This is our great country. The land we live in.
The land we're so proud of.
Our own United States of America.
It's a big country, this land of ours.
A country of broad plains and rolling prairies.
Of vast forests and fertile fields.
Rivers and lakes.
High mountains.
Little villages.
And great cities.
No wonder we're so proud of America. There's such to be proud of.
And here's one of the most wonderful things about this vast country of ours.
No matter where we want to travel.
No minds of raw materials and manufactured goods.
Have you ever stopped to think how really important railroads are?
Have you ever thought of what it takes for the millions of people in this great
country to be able to travel from one end of the land to the other with speed,
safety, comfort, and at low cost?
Have you ever marveled at the iron ore and coal and hundreds of other raw
materials that move continuously to the nation's widespread factories?
And how thousands of different finished products are delivered from where they
are made to where they are needed in all parts of the country?
Have you ever wondered how the foods we eat are always being delivered
from the farms to our markets?
And how they arrive fresh as the day they were picked?
Well, the answers to those questions make up one of the most fascinating and
important stories in the history of our country. The story
of the American railroads.
In order to tell you that story, we're going to visit the railroad yards.
We're going into the railroad stations and out along the tracks.
In that way, you will get a better idea of what the nation's railroad system is
like. And the big, important job trains are always doing.
Then, the next time you are on a train, or the next time you see a train speeding
off into the distance, you'll understand how much we all depend on railroads.
How much keep this land of ours the most wonderful and
prosperous nation in the world?
When our country was young and much smaller than it is today, traveling was slow,
uncomfortable, and dangerous. And so people didn't travel very much.
Then, just a little more than a hundred years ago, came the ones in the young
country needed to grow into an important nation.
Adequate inspiration. That transportation came in the form of railroads.
Those early trains were funny little affairs when compared with the big
trains we see rolling today.
They had a lot to do with opening up and developing vast new
territories, which later became states.
You could say that America and her railroads grew up together.
As the railroads pushed ahead, settlers followed.
Farms were cleared and crops planted.
Lines were opened and the railroads began moving the ore and the coal
to mills and factories.
Villages which sprang up around the railroad stations grew and prospered into
big, important cities.
Throughout the length and breadth of the land, trains come and go day and night
in all kinds of weather, carrying millions of people
and millions of tons of freight.
Because we don't always see the trains which serve us, maybe everyone doesn't
realize how essential railroads are to our everyday living.
Everyone likes to travel. Suppose we see what happens when we take a train trip.
We'll go along with these two friends of ours, Carol and Jimmy.
That is, if Jimmy can ever get Carol's suitcase shut.
In real life, their parents would probably go along with them.
But for this picture, suppose we let Carol and Jimmy travel by themselves, okay?
There they go in the taxi cab that will
take them to the railroad station.
Almost every town has a railroad station. Some are larger than others, but all
railroad stations, large or small, are very interesting places.
For example, at most railroad stations, you will
usually find the Railway Express.
You will see people checking and sorting packages to make certain that they will
be put aboard trains which will take them to their destinations without delay.
And remember, they will handle almost anything, including your dog.
In the yards of many railroad stations, cars are cleaned inside and out to put
them into tip-top condition for the passengers who will soon be getting aboard.
In another part of the yards, dining cars are stocked with fresh vegetables,
meats, milk, and all the other foods that will be needed for the meals that will
be served when the train is on its way.
Nearby, there is usually an engine house where locomotives are
brought for cleaning and servicing.
Maybe you've wondered how great big locomotives are turned around.
Well, let's watch and see how easy it is.
The locomotive is run onto the turntable.
On goes the power, and around goes the locomotive as easy as you please.
Say, we'd better not forget Carol and Jimmy.
Here they are, arriving in plenty of time to check their baggage and buy their
tickets before their train is scheduled to leave.
Pay the taxi driver, Jimmy, and get a check from the Red Cap
for each one of your handbags.
The next stop is to buy tickets.
Now, let's see. Jimmy and Carol are going to visit their aunt and uncle at a town
about a thousand miles away.
They will be coming back by train, so they will buy round-trip tickets.
Buying round-trip tickets, they will be saving money, too.
The ticket clerk stamps each ticket with the date on which the ticket is
purchased and the date on which the ticket is used.
So far, so good.
As Carol and Jimmy are going to sleep on the train, they'll have to
have sleeping car tickets, too.
That's right. You're all set now.
Say, you'd better not take too much time paying for your tickets, Jimmy,
because here comes your train.
There's nothing quite as exciting as a railroad station at train time.
From the time the train arrives until it is ready to leave again is usually
only a matter of a few minutes.
But during that short period, many things happen.
Trunks, luggage, and other such items are loaded into the baggage car
near the head end of the train.
The United States mail is put aboard the railway mail car.
Windows are cleaned by a mechanical washer.
Friends and relatives bid each other last-minute goodbyes.
Passengers like Carol and Jimmy board their cars and are shown their
space in the car by the porter.
It's just about time
now for the train to pull out.
All aboard.
The train conductor signals to the locomotive engineer.
In a matter of seconds, the wheels start turning.
Smoothly, almost without effort, the train gathers momentum.
And before long, it is out in the open country again, running along at top speed.
It's really great fun traveling on trains. You can sit for hours just watching
the scenery as it rushes by.
It's almost like a travel motion picture, one of the most interesting motion
pictures you could possibly imagine.
Here's the conductor. Tickets, please.
Most passenger trains carry the United States mail, for the railroad postal car
is the very backbone of our country's mail service.
These men are railway postal clerks, just like the clerks in the post office at
home, except that here they work while the train speeds along.
Watch them sort the mail, getting it ready for delivery by the time the
train reaches the proper station.
One of the most popular cars on almost any passenger train is the
dining car, a real restaurant on wheels.
Table for two? Right this way, please.
Now, Carol and Jimmy, what do you think you'd like to eat?
What a choice. Almost anything you can think of.
And if you need any help, the steward is only too
pleased to offer some suggestions.
Here's an interesting part of the train most
people never get a chance to see.
The dining car kitchen. No space is wasted and everything is spic and span.
Mmm, that food really looks good enough to eat, doesn't it?
Looks as though Carol and Jimmy topped off their meal with ice cream.
What's this? Oh, the check.
That's all right, my good man. Keep the change.
Modern trains provide low-cost, dependable, comfortable and safe transportation.
They have spacious air-conditioned lounge and dome cars, where passengers can
relax and read or sit and talk with fellow passengers.
There are many types of accommodations on modern trains.
There are single rooms like this called roomettes.
There are bedrooms, compartments and more spacious drawing
rooms, all with the latest conveniences, rooms which make
up into sleeping rooms at night.
That's right, Carol. Always use the ladder to get into an upper.
It's getting pretty late, so good night, Jimmy and Carol, and pleasant dreams.
Always remember that you're traveling the way you are.
The safest and soundest way there is to travel when you travel by train.
We've been talking mostly about passenger trains.
But how many of you know that about half of the trains in the country
carry no passengers at all?
That's right, they carry freight, things that are so
important in our daily lives.
The food we eat, the clothes we
wear, the fuel we burn.
Almost everything we use depends at some stage on the service of railroads.
On the fertile fields of the north and west are grown the millions of bushels of
grains, which are so much a part of our everyday diets.
The railroads move these grains to huge storage elevators or onto the mills.
Then later on, when the grains have been ground, the railroads move products such
as flour to the cities and towns to be baked into the bread which we find every
day on the shelves of our neighborhood grocery stores.
Moving cattle and sheep from the great ranges of the west is
another important railroad job.
The cattle are first rounded up.
Then they are allowed special railroad cars to be moved, sometimes long distances
to packing houses where they are dressed.
Then the meats are moved again to the meat markets of the country.
Eventually, through the help of railroads, we have meat on our dinner tables.
Fresh fruits and vegetables, things known as perishables, are handled in special
refrigerator cars, kept cool with ice or with machinery that works like your
refrigerator at home, to keep perishables fresh while they are being moved,
sometimes as far as 3,000 miles.
Railroads are dependent upon to move the nation's raw materials to factories,
which will make them into finished products.
Iron ore, scooped from the mines of Alabama and the great ranges of Minnesota,
are moved to the nation's blast furnaces to be made into iron and steel.
The railroads also buy millions of tons of finished iron and steel every year for
their cars and locomotives, tracks and bridges.
Coal is one of the most important things carried by the railroads.
Millions of tons are moved every year to keep power plants and factories working.
Railroads are dependent upon to deliver the coal to towns and cities, to keep
homes, hospitals, schoolhouses and other buildings heated
during the cold winter months.
Railroads are large quantities of coal every year for their steam locomotives
and for other railroad uses.
Railroads carry forest products, logs and pulp wood,
from the forests to the mills.
And they carry the lumber and the paper and other products made from wood or wood
pulp to the places where they are needed.
Cotton grown in Dixie is moved to the textile mills of New England and the
southeast, where it is made into cloth for clothing and
thousands of other important items.
Oil is moved by the railroads in huge quantities too.
And the railroads buy and use a large part of all the fuel oil sold
in the country every year.
Railroad tracks go right down to the docks of the nation's seaports, so that
freight cars deliver the products of farms, forests, mines and mills to the ships
that will sail with them to the far corner of the country.
And so the things from other countries can be loaded directly into railroad cars
for delivery all over America.
When you stop to think about it, you realize what a great big job the railroads
are always doing, and why they are the nation's most
important form of transportation.
Always on the moon, day and night.
Delivering all the many things that America needs to keep warm, well fed
and properly clothed.
And here is something that many of you may not have realized before
about the railroads of America.
And that is that they pay enough in school taxes alone to provide an education
for hundreds of thousands of school children every year.
So it's time we were getting back to Carol and Jimmy. They'll think
we've forgotten all about them.
Here's their train coming into their station. And right on time.
It looks like their aunt and uncle are pretty happy to see them too.
Well, the train is ready to start moving again.
There she goes, pulling out of the station, gathering speed, carrying other
passengers, mail, express and baggage to other stations.
We certainly hope you've had a nice time coming along on this trip with us, and
that you've learned something about railroads that
perhaps you didn't know before.
We hope each and every one of you will be able to take a trip on
a train very soon.
Perhaps you'll want to visit a big city.
Maybe you'll prefer to take a vacation trip to the wide open spaces.
Or maybe some of you will prefer the seashore.
But no matter where you might want to go, remember there are
always trains to take you.
And when you go, you'll see how big and how wonderful your own United States of
America really is.
Music Railroads are an important part of America. They play an important part in
our daily lives, carrying millions of tons of freight and millions of people
every day of the year.
That's one of the wonderful things about this country of ours.
Here, people can go where they want to go, when they want to go.
Yes, this is indeed a great land. A land of
opportunity. A land made great by the efforts of individuals.
Individual efforts which have raised ours to the world's
highest standard of living.
Here in America, a person can worship God as he chooses. He
can go to the church of his choice.
Music This is a land where a person can go to school and be educated to the
extent of his ability and desire.
From kindergarten to universities as fine as it will
be found anywhere in the world.
This is a great country, America. A country of the people, by the
people, for the people.
A country whose flag we are always proud to honor and whose rights, principles
and freedoms we are always proud to uphold.
It was upon these principles and freedoms that this nation was built.
And these same principles and freedoms held fast by America's youth.
A youth educated in her history and traditions are the greatest hope, the
greatest protection for the future of this, the greatest of all countries.
Our country. The United States of America.
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