Charles Smiley Videos D-143 The Hard Coal Roads 1-hours 40-minutes

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This is a look back in time to the “Anthracite” roads that once made the eastern
rail scene more interesting and colorful. These principal roads were Lehigh
Valley, Jersey Central, Reading, D&H and the Erie Lackawanna Railroads.

The common theme was their early success based on hauling anthracite coal from a
unique area in Pennsylvania and the decline of that business. The last decade of
these roads largely depended on a declining business in hauling “bridge
traffic”.

The corporate history of these five roads is woven into a wealth of wonderful,
all-color, railroading scenes. Our animated maps, made especially for our
videos, are used to keep the viewer more informed.

We explain all the mergers and some that almost came about. This railroading
action has a grand look at five Class 1 rail lines that were independent until
1976.

Our presentation is based on color movie film with its rich color rendering and
digital enhancement to make it appear better than even the original.

This is 1 hour and 40 minutes of five featured railroads that have disappeared
along with highlights from three other regional railroads that faced the same
fate.

The closing chapter brings the beginning of Penn Central and its rapid failure
that swept up the other roads in their northeast. This is a large slice of US
railroading history with many “moving parts” — from a lost but colorful era.

Featuring

• LEHIGH VALLEY RR
• JERSEY CENTRAL
• READING RR
• DELAWARE & HUDSON
• ERIE LACKAWANNA
• PRSL AND L&HR
• PENN CENTRAL EARLY CONRAIL
• AND MORE!

An additional 20 minutes of previews of other titles were added to this DVD that
review the northeast rail scene in the 1976 to 1996 time frame. The total
run-time of this DVD is 2-hours and 01-minute.