Saturday, October 11, 2014

Watch the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the Newfoundland Railway


 We had a great meeting last night! It was movie night, complete with free popcorn! After viewing a classic Warner Brothers Road Runner cartoon (which also had a train) we watched Newfoundland Long Lines, a fascinating film chronicling the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway lines during WW2. The 21 minute film was in colour, which was pretty rare for a documentary at the time.

Speeders were used to lay the cable, and local trees were used to make over 30,000 poles. Because there was little or no communication between Army HQ and the bush, the crews were never really sure when the trains were coming. During WW2, there were lots of trains running - usually 16 a day!

Our program director Morgan Turney received this link from Paul Levin, Director of Marketing at Puce Creek Hobby Distributors, located in Concord, Ontario. 

But if you missed last night's meeting, you can still enjoy the movie by clicking here.  Check out the segment on the video when two men in a speeder had to swiftly dismount their speeder and then throw it off the track to get out of the way of a freight train!

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