West End Video Tape

[Fred Schneider]

I had an opportunity last night to look at Transit Gloria Mundy's new
video tape on Pittsburgh's West End Lines.  Should someone wish to order
a copy, their phone number is 1-800-428-7003.

Most of the roughly 45 minutes involved DeDamo and Jackson 8-mm
Kodachrome that was digitally enhanced to improve contrast, exposure and
sharpness.  In fact, after the credits, Carl Schultz has given us some
split frame examples of what the films looked like before and after
enhancement.  He cannot get 16mm quality out of 8mm films but the
results are vastly improved over the original films and depict effort
and expense that few producers would expend on a tape having a limited
market as well as an uncommon technical expertise on the part of the
producer.  

Almost all of the scenes were taken on or after 1956 ... in fact
abandonment posters show in the windows of some cars dating them to June
1959.  While there are some cars from which the paint applied at the
factory in Saint Louis had been abraded, most cars still looked a lot
better than they did when the East End lines were shut down in 1967.
There are a few color scenes of the 29 Thornburg shuttle, one black and
white of a 5200 single-end low floor, and some black and white footage
of route 32 on Carson Street east of the Point Bridge.  There are no
scenes of routes 24 and 33 (you want egg in your beer?).

The sound dubbing is superior ... Carl not only added the sounds of PCCs
and older cars (using equipment from the Baltimore Streetcar Museum) but
also automobiles and birds (birds I would expect from a man who lives
with uncaged avian-americans).  Curve squeels were added when a car was
turning, the sounds of a PCC clumping over special work were added at
precisely the right time.  He did a marvelous job. To be honest,
however, I did detect the sound of air-brakes on a 1700 and the sounds
of jointed rail got too me because Pittsburgh welded all the rail joints
on city streets.  There were no sound defects as serious to my mind as
one in a competitor's tape where a Phiily car was heard to accelerate as
it pulled to a stop behind an auto at a traffic light.   There seemed to
be very few flaws in narration ... the speaker was even told how to
pronounce Monongahela but no one told him how to pronounce Stanwix
Street!

My only complaint:  there was too much on the West End.  I didn't need
three or so views of Bell Ave and Idlewood Rd in Carnegie, five
different cars pulling out of Penn and Stanwix, all the references to
the bridges over or under the PRR Panhandle Division, and all the
separate scenes from inside and outside of cars showing the
landslide-caused perturbations on Island Avenue.  But what I found
annoying will doubtless be a "flaw" that will make the tape a winner to
most Pittsburgh Railways aficionados.  I further understand that these
problems will be corrected later on ... Carl told me he has in the back
of his mind a one-hour tape on Pittsburgh trolleys that will involve
only the best of the four previous tapes.  This a tape not for the
public but for us... 

Ed:  If you have Carl's e-mail address, forward this to him.