I just watched the National Geographic Special about GCT, having taped it last Thursday. I wish now that I had not wasted the time and tape...! I'm not sure what audience was intended by the producers, but the show could have been reduced to a half-hour for all audiences without reducing any content. That doesn't include a host of inaccuracies such as showing an Acela crossing the Hell Gate Bridge three times, showing a Pennsy K-4 pulling the Broadway Limited at least twice, and numerous shots of Rio Grande narrow gauge steam. Each of these in the context of portraying rail traffic into and out of GCT during its heyday. OK, so I'm a dyed in the wool fan of the NY Central Harlem and Hudson Divisions, and was a weekly inhabitant of GCT while in high school and college during the 40's and 50's. But let's keep things sorta close to fact, and without all the hyperbole and hand-wringing.....! Sorry for the rant. I'll return to my underground den.
Hank, accurate history is passe. These kids are rewriting all of it, mostly in fiction. I wanted to see that Nat Geo special, but our little town mom and pop cable system doesn't carry that channel, and I don't have a dish. I guess you and I can relive the memories we have of actually arriving and departing from the great cathedral of railroading in Manhattan, eh?
Sound bytes sell. That's what matters. Money. Accuracy is irrelevant. History is what you want it to be. Not what actually happened. Look at the much ballyhooed Ambrose book. It even has errors..... But since it was by such a 'fine author,' that's OK. I noted just last week, that our local PBS station was touting the (2002?) show on building of the first transcontinental. And the caption clearly mis-stated "Promontory Point, Utah." Which both places named are incorrect! It was neither of Promontory Point, nor Utah. I'm so glad to have escaped our so-called education system, before it became the disgrace we know now. Boxcab E50
