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No More Mindless Runbys
Below are the ten newest releases from Big "E" Productions in both DVD-R and VHS format.

Norfolk Southern's former D&H - a Phoenix Rising DVD

Norfolk Southern’s takeover of the former Delaware and Hudson south of Schenectady on September nineteenth of last year has continued the slow increase in traffic on the critical midsection of the former D&H that began with the 2004 trackage and haulage rights agreement with Norfolk Southern that resulted in a modicum of profitability for this beleaguered line.  The midsection and main stem of the former D&H where we videotaped has long been known as the Susquehanna Division and later as the second or Susquehanna subdivision and is now part of Norfolk Southern’s Freight Main Line, continuing the title and mileposts that under Guilford ownership had been applied to their main line from Mattawaumkeag, Maine to Sunbury, Pennsylvania.  The Delaware and Hudson has surmounted many challenges and been near death more than once in the past eighty or so years – first with the loss of the anthracite coal business to oil and gas, then the loss of friendly connections as a result of the formation of Penn Central and later Conrail that led to near death in the late seventies and early eighties before Guilford took them over, the bankruptcy and directed service crisis after the strikes on Guilford in the mid-eighties, and finally Canadian Pacific’s indifference to growing the traffic after failing to find an acceptable buyer for the D&H and their constant cutbacks in service in the past few years.  Preceded by Norfolk Southern acquiring haulage rights on much of the D&H in 2004 and a half interest in Pan Am’s line from Mechanicville to Ayer Massachusetts in 2009, Norfolk Southern’s acquisition of the south end of CP’s D&H subsidiary seemed a foregone conclusion but it still took years for the parties to come to an agreement.  For the first time since the 1920s the former D&H is arguably entering a stable period where its future isn’t in doubt.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of action on the former second subdivision between Delanson where the now truncated Albany main joins the main line and Belden tunnel, sixteen miles from Binghamton, in July of 2016. Length = 61 minutes.  This program can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $30.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: DVD

UP's Historic Council Bluffs to Gibbon Main Blu-Ray

The Union Pacific main line up the Platte River Valley west of Council Bluffs to the junction with the line from Kansas City at Gibbon is one of the most historic and best known rail lines in this country – the first track to be laid by the first transcontinental railroad.  This line is still one of the most important and busier rail lines in the U.S. for freight traffic in spite of the recent recession and downturn in coal that has battered U. S. railroads the past decade.  The track structure that we will see today is dramatically different from that spindly single track laid on a dirt roadbed in 1866.  Today’s trains are even longer and heavier than those seen during our last visit to this historic line in 2010.  Once best known as the Overland Route, this line today is part of UP’s heavily trafficked Central Corridor.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of action on UP’s Columbus and Kearney Subdivisions on both sides of Grand Island in April of 2016.  UP's Historic Council Bluffs to Gibbon Main is two hours and thirty minutes in length and can be watched with or without narration. 

Price: $38.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: Blu-Ray

UP's Historic Council Bluffs to Gibbon Main DVD

The Union Pacific main line up the Platte River Valley west of Council Bluffs to the junction with the line from Kansas City at Gibbon is one of the most historic and best known rail lines in this country – the first track to be laid by the first transcontinental railroad.  This line is still one of the most important and busier rail lines in the U.S. for freight traffic in spite of the recent recession and downturn in coal that has battered U. S. railroads the past decade.  The track structure that we will see today is dramatically different from that spindly single track laid on a dirt roadbed in 1866.  Today’s trains are even longer and heavier than those seen during our last visit to this historic line in 2010.  Once best known as the Overland Route, this line today is part of UP’s heavily trafficked Central Corridor.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of action on UP’s Columbus and Kearney Subdivisions on both sides of Grand Island in April of 2016.  UP's Historic Council Bluffs to Gibbon Main is two hours and thirty minutes in length and can be watched with or without narration. 

Price: $38.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: DVD

Union Pacific's Marysville Subdivision Blu-Ray

Old timers would not recognize the way that the Union Pacific Marysville subdivision looks today.  This line stretches from Topeka, sixty-eight miles west of Kansas City, to Gibbon, Nebraska where the triple track main to North Platte begins.  UP’s Kansas City main today is two main tracks on wide centers with centralized traffic control as compared to the single track CTC line with 110 car sidings as late as the early 1970s.  With little straight track until its gets close to Gibbon, most of this line is quite different from UP’s Omaha main with its long tangents up the North Platte Valley.  The St. Joseph and Grand Island which UP had a difficult time maintaining control of due in part to the restrictions in their charter against building branch lines, is a busy main line today with at least half of the trains being coal trains to and from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.  During the previous decade almost as many trains would head southeast at Gibbon onto the Marysville sub towards Kansas City than proceeded straight on the main line to Omaha.  But these are not normal times and the coal traffic is way off with the low price of natural gas and bloated utility stockpiles due to a warm winter.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of fast paced action on UP’s still busy Marysville Subdivision both sides of Fairbury, Nebraska in April of 2016. Union Pacific's Marysville Subdivision is 77 minutes in length and it can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $32.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: Blu-Ray

Union Pacific's Marysville Subdivision DVD

Old timers would not recognize the way that the Union Pacific Marysville subdivision looks today.  This line stretches from Topeka, sixty-eight miles west of Kansas City, to Gibbon, Nebraska where the triple track main to North Platte begins.  UP’s Kansas City main today is two main tracks on wide centers with centralized traffic control as compared to the single track CTC line with 110 car sidings as late as the early 1970s.  With little straight track until its gets close to Gibbon, most of this line is quite different from UP’s Omaha main with its long tangents up the North Platte Valley.  The St. Joseph and Grand Island which UP had a difficult time maintaining control of due in part to the restrictions in their charter against building branch lines, is a busy main line today with at least half of the trains being coal trains to and from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.  During the previous decade almost as many trains would head southeast at Gibbon onto the Marysville sub towards Kansas City than proceeded straight on the main line to Omaha.  But these are not normal times and the coal traffic is way off with the low price of natural gas and bloated utility stockpiles due to a warm winter.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of fast paced action on UP’s still busy Marysville Subdivision both sides of Fairbury, Nebraska in April of 2016. Union Pacific's Marysville Subdivision is 77 minutes in length and it can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $32.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: DVD

CN and CP Montreal to Toronto Mains Blu-Ray

Welcome to the land of big trains.  This program shows at least twenty-four hours of action on the two busiest rail lines for freight and via Rail passenger trains in eastern Canada - the Canadian National and Via Corridor between Montreal and Toronto and Canadian Pacific’s Belleville Subdivision, part of their Montreal to Toronto main line in October of 2015.  The Canadian National line, known in Canada simply as the Corridor currently hosts twenty-six Via passenger trains on weekdays along with at sixteen CN freight trains.  And these are not just any freight trains.  CN runs some of the longest and heaviest mixed carload and intermodal trains on the planet on this high-speed and superbly engineered 334-mile line between Montreal and Toronto originally opened by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856.  Canadian Pacific’s main line between Montreal and Toronto is one of their busiest lines for freight traffic in eastern Canada and it showcases the changes made by its new president, Hunter Harrison who used to lead CN.  Ethanol and crude oil have recently added to the tonnage on these lines.  This program first shows over twenty-eight hours of action on CP in the middle of their Belleville subdivision around Trenton, Ontario and then over twenty-four hours of action on the CN and Via Corridor around Gananoque, Ontario, about eighty miles east of where CP was videotaped.   This DVD is 1 hour and 45 minutes in length.  It can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $34.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: Blu-Ray

CN and CP Montreal to Toronto Mains DVD

Welcome to the land of big trains.  This program shows at least twenty-four hours of action on the two busiest rail lines for freight and via Rail passenger trains in eastern Canada - the Canadian National and Via Corridor between Montreal and Toronto and Canadian Pacific’s Belleville Subdivision, part of their Montreal to Toronto main line in October of 2015.  The Canadian National line, known in Canada simply as the Corridor currently hosts twenty-six Via passenger trains on weekdays along with at sixteen CN freight trains.  And these are not just any freight trains.  CN runs some of the longest and heaviest mixed carload and intermodal trains on the planet on this high-speed and superbly engineered 334-mile line between Montreal and Toronto originally opened by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856.  Canadian Pacific’s main line between Montreal and Toronto is one of their busiest lines for freight traffic in eastern Canada and it showcases the changes made by its new president, Hunter Harrison who used to lead CN.  Ethanol and crude oil have recently added to the tonnage on these lines.  This program first shows over twenty-eight hours of action on CP in the middle of their Belleville subdivision around Trenton, Ontario and then over twenty-four hours of action on the CN and Via Corridor around Gananoque, Ontario, about eighty miles east of where CP was videotaped.   This DVD is 1 hour and 45 minutes in length.  It can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $34.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: DVD

CN around Nakina in Northern Ontario Blu-Ray

Canadian National’s Caramat Subdivision that runs across the Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario is on their transcontinental main line, part of which was built as the National Transcontinental Railway or NTR in 1911 and 1912, and with most of the rest constructed by the Canadian Northern in 1913.  The area around Nakina was then a rocky wilderness with thin soil that was spliced by peat bogs and marshes and inhabited only by Indians, trappers, and prospectors.  Nakina became a crew change and division point in 1924 after the Canadian National completed their first major construction project – a cut-off between Longlac on the former Canadian Northern main line and Nakina.  At that time Nakina could be accessed only by rail.  Today, trains no longer change crews at Nakina and the town is no longer dependent on the railroad or the pulp and paper industry as a large mill was once located near Nakina.  The town does have a small airstrip where outfitters fly hunters and fishermen to lodges and camps in the Great North.  The business on CN’s transcontinental main has grown dramatically in the past few decades as CN has eclipsed their rival Canadian Pacific to the south.  And CN has recently begun running two and a half mile long trains on this superbly engineered line.  Although many intermodal schedules have been slowed from the ‘go-go days” of 2000 when CN introduced their “need for speed” trains on fastest ever schedules between Toronto and the major cities in the West, CN puts on an incredible show with their huge trains, some with the power distributed throughout the train.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of action on CN’s Caramat subdivision around Nakina, 250 miles northeast of Thunder Bay as the crow flies, in October of 2015.   This DVD is 59 minutes in length and can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $30.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: Blu-Ray

CN around Nakina in Northern Ontario DVD

Canadian National’s Caramat Subdivision that runs across the Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario is on their transcontinental main line, part of which was built as the National Transcontinental Railway or NTR in 1911 and 1912, and with most of the rest constructed by the Canadian Northern in 1913.  The area around Nakina was then a rocky wilderness with thin soil that was spliced by peat bogs and marshes and inhabited only by Indians, trappers, and prospectors.  Nakina became a crew change and division point in 1924 after the Canadian National completed their first major construction project – a cut-off between Longlac on the former Canadian Northern main line and Nakina.  At that time Nakina could be accessed only by rail.  Today, trains no longer change crews at Nakina and the town is no longer dependent on the railroad or the pulp and paper industry as a large mill was once located near Nakina.  The town does have a small airstrip where outfitters fly hunters and fishermen to lodges and camps in the Great North.  The business on CN’s transcontinental main has grown dramatically in the past few decades as CN has eclipsed their rival Canadian Pacific to the south.  And CN has recently begun running two and a half mile long trains on this superbly engineered line.  Although many intermodal schedules have been slowed from the ‘go-go days” of 2000 when CN introduced their “need for speed” trains on fastest ever schedules between Toronto and the major cities in the West, CN puts on an incredible show with their huge trains, some with the power distributed throughout the train.  This program shows over twenty-four hours of action on CN’s Caramat subdivision around Nakina, 250 miles northeast of Thunder Bay as the crow flies, in October of 2015.   This DVD is 59 minutes in length and can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $30.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: DVD

Canadian National's Western Manitoba Mains Blu-Ray

This program shows the trains and operations on both of Canadian National’s main lines in western Manitoba – the transcontinental main line through Rivers and around Dauphin on CN’s secondary main line known as their Prairie North Line that diverges from the main line at Portage La Prairie, just west of Winnipeg.  CN is arguably the western hemisphere’s leading railroad with by far the lowest operating ratio of any class I railroad in the U. S. or Canada.  In 2000 CN began lengthening their sidings on their transcontinental main line between Winnipeg and Edmonton and today CN runs some of the longest freight trains on this continent between those two cities on what was once nicknamed the Bee Line across the prairie.  This program shows twenty-four hours of action on CN’s Rivers Subdivision west of Rivers between Arrow River and a point just east of Uno where CN’s main line drops down into the Assiniboine River Valley.  This well-engineered track is traversed by a growing number of containers out of the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and oil from Alberta headed to both the States and to eastern Canada, and the train count has grown on this busy line.  The second part of this program shows several trains on CN’s Prairie North Line both sides of Dauphin.  So come along with us as some of the longest trains on this continent thunder across the Canadian Prairie or growl up the grade out of the Assiniboine River Valley in October of 2015 on CN’s Western Manitoba Mains.  This DVD is a two disk set.  It is 2 hours and forty minutes in length and can be watched with or without narration.

Price: $40.95

Attributes

  • Video Format: Blu-Ray

 

                                                       Big “E” Productions

P.O. BOX 75

GREENLAND, NH 03840

Our DVDs show the whole train!

Our web page is at www.trainvideos.com, email us at bigeee@trainvideos.com.

 800-832-1228 or 603-430-3055   Visa, MasterCard, AMEX or Discover Card Orders Accepted.

Last updated 12/14/2023

 

Frequency – twice a year

 

 Issue #179                            December, 2023

May all of you have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

Remember, our DVDs make great Christmas gifts for the railfan in your family.  This Newsletter begins our 32th year of selling train videos.  As long as both my wife and I are in good health we intend to continue selling old videos and I still have some hope to do a few new programs. We will not be attending the Big Train Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts anymore.

 

Again no new programs.  I was recently diagnosed with AFib (atrial fibrillation – fast, erratic heartbeat).  Medication seems to help but it will be some time before I know how much.  Also both knees need to be replaced but it will also be some time before that can happen.  My wife is still recovering from having both knees replaced.  She is using a wheelchair and walker to get around.  I would still like to do more videotaping but this is looking less and less likely.  We hope that all of you are safe and sound.  Our next newsletter will be around June of 2024.  Railfan Depot in Indianapolis is now carrying some of our videos.

 

We have four grandkids playing sports right now – two here in New Hampshire and two in Illinois.  I hope to be able to see their games in person as much as I can.  And then we have 12 other grandkids and one great grandson to keep track of.  I am looking forward to attending the girls state basketball tournament in Illinois beginning in 2025 and the class IV boys baseball tournament here in New Hampshire next spring.

 

No other train video producer shows and explains railroading like we do and our catalogue includes programs on fallen flags ATSF, SP, BN, CNW,  IC, Wisconsin Central, and Conrail.  We almost always show the whole train and most of our videos show all of the action – day and night.  Our newest program is “PSR on CSX’s Chicago Line in Northern Indiana”, part of our look at PSR on eastern railroads.  This is our 49th program to be released in both Blu-ray and in regular DVD.  You need to specify what type of DVD you are ordering with programs available in both DVD and Blu-ray.  All of our DVD’s have chapters and menus and around half – everything videotaped from 2004 on plus a few programs from 2003 - have a choice of being watched with narration and without narration by using the menu or audio and language buttons on your DVD player controller.  321 programs are available in DVD (49 in Blu-ray) and all are listed in the flyers.  No other train video producer shows and explains railroading like we do and our catalogue includes programs on fallen flags ATSF, BN, SP, CNW. IC, Wisconsin Central, and Conrail.  Our shipping and handling charge on orders remains $5.00 with no charge on orders over $100.  We offer year-round discounts on large orders.  See flyers for details.  These discounts are available only by mail and phone.  If you have questions and get our answering machine, please leave your name and number and we will call you back as soon as possible.  You can reach us by email at bigeee@trainvideos.com or on our webpage at www.trainvideos.com.

 

If we are able to videotape again, the focus will be on changes on the western railroads due to PSR.

 

                                              Dick and Barb Eisfeller