Lovely MOS scenic footage highlights this short, along with the bubbly narration of Art Gilmore. Plenty of shots of diesel-engine Santa Fe trains and a few nice shots of 19th century steam locomotives.
The film is a well-written commercial with a little sub-plot about two children (the boy is wearing a suit and bow tie) on a thousand-mile trip.
Railroads pay taxes, you know. As if other businesses don't,
Editing is plentiful to hold interest and sound effects are well-chosen. A fine Dudley production.
Oh, and there's plenty of flag-waving at the beginning and end. America's the greatest, you know. Americans can travel by train when they want, not like people in certain unnamed countries (read Commie Land). All the glorious aspects enumerated about the USA could describe Canada, too, but that's another story.

At 6:25 mark, workers with possible dirty hands are loading UNWRAPPED raw meat meant for human consumption. Appears meat was cross contaminated in an unrefrigerated box? My goodness, back in the days before plastic gloves and health codes.

What was with the ending: "Railroads pay taxes for schools?" Most scenes appeared to be college footage, not public schools.

Propaganda, silly script, and bad graphics places this up there with the classic "Duck & Cover."

Thanks to the person who saved this treasure.

Really great shots of several trains, and interiors of the passenger trains make up for the goofiness. The beginning and end seem like they could go on any film like this, though.

It's pretty lightweight, though it held my kids attention. He loves trains!

This 50s film is basically about how great our country is and how great railroads are and how railroads make our country great. It follows two kids, Carol and Jimmy, as they take a train trip alone. The narrator tells us that normally kids like that would travel with their parents, but Âjust for fun theyÂre going to show them traveling alone. That just begs to be msted, as does most of the filmÂs narration, which is very breezy and simplistic. ThereÂs lots of color footage of trains and of scenic vistas of America during the 50s. All of this adds up to a typical industrial film experience, one with few surprises, but fun nonetheless.
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

This is a great country, it's a big country! It's a land of oppurtunity! So begins Big Trains Rolling, a film that begins with such bursting patriotic pride that I might just cry. (I'm Canadian). Anyways, the film then breaks away from the gung ho america kick and concentrates on trains. This is obviously geared to the younger set as the narrator seems to dumb down the conversation quite a bit. The film talks about cargo trains, and also follows two communting kids. "Normally Mother would go, but for this trip, let's just say the kids went by themselves!" um ok. So the two kids are off in a taxi, buying their own fare and getting into a sleeping car. Rather odd that the film wouldn't have some parental figure with them, as this would be a good representation of most kid's travel. Great looking train action shots, wonderful trains of yesteryear and a great overall look gets the film high marks, but unfortunately the film returns to it's pro-america rah-rah's at the end of the film, which is really not needed and somewhat spoils the whole effect of the film on me.