This program takes a look at the two BNSF main lines between the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the adjacent cities of Moorhead, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota. Fargo is referred to as the Gateway to the Northern Plains and is the largest City in North Dakota.  The predecessors of these two lines are the first railroad in Minnesota, the St. Paul and Pacific, nee St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, later Great Northern Railway, and the Northern Pacific Railway, the first northern transcontinental railroad and third overall transcontinental.  First, we will show trains on BNSF’s former Northern Pacific Staples Subdivision around New York Mills and Perham, Minnesota.  Perham in sixty-five miles east of Dilworth, BNSF’s main terminal for the Fargo-Moorhead area, and one hundred seventy-five miles west of Northtown, BNSF’s primary classification yard in the Twin Cities.  Then we will cover the trains on the former Great Northern Twin Cities to Fargo main between the outskirts of Breckenridge, Minnesota and Benson.  Breckenridge is forty-eight miles railroad east of Fargo and two hundred and fifteen miles from St. Paul.  These two lines handle all of BNSF’s Northern Transcon traffic between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest and are part of BNSF’s northern coal corridor and are the eastern outlet for crude oil from the Bakken Shale oil field in North Dakota.   In spite of the downturn in coal and crude oil, these lines are still quite busy and the fall grain rush was also on when we visited BNSF in Minnesota.  BNSF has recovered from its Bakken crude oil induced meltdown on their Northern Transcon in 2013 and 2014 after billions were spent on added capacity and new power.  This DVD shows over 24 hours of traffic on both of BNSF’s main lines between the Twin Cities and Fargo in September of 2016.  Two DVD set.  Two hours and ten minutes in length.  This DVD can be watched with or without narration.

Alaska - the Last Frontier, land of glaciers, incredible vistas, the mountain known as “The Great One” - Denali, and incomparable wildlife – whatever superlative one applies to our largest and forty-ninth state, it can also be applied to the Alaska Railroad, arguably the most unique railroad in the United States.  The Alaska Railroad bills itself as “the last full-service railroad in North America”.  Twenty-seven percent of its revenues are from passengers.  No other freight common carrier that is not a commuter railroad in the lower forty-eight even comes close to that.  Its passenger car fleet, much of which is glass-topped and traditional domes and is supplemented by tour operators and cruise lines’ cars in three different color schemes, is easily the most eclectic in the country.  And its freight operations are unique also – with its captive rail cars and only connections to the outside railroad world being weekly barges from Seattle and twice monthly from Prince Rupert.  Yet the railroad is impeccably modern with welded rail, diesels with AC traction motors, distributed power, and majestic bi-level passenger cars all dressed up in a beautiful blue and gold.  Alaska has always been a land of booms and busts.  Tourism is the latest boom and the now state owned Alaska Railroad has taken full advantage of that.  This program shows the trains and traffic including all scheduled passenger and freight trains on the Alaska Railroad between the ports of Seward and Whittier and Fairbanks with many trains set in the grandeur of the Bold Land that is Alaska filmed in late August and September of 2016.  Length = 79 minutes.  This DVD can be watched with or without narration. 

Perry, a county seat town in north-central Oklahoma, sixty-three miles north of Oklahoma City, is in a unique position on the sprawling BNSF system.  (Second commentary)  There, two important main lines run side by side through this town of 5100 residents – the north-south former Santa Fe Kansas City to Fort Worth and Galveston line  and the east-west former Saint Louis San Francisco or Frisco and later Burlington Northern Tulsa to Avard line.  Avard is ninety-three miles west of Perry where it connects with the BNSF Chicago to California Transcon and Tulsa is eighty-three miles east of Perry.  The two lines cross at Black Bear, six miles northeast of Perry.   After the BNSF merger connecting tracks were installed at Black Bear and Perry in order to allow westbounds from the hump classification yard in Tulsa to head south onto the former Santa Fe main at Black Bear and vice-versa.  The former Santa Fe line through Perry, BNSF’s present day Red Rock subdivision, has been an important trunk line since shortly after the Santa Fe took over the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe in December of 1886 and opened a through route between Kansas City and Galveston.  Until 1973 the former Frisco line through Perry was a sleepy branch line with a train a day between Tulsa and junction of two branch lines and some of the largest terminal elevators in the wheat belt at Enid, thirty five miles west of Perry.  Then in 1973 the Santa Fe and Frisco moved their interchange point for transcontinental traffic from Floydada in the Texas Panhandle to Avard.  At that time heavier rail was installed and several sidings lengthened but the Avard branch or Avard subdivision as it is known today didn’t really come into its own until after the merger of the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern to form BNSF in 1995.   This program shows over twenty-four hours of action at Perry in April of 2016.  Length = 1 hour, 52 minutes.  This program can be watched with ot without narration.

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.