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Zenith Cinema Services, Inc.Wheels of Progress (1950)

Operations of the Rock Island Lines. Includes shots of high-speed "Rocket" freight trains; the operation of classification yards; and scenes of agricultural and industrial areas served by the railroad. Writer and Director: John A. McGee.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Zenith Cinema Services, Inc.
Sponsor: Rock Island Lines
Audio/Visual: Sd, C
Keywords: Transportation: Railroad; U.S.: Midwest; Occupations: Railroad

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Spuzz - - September 12, 2005
Subject: Train keeps rolling (and rolling)
Almost endless movie about the Rock Island railroad and the cargo, the train types, the people, the paths, etc etc it has.

After one of the most fabulous beginnings I have seen anytime (Amelie Moment!) with a family going for dinner and the young childrens.. well, fondness for gravy, the film takes a huge downturn from there and goes into train-talk, which is all right I guess, but provides nothing new that youve never heard before, eg, train transportation is gods gift to man, yada yada. Pretty unremarkable.

Reviewer: MediaWhore - - September 3, 2005
Subject: Shes a mighty good line
"Rock Island Line shes a mighty good line, Rock Island Line shes the road to ride......."- What a great old Johny Cash song (I'm sure he covered it from someone else). What ever happened to the mighty Rock Island Line company? I found it interesting that they use to ship entire freight cars on shipping boats instead of the intermodal containers that we use today. If your not into the whole nerdy train scene like I am then this film will most definately bore you.

Reviewer: Wilford B. Wolf - - September 2, 2005
Subject: Driver 8 (Mm, gravy!)
1950 film singing the praises of the Rock Island Line, a railroad centered in Iowa and serving the Midwest. Even if you didn't know when the film was made, the first half would undoubtedly tell you that the film was made during the heighth of Cold War rhetoric. The narrator talks about how America is the greatest country in the world because it has democracy and capitalism. This is illustrated with a typical family sitting down to dinner reciting hokey, echoy dialog. Naturally, this is all aided by having a great transportation system to move the "limitless bounty" of the land. Surprisingly, it does not focus on just the railroads during this section, but trucks and ocean going vessels, especially on how they intregrate with rail.

It is at this point, that the focus is on how modern Rock Island Line is in modernizing, talking about how they adopted diesel engines for their fast freight lines, improved grades and bridges, and modern rail yards. However, they also have some of the old steam engines "because they still have a place." This section has some very nice shots of late 1940s/early 1950s engines and cars, as well the signal controls for routing trains. I'll leave it the rail fans to identify the engine types in this section.

It is also clear from this section that this film was aimed at potential clients for Rock Island's freight service. Passenger service, still a staple at this time, is bearly mentioned and not shown. Instead, the focus is on how quickly Rock Island can ship goods.

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