Hollywood Outtakes: from New York to North Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Railroad

[@mikeggg5671]

I continue to be stunned how pictures and movies, in black and white, are so much stunningly clear and crisp, compared to pictures that we took in the 70s and '80s.

[@lwilton]

Hollywood used 35mm film, which had 4x the area of 16mm film and about 64 times the area of 8mm film. A 35mm frame of B&W was good for about 3K dots horizontally. Color film had larger grain, so a 35mm frame was good for about 2K dots horizontally, so about the equivalent of 1920x1080 resolution today. 16mm was good for about 1000 dots horizontally, and 8mm was good for about 400-450 dots. When VCRs came along things only got worse. NTSC had 525 lines vertically, of which about 480 were usable for image. This made it about 700 dots wide. 600x800 unviewable frames are actually much higher resolution than NTSC. And the maximum contrast ratio (difference between dimmest and brightest pixel) was only 85x at best. Compare this to the minimum 256 levels we have today, and over 2K different levels with professionally captured video.

[@scottnyc6572]

Wow interior video of the original Pennsylvania Station!!! Such a crime what they did by demolishing that palace!!

[@gaborgredely1848]

Yes. Üdv Európából. Magyaroszágról.

[@YukariAkiyamaTanks]

Absolutely beautiful footage!

[@michaelwalter3399]

0:03 R.I.P. Penn Station. The systematic demolition of this grand building (an engineering marvel when it was completed in 1913) helped launch the historic preservation movement in America.

[@thelaughingtiger146]

Wow Richard! What a treat to see Pennsylvania station in its glory, complete with a mix of American service members. The music is a perfect fit. ❤ Thank you

[@yvonneplant9434]

Music sounds like Aaron Copland.

[@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo]

The music, "Rounds", is by David Diamond, an American contemporary of Copland's who studied with some of the same teachers.

[@bobratynski9346]

"Nearly everybody reads the Bulletin", delivered that paper for many a year....interesting to see the changes in the landscape

[@jaminova_1969]

Thank You for letting me see old New York through my grandparents eyes! Penn Station was glorious. Newark still looks the same and the GG-1 is my favorite Electric Locomotive! We used to watch them at Penn Station and the Sunnyside Yards when I was a little girl :)

[@lwilton]

Thank you Richard! I've seen a lot of this film on other channels before (most recently NASS), but they always "improve" it with Deoldify, which adds fake color, motion stutter, random zooms, and completely trashes all moving text, such as the signs on the buildings. You version is SO MUCH better than the others! Here we have nice clear stable images in sharp focus, and high enough pixel count that we can easily make out even small details.

[@northpennvalleysteamrailroad]

Amazing!!

[@WizenedVariations1]

Magnificent. The music was perfect. The scenes of the great Pennsylvania Station and the scenes running open air in Manhattan reflect a feeling of functional power.

[@jimmydee1130]

1:42 - 1:44: That long building in the background with small square windows in sets of two was/is a multi-story (7, I think) warehouse. The goods news is that, while no longer a warehouse, it's been re-purposed as as office building with ground floor retail. (I used to park my car in its shadow in the early 90s, when it was vacant).

[@rigelj]

Thanks for sharing, is that Newark?

[@scola1951]

At 3'06 the train is southbound out of Penn Station Newark, running parallel with McCarter Highway. You can see a large H shaped bldg, 1060 Broad St Newark, in the background. At 3;30 you catch a glimpse of the old Mack Truck parts depot, again, on McCarter Hwy. Great video!

[@anthonyzinskie631]

The shot of the GG1 at 0:15 is from the 1950 film, “The Killer That Stalked New York”.

[@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo]

Thanks!

[@allegheny48]

Thanks so much for letting us view a bygone era. Viewing it thru a passenger car window made it even more enjoyable. In a few short years Manhattan's Penn Station would be razed and the decline in passenger train service would soon begin. Looking forward to the next installment. I also enjoyed your choice of background music. A movie from 1954 entitled Human Desire with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford is another with plenty of railroad action along with interesting stock footage from the studio libraries.

[@michaela.chmieloski3196]

Though the scenes with the actors/actresses were filmed on the Southern Pacific in California, I absolutely LOVE the opening sequence from "Human Desire" (a favorite noir film of mine because of the railroad theme and Gloria Grahame)--the footage of which strikes me as having an Eastern railroad (Baltimore and Ohio? Western Maryland?) flavor.

[@michaela.chmieloski3196]

Now this is what I was talking about! Cool stuff, Speed Graphic Film and Video, including the music.

[@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo]

Your comments on films in the archive.org collection have helped me several times. So thank you for that.

[@michaela.chmieloski3196]

@@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo You are most welcome. I wonder at times if I'm posting at the archives in the hopes that one day someone will find the information useful or merely for my own self-aggrandizement. Heartening to know that the commentary provided was of use at least one time.

[@jec1ny]

Note the lack of traffic in a lot of these shots. Something largely ignored in Hollywood films set during the war years was the strict gas rationing. Most people were limited to 5 gallons per week/per household (not per car). After 1943 the ration went down to 3 gallons per week. Most people drove only when absolutely necessary or not at all.

[@JoeyLovesTrains]

I can't imagine what kind of backlash and protests people would do if the government even hinted at the thought of doing that.

[@Ryan-on5on]

@@JoeyLovesTrains True, but one must realize that Americans in the 1940s (at least those living in towns and cities) were FAR less reliant on the car than their 21st-century counterparts. So the civilian burden and sacrifice entailed in wartime gas rationing were nowhere near as great as they would likely be if implemented in today's auto-dependent American society, where most everyone living outside all but the nation's few transit-rich cities must rely on a car to carry out practically all daily tasks. It is for this reason, among others, that Americans generally excepted the slight to moderate inconveniences that came with gas rationing. It also helped that there were still public transit alternatives (e.g., interurbans, streetcars, intercity rail) to car travel that have long been undone by the automobile and highway lobbies.

[@chuckabbate5924]

We ruined this nation with highways. Period. A narcotic dependency on oil. Tragic.

[@JessicaKasumi1990]

Just a minor clarification, 5:27 is not where the Schuylkill Branch leaves the Philadelphia Terminal Division. It leaves the mainline west of Zoo at 52nd Street Station. North Philadelphia is where the Chestnut Hill Branch (now SEPTA's Chestnut Hill West Line) branches off the main and was controlled by North Philadelphia Tower.

[@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo]

Thanks! I will fix the description.

[@JessicaKasumi1990]

@@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo No worries.

[@johnyessis4906]

Gg1 pulling a very long consist

[@Trainfan1055Janathan]

Me at 3:40: *Wonders how they got such clear footage out of a train window, when I can't get my phone to record through glass to save my life.* (It always focuses on the glass)

[@williamwagner8017]

Probaby manual focus lenses and cameras...no expert on technology of that era.

[@allegheny48]

The camera operator probably was using a circular polarizing filter. Those were and still are good for eliminating reflection and glare.

[@olivei2484]

@@williamwagner8017 Good guess, or they removed the glass.

[@YukariAkiyamaTanks]

My guess is that they probably opened the window.

[@bobainsworth5057]

Maybe because the windows were clean or you can try filming at an angle through the window.

[@marvwatkins7029]

Must be digitally restored or seldom shown to be in such great shape.

[@marvwatkins7029]

A different approach: no talking, just music with captions. It works.

[@truthteller9190]

Excellent…..thanks for posting.

[@scottnyc6572]

Welcome Back!!!

[@beeble2003]

Interesting music. I'd've guessed it was English if you hadn't said who wrote it.

[@glennsrailroading]

What line is the steam engine in the statipn sitting on? I saw there's still one of the bridges for that line there.

[@roberthoffhines5419]

Who's playing the Diamond?, they're nailing it! This hollywood stock footage is SO much better quality than what was available to railfans of that era. Lucky to have it!

[@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo]

See credits at the end. The New York Classical Players.

[@roberthoffhines5419]

@@SpeedGraphicFilmVideo Ah, shoulda hung on a little longer. Makes sense with DD Julliard faculty. I have my Dad's Speed Graphic btw...

[@floor993]

Wonderful!

[@tjcassidy2694]

@ 4:37 what street is that?

[@customkey]

Broad St looking north.

[@rogerb5615]

Excellent choice in music - a delight to hear contemporary American classical that does not sound like a clone of John Williams!

[@jackchen7003]

Newark never was a booming place was it? Hasn’t changed much at all with all the homeless there

[@RScesium]

Music is great!