short tonight god only knows was at the end but I hope the light sir wait the steam locomotive is simple in its elements earth fire air water but by a sort of alchemy these were wrought into a creature that changed the course of history there's something basic and a steam locomotive something human about it I know the locomotive can't speak you know it's just symbolic I think and guess where the it's a machine but I like to think you know that it has a heart you know or I know it hasn't but we put it Oh Oh

Channel: NFB

Views: 614,040

Keywords: NFB, ONF, Office national du film du Canada, End Of The Line (Film), Terence Macartney-Filgate, Train (Transit Vehicle Type), Locomotive (Product Category)

Id: qg9_TnwrCXw

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2015