"[Man On P.A.] 1-0-4. 104. 1-0-4." "[People Chattering]" "[Jean-Pierre Gorin Narrating] Two guys trapped on a bench in a small depot... waiting for a train to roll in... one heaping upon the other the details ofhis life." "I've always been fond of that kind of premise." "That's me there on the right." "And as soon as Roger finishes his story I'll tell you mine." "[Roger] I worked for General Dynamics while I was here." "Much of my work was mechanical of nature." "For example, in my department I designed almost all of the tooling..." " that we used." " Mm-hmm." "And, um, my major activity was in the area of processes - making new processes, recording processes... writing written instructions for processes." "And, um, it's a rather diffiicult job... because of the fact that you're working with so many different people... so much of the time." "One of the real pluses of my job was that I acted as a troubleshooter." " Meaning what?" " By "troubleshooter" I mean... if the company had a problem in London, England pertaining to water... why, they would get ahold of me... and I would have to tell them what they would have to do to correct the problem... to get rid of the problem." "And I used to enjoy that part of my work tremendously." " [Horns Honking] - [Pedestrians Chattering]" "[Whistle Blows]" " [Crossing Bell Clanging] - [Chattering Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] It had been my fifth Fourth ofJuly here." "I wasn't French anymore, but I wasn't quite American either." "It made me prone to bouts of unspecified nostalgia... and one led me to the Pacific Beach and Western and to the train people." " [Hammering] - [People Chattering, Indistinct]" "[Train Engine Whirring]" "Boy, these haven't been cleaned in a long time." "Well, let's see what we have here." "You fellas been having any trouble with some of these turnouts over here?" "They're pretty dusty." "Okay, Scott, let's open that up again and we'll prop it up." " We got enough." " [Scott] Okay." "[Gorin Narrating] They were working like beavers in there to maintain their machine." "And later I learned that they'd been hard at it since 1958... the time of De Gaulle's return to power and of my first stumble into politics." "Half the world away... the train people had just been given a home on the Del Mar Fairgrounds... on the condition that they would have a show ready for the first fair." "And since then, every Tuesday night they had gathered to run trains... in this hangar on Jimmy Durante Boulevard across from the Bing Crosby Hall." " [Needle Landing On Record] - ##[Piano.'Jazz]" "And that's where we'd met 25 years later- four years ago, that is." "What's the plans for the control on this branch line, Corky?" "Uh, Chester's fiigurin' on... a walk-along control, you know... and then a little board down there to, uh... just throw the switches and stuff." "The same over at the other side." "We gonna have that in for the next fair?" "[Men Chattering, Indistinct]" " Chester?" " Yeah." "Where are ya?" "Up here." "Are you gonna put panel lights in the Underhill panel... like you did up at Mountainair?" "Uh, yeah, if I can fiind some more." "We're starting to run out of those panel lights right now." "Okay." "[Gorin Narrating] And it dawned on me that their layout... was the only thing that had remained unchanged... in a landscape where corporate headquarters, malls and cities of 40,000-plus... were popping up now by the month." "If anything, they had a tale of permanence to tell." "You know, Scott, hand me up some of that paint." " I'll put a little bit on here and " " Okay." "Here you go." " I've got some " " Stir it up a little bit." "I've got some rock down in there too." "[Gorin Narrating] I waited for their main man, their general manager... to finish working on the range." "Every time I get up here I think of Lindsay when he stuck his foot through the ceiling." "[Laughing] Yeah." "He was walking along on the rafters up there... and caught his, uh, shirt or somethin' on a nail up there." "Roger was cleaning track down at Westport... and a leg came through." "[Scott Laughing]" "[Gorin Narrating] Somehow I'd managed to convince myself... that they were offering me a small-scale epic" "America under budget and in a shoe box." "And I wasn't about to turn it down." "[Water Splashing]" "That night, as Corky came down from the hills above Cimarron..." "I introduced myself and told him I wanted to film them on the job." "He took a look at me and said he would talk to the membership." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" " ##[Jazz Stops Abruptly]" " But maybe I should start differently... and show you an all-American picture of a guy who had nothing to do with the train people... but somehow led me to them." "A corny move, I guess." "But remember that 10 years ago I didn't know what the word meant." "It took me to meet Manny to understand it." "Manny Farber." "The only thing I knew when I met him was that in the '30s... when the game in town was to go WPA... he had thought it was playing it too safe... and he started an apprenticeship in the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners." "Carpentry sounded more noble than plumbing, he would say... and that was how he had navigated in the next 30 years thereafter... in between carpentry jobs... film criticism... and painting." "Later I learned that he had one qualifier for most oflife's occurrences." "He'd grab his forehead as ifhe had just hit the same ever-present beam and utter..." ""Brutall"" "But on the first day we saw each other he flashed a couple of Spencer Tracy grins... and talked about someone whose mind was rattling like a penny in a Bendix." "And somehow it felt cozy enough to follow him to Del Mar." "Someone who had this way with words was bound to be a good introduction... to this American landscape I'd decided to stay in." "[Seagull Calling]" "[Train Passing]" "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "It was hard now teaching college kids the glory ofbeing American... by letting a Wellman or a Fuller film flicker in front of their faces." "He got me a job in the same racket." "We would see each other on and off, in his studio most of the time... where he laid his board flat on a tabletop and painted day and night." "[Chalk Scraping On Chalkboard]" "He was fond oflaying traps." "I was fond of walking into them." "He would mumble propositions like..." ""Try to make a film in your own backyard"... or, "Wouldn't it be a shocker if you'd get interested in people... whose main claim to fame was that their cousin knew Perry Como's barber?"" "[Chalk Tapping On Chalkboard]" "[Man] That's Kern." "[Man Chattering, Indistinct]" " Same spot." "Good place." " [Men Chattering]" " You got the rock house again?" " Yep." "Out west." "You got your same spot, Roger." "Good." "Sehr good." "[Groans]" "Get ready." "Here we go." " [Bell Clangs]" " I'm ready." " Yeah." " Well, hold it, Nelson." " That what you're gonna do tonight?" " That's for sure." "And away we go." "I'm beginning to realize why you request the outside boards." "[Men Chattering Enthusiastically]" "Right." "Now you got it." "Now you got it." "Ray still has to get under." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "[Men Chattering, Indistinct]" "Well, got a pretty good yard tonight, Scott." " Yeah." " All loaded up here." "It's a good thing that we came in short, not tall." "[Scott Chuckles]" "We'd have a tough time passing in this passageway." "Right." "[Chuckles]" "[Chattering Continues]" " Watch your head." " Yeah." "Gets harder every day to get up here." "[Chattering Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] I came back to the Pacific Beach and Western a few weeks later... and asked for Corky." "I was told he was Underhill and to go talk to him." "I dropped on all fours and crawled inside the machine... sensing that if I'd been invited to do so... they must have arrived at some decision." "Hey, Roger, what time you gonna send your fiirst extra out?" "Well, I'm gonna send it out as soon as the clocks get on." "[Gorin Narrating] But they were all tight-lipped as usual... and I would have to talk to the main man." "What kind of contract was I about to sign?" "Inside it looked like some jerry-built spaceship... the likes of which I'd put together as a kid... with five chairs and a couple ofblankets laid over." "I had to wait." "Corky had to throw some switches and put a train on a siding." "[Machinery Whirring]" "You say you're painting up another engine, Ray?" "Yup." "[Gorin Narrating] He had been one of the founding fathers." "When they had moved on the fairgrounds in 1958... he was the one who had drawn the radius curves on the floor of this hangar... and mapped out the path the tracks would follow." "Since then he had been G.M. For as long as most of them could remember." "He had run the show, plotted the schedule... played mother hen to dozens of model railroaders." "[Seagull Calling]" "Like anyone who has real power... he insisted that he was just one of the guys." "Later I learned that he was a refrigerator repairman... who couldn't help bringing a shortwave radio on the job... to monitor the movement of trains in the Southern California landscape." "He had a calling card which said, "Corky Thompson"... and underneath, "Train Specialist."" "And the name took me for a loop... as if it had jumped out of a Howard Hawks movie... a name like Matthew Garth or Bud Kenley... a name that ties a knot under a personality... and that I saw somehow as the guarantee that I could pull a Howard Hawks of my own." "Okay, and I'll take your 9:13 then." "[Whistle Blowing]" "[Gorin Narrating] He told me that he had talked to the guys... and that they had agreed to let me film, but there was a catch." "They didn't want to be paid for their time." "They just wanted me to give them the footage that I wouldn't use... so that they could make their own film later on." "And, without missing a beat, Corky added... that he too was a filmmaker." "He had reels and reels of Super 8 under his belt." "They were minimalist epics packed with train action... on which he put titles which sounded likeJimmie Rodgers and Merle Haggard" ""Leaving Fresno in the Rain," "6.'10 in Texas"... or "4449 on the Freedom Trail."" "He had gotten into it years ago with Barbara." "He was a young man when he had met her." " [Bell Clanging]" " She lived with her folks by the tracks." "During the courtship he had asked her to give him a call... anytime an extra would pass by." "They married soon after and started chasing trains together." "To the pleasure of the chase they soon added the pleasure of filming it." " [Whistle Blowing]" " I realized it wasn't going to be easy... to live up to Corky's filmmaking standards." "That night we all watched some movies together." "What have we got tonight?" "I got the Royal Hudson coming out of Fresno to Bakersfiield... when it came down from British Columbia." " Oh, yeah." " Ready?" " No, not yet." " Down in front." "Gotta get level here." "Okay." "Is everybody here that's gonna watch?" " You better holler just in case." " Yeah." "Let's cut the lights and we'll get going here." "Where are we at here?" "Let's see." "This must be up near..." "You're the cameraman!" "You oughta know, right?" " You know where it was - - [Chuckling]" "It's on the S.P." "That's an S.P. Diesel in there." "I'm trying to recognize the spot." "Is that near Tehachapi?" " The town?" " No, this is up at the top of the hill out of" "Not Lancaster, but, uh " "What's the name of that other burg?" " Palmdale?" " China Lake?" " Palmdale?" " Ridgecrest?" "[Gorin Narrating] Could I ever have such a hold on an audience?" "Anyway, we're coming up to the crest." "Then they go down through Soledad Canyon." "Yeah." "You can still maintain pretty good speed." "What happened, Corky?" "Lose your tripod?" "[Chuckling]" "[Corky] That's right at the crest of the hill right there." " Should've used two hands." " Mmm." "Ooh!" "[Corky] That's that spot where 4449... was going upgrade with the diesel and dynamic braking." " Yeah." " Yeah." "Yeah, and was workin' and slippin' and couldn't fiigure what was wrong." " Yep." " Okay, now he's heading down... into Soledad Canyon." "With this angle, we oughta get a good shot of Corky's nose." "[All Chuckling]" "He always manages to get the nose in there." "Those left shots through the driver's window " "I always get a chin or a nose in it." " Look at the caravan." " There's a caravan there." "Oh, yeah, they recognize that spot from our wild chase of the 4449." "[Gorin Narrating] And when I looked over my notes..." "I saw that they had the words "obsession" and 'pleasure"written all over them." "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "I let a few weeks pass... enough to dream the film and try it out on Farber." "I went to his studio." "He was busy marking out the first visual rhythms... on a large rectangular canvas... which had been divided in stripes ofhard-glazed colors... and looked at this stage like some oversized pictogram." "He had just revived a class on '30s film... and he too had Wellman in the back ofhis mind." "I told him that the film would be about the last outfit... that it would talk about work and anonymity." "I was stealing words that I had heard him use many times... when he would take on a film of the '30s... and look past the flourishes of its plot." "I was hoping to get him hooked." "I said it would be in black and white... and that it would go after the small stuff instead of the right stuff." "[Metal Door Sliding]" "He lent me half an ear for a while before ushering me out." ""Just because you're an ex-Marxist... don't feel obliged to start a film with the opening of a toolbox"... he offered as a warning." "[Train Passing Slowly]" "[Train Passing, Fades]" "So a little later in the year I start filming." "It was Tuesday night." "Exterior." "Night." "The arrival scene." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "It was the scene where they stepped out of the night, onto the fairgrounds... in this decor which felt like Double Indemnity." "It was a scene that had taken place every Tuesday night for 25 years." "It was like stepping on a merry-go-round... or like hearing one of those small-time sing-songs that endlessly bites its tail." "##[Continues]" " [Door Closes] - ##[Stops]" "Inside the machine was in repose... and all was quiet on the Pacific Beach and Western front." "It was time to throw in a toolbox for Farber's sake." "[Clock Ticking]" "And all of a sudden it felt like I could be anywhere" "Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio..." "Pennsylvania, maybe." " [Men Chattering, Laughing] - [Clock Ticking]" "Kinda big for that little wire, isn't it?" "Nah, it'll hold all right." "[Gorin Narrating] Had I come to witness the last stand of the American handyman?" "[Man Laughing]" "Besides, I don't think I had anything smaller than that." "[Man Continues Chuckling]" " Hello, Rog." " How are ya?" "[Ticking Continues]" "So, Scott, what's new down at Bill's?" "Well, they got a real good new book in called Growing Up with Trains." "It's got all kinds of the Santa Fe " "Steam?" " U.P." " Yeah, Santa Fe steam." "Early diesel U.P., Southern Pacifiic, Pacifiic Electric." " Oh, yeah?" " It's, uh, softcover." " It's only 16.95." " [Scoffs]" " It's crazy what books have got to." " Yeah." "It's a good one though." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "##[Stops]" "[Gorin Narrating] Their strange connection to childhood... threw me back to the heroes of mine." "[Ticking Continues]" "I had been brought up by a Trotsky-ite... and fed a steady diet of American proletarian potboilers... because the Stalinist kind wasn't tolerated at home." "Wasn't it my fascination with the noble hand... that had landed me from Paris, France... in the makeshift station of the Pacific Beach and Western for a chat with Chester... an old navy who was always the first one to file in every Tuesday night?" "[Gorin] So, what's - what's in, uh- what's in the hobby which is " "I mean, there's something which is close to what you are doing before in some way." "There's quite a bit in this hobby." "For instance, you have to be precise... to build the models to the exact specifiications of the prototype... or the original model of the train, if you're going to follow." "And on running a layout like this... you have to have operational tests on it to make sure it's running okay... before the club meets at night... which we had in the navy." "I was, uh, in missile systems... and, uh, every day- every working day in the navy- we took the weekends off- you'd run a daily system operational test... to see whether the missile system was ready to fiire missiles at any time." "And you have to do something like that here." "Before every operational period... you have to check all the switches and all the track... all the lights, indicators... just to make sure that, uh " " It works." " That it works... and that a mechanical failure doesn't add to the " "Already there's a lot of confusion we have here." "[Men Chattering]" "[Corky] No, this is - this area, you - From riding it a couple times... this area around here is pretty open, down to the " "There's a few, like here, where they've cut - made a cut... but most of it's " "[Man] Bet that took a little doin' to get that thing carved in the mountainside." "Twenty-four inch " "[Gorin Narrating] What was I after?" "The way the past remained in the present... and their routines were steeped in the retools of yesteryear's outfits?" "Anybody else want one?" "[Train Engine Chugging]" "[Engine Stops]" "[Steam Hissing]" "[Chugging Resumes]" "[Engine Chugging, Whistle Blowing]" "[Gorin Narrating] Was I just playing out my desire... to be part of a small-time band?" "Me and the Light Crust Doughboys just before take-off for Oklahoma City... on our way to play for the opening of Montgomery Ward's new store?" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "I talked to Farber." "He bristled at my nostalgia." "That was one word he couldn't stand... for having had it thrown one time too many as a jab to his paintings..." " to the point of inverting the silhouettes..." " ##[Stops]" "In that still from a Wellman movie... that he had thrown in the upper left corner ofhis canvas - some oh-so-private attempt to cover his tracks... and to leave to the borrowed images the sloppily painted quality of a dream... and not the platitude of a quotation." "Once again I try to sell him on the fact that the guys look... like they just stepped out of some '30s movie" "Only Angels Have Wings, maybe." " ##[Piano.'Jazz Resumes]" " He didn't lift his head from the canvas." "He was painting with some Thelonious Monk playing in the background." "He liked it for the way Monk always managed to hit the wrong note." "He was busy with details as improbable... as the meeting of a naked woman and a train car." ""Hawks." "No fooling," he grumbled." ""You are all Remembrance ofThings Past." "But they aren't your things and this isn't your past."" "I hated it when he started to insult me in my own language." "##[Continues]" "I looked at the abstract expanses that had started to populate his canvas... and at the stutter step he had dealt at the bottom of the frame... and had ended in some mock-rage exhortation." "And somehow, like it had always worked with him... it felt like I'd better drop the nostalgia bit and dig in." "I had some homework to do." "But how to go about it?" "Behind Farber's way to paint... there was a choice that he had made long ago... as a film critic." "He had never been interested in story lines... or films that went headlong towards the big idea." "He went for, he said..." ""films where the spotlight of culture was nowhere in evidence... where the filmmakers could be ornery, wasteful, stubbornly self-involved... doing go-for-broke art and not caring what comes of it."" "And he wrote the same way." "He attacked it as the termite's way- a relentless gnawing at the borders of the subject... a way to chew on it so thoroughly... that there was nothing left to spit out." "I followed his lead." "After all, while working away at it... a termite doesn't know ifhe's chewing on the Sistine Chapel... or on an old hangar on the Del Mar Fairgrounds." "[Train Passing]" "[Gorin] How did you guys, uh" "How far back do you go?" "When did you" " When did you meet?" "I don't know, I" " I" " I think it goes back to about 18 years ago or so... when I came up here one night to help out at the club." " Is it when you were Ed in those days?" " That" "Yeah." "It started off then." " I was down in the Whistle Stop talking to Bill - - [Gorin] Hold it." "I'm sorry." "What was the story about being Ed?" " Uh, s-somehow " " Wh " "Somebody said his name was Ed, and everybody started calling him Ed." "[Laughing] And he let it go at that." "Well, that came about when, uh, we were talking, uh " "Lindsay and several others were talking, I think it was down at the Whistle Stop... and, uh - and Gene couldn't remember my name." "He called me one thing and I kinda shook him off." "He said something else and that wasn't right." "Finally he said "Ed," so I fiigured I might as well just agree with him... and let him get on with the conversation." "So he said, "Ed," and I says, "Okay." See?" "So, uh, then, uh... when I came up to the club here one night, why, uh, he started introducing me... and he kept referring to me as Ed." "Well, by this time I thought, we'll get this straightened out sooner or later... and it'll be a passing sort of a thing." "But it kept growing." "Finally-This went on for months." "And everybody was calling me, "Ed!" "Ed!"" "[Train Whistle Toots]" "[Gorin Narrating] But what was in a name, after all?" "Past the PBWdoors... the details of one's life tended to lose some of their importance... and anyone who was a train man could find his place." "[Clock Ticking]" "[Vehicle Passing Outside]" "[Gorin] So, what's your function in the club?" "President of the club." " Since when?" " Since " "Well, let's see." "This is my second year, so it's about two years now." "And how long have you been in the club?" "Since August of, um" "August of 1977." " So you're a new member." " Yeah." "Four years." "So, is it unusual to be " "Oh, I think it's unusual to only be a member less than four years... to go to the top... as president." "But I guess it happens..." "[Laughing] Occasionally." "What" "What" "What made it possible, would you say?" "Well, I think it's because most of the ones that have been in it for a number of years... have had the president, as well as other positions... and they just didn't want it anymore." "Somebody nominated me for president and I went unopposed..." "[Laughing] So here I aml" "[Clock Ticking]" "[Car Horn Honks]" "[Train Engine Passing]" "[Gorin Narrating] Was it their schedule that sheltered them from the storm?" "[Train Horn Honking]" "[Chalk Tapping On Chalkboard]" "[Gorin Narrating] I'd always gone big for the big board." "For me it was the magic of names like U.P. Fast Mail..." "Californian or Rio Grande Zephyr, I guess." "But they were reading something else into it." "What was the charm of this arithmetic... in which Corky had cast the events of the night?" "[Gorin] Is the schedule the script?" "[Roger] Right." "The schedule is a script." "How many times do you change the script?" "I mean, the script seems to be lasting forever." "Well, the script is, uh, infiinitely variable... by virtue of the fact that if we want to change something... we can do one of two things - either add an extra or a second section... or just cancel a particular train as it's scheduled." "We are not limited to a printed schedule... or a script, as you - as you might want to call it." "Um... we can just change things any way we want." "We can make up long trains." "We can make up short trains." "We can make passenger trains." "We can make freight trains." "[Gorin Narrating] You could make them long and you could make them short." "But what other options... does a filmmaker have... at the editing table after all?" "Was Roger describing the deadly logic... of my own pleasure?" "[Gorin] The thing that amazed me is that... you guys are running schedules... for very, very long periods of time." "I mean, once Corky has defiined the great call board..." "Mm-hmm." "It runs for one or two seasons, which is basically" " Pretty much the " " Twelve months, no?" "I mean " "Yeah." "Yeah." "Maybe even longer." "But you've got to remember it's - it's evolving all the time, for one thing:" "It's never quite the same." "And besides, the schedule isn't the whole story." "I mean, the schedule says you run 10, 12 trains of an evening... you know, one direction or another at particular times." "Well, there's a lot more activity than that... and, uh, that's really the fun of it all." "These trains go through at the same time all the time." "You know when they're coming." "So the other things that you do, you have to kind of fiit it in between." "That's part of the fun of it." "For example, making switching moves and whatnot." "Those you do differently each time." "So it's" "That's what is difference?" "Difference in repetition?" "I mean " "Yeah, yeah." "The" " So to speak, the schedule provides a matrix... in which you do the fun part." " Does that make sense?" " [Gorin Laughs] Yeah." "So the trains like, let's say, the Lark or the Delight... are the permanent fiixtures." " Yeah." " They function like what, the landscape?" "Almost, yeah." "Call it temporal landscape." "This things are going to happen at particular points in time." "You know that." "You have to work around it." "[Gorin Narrating] Theirs was an imagination that went for the humdrum and the routine... and within that routine little flurries of activity... that gave the game its salt." "[Bell Clanging]" "[Whistle Blowing]" "[Gorin Narrating] Behind that landscape... there was a fierce desire to get it right." " [Water Sloshing] - [Bird Twittering]" "[Gorin] So what's your, uh- what's your title here?" "[Scott] I'm the scenery superintendent." "Is there books or whatever, treaties on landscaping... on model railroads?" "Yeah, there's a couple of books put out by Kalmbach Publications." "One of'em's called Scenery... and it even goes into a little... history course on geology... on how the land formations were actually formed... and, uh, then shows you how to go about... producing the same effect in miniature." "Uh, the rock formations and... how " "Like if you have a clump of rocks sitting on top of the ground... how they should be embedded into the ground rather than just sitting up there." "It'd look, really, kinda dumb." "##[Jazz Piano Starts, Stops]" "[Gorin Narrating] They always made you feel like a novice... and I could never keep up when I attempted to talk train." "So what's the most important?" "The trains?" "The dies" "The landscape?" "Well, to me it's the trains." "Somebody else would get more interested in cactus and stuff you see over there." "But to me it's the trains." "And in the trains, is it the cars or the engine?" " Cars." " Cars?" "Right." "Diesel engines today, they're so alike." "But cars - Every one of those cars different." "If you look at some of these, some guys have taken a chance - the time to change 'em." "You change the ends, you change the under-seals... you change the doors." "Boxcars, while they might look the same to everybody... are not the same." "They are all different, one way or the other." "Same thing with hopper cars - those over in here, the little two-bays, three-bays." "You don't see too many of those anymore, at least not out here." "You got a lot of cupboard hoppers and stuff now, but, uh " "The cars do change." "There are different body lines to all of'em." "Different sizes, different door arrangement, different types of doors." "That's why I build more cars than I bother with locomotives." " Do you paint them?" " Yeah." " You weather them?" " Weather them, right." "Scratch build 'em up too." "I build a lot of kits." "But I'll take some of these body shells like this and freelance 'em into something else." "[Clanking, Hissing]" "[Gorin Narrating] One night Chester brought in a book for me to look at." "It was called Daylight Volume One." "Six hundred pages full ofline drawings and diagrams devoted to just one train." "What the hell would be left for Volume Two?" "And how far could one go in the pursuit of the true detail?" " Think so?" " Yeah." " Go back to it." " [Train Whistle Blows]" "It needs an air pump." "Probably a cross compound on something like that." " I'm sure it would be." " [Train Engine Chugging]" " No, they had dual for an emergency." " [Horn Blows]" "See, there's two of'em." " Okay, let's try that." " [Train Chugging, Clanging]" "Most of those big ones had two air compressors on them." "[Whistle Toots]" "Either mounted on the front of the smoke box or on the side." " [Horn Blows, Whistle Toots] - [Chattering Continues]" "[Scott] Got a new tape in the other day from R.K. Down at the store." "It's Decade of Steam, Volume Two." " You know how to sucker a guy in, don't you?" " [Laughs] Yep." " That's " " Uh " "Got a tape on it?" " Yeah." "Got a cassette and an LP." " Okay." "Uh, let's see." "It's 8.98." " Okay." "Set one aside for me." " Okay, I'll do so." "I'm adding to my collection." "I have quite a collection of them now." "Right." "It, uh" " Let's see." "It's got the Challenger on there." "Uh, Chessie... 614, I believe it is." "Um " "Couple of other..." "lesser engines." "I got a terrifiic one on the 614... going out of Cumberland, Maryland up the 17 mile grade." "Oh, yeah." "They mounted the recorder right on the back of the tender." "Mm-hmm." "And you sit there for about 45 minutes listening to it pound up the grade." "[Chuckles]" "Just really rocks the room." "My wife loves it." "Like to hear that one." "Yeah, I'm sure she does." "[Both Laughing]" "[Gorin Narrating] These were guys who wouldn't stand for a sloppy soundtrack." "I took Scott's advice and laid down 8.98 for an album." " [Dog Barking] - [Insects Chirping]" "[Barking Continues]" "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" "[Train Whistle Blowing In Distance]" "[Whistle Fades]" "[Crossing Bell Clanging In Distance]" "[Train Approaching]" " [Bell Clanging, Loud] - [Train Passing]" "[Train Continues Passing]" "[Train Fades]" " [Train Whistle Blows]" " Man." "Also you can introduce the steam hiss part of the whistle... which is a very important part of a steam locomotive's whistle." " [Whistle Blowing]" " Let's hear 8444." " [Laughter]" " Don't have that set up." "You have to tell me how to set it up." "Set up a U.P." " You got that." "You got that." " It's essentially the same." " It's the same." " If you can't do a Big Boy or" " You can do the Big Boy." " Okay." "All right." "Just raise the tone a little." "Well, let's go on with the demonstration here before we   [Whistle Blows]" " You can put an echo into it." " Or get a reverberation from it." " [Whistle Continues]" "##[Piano.'Jazz, Stops]" "[Gorin Narrating] With these guys, everything became the subject of a demonstration." "Start out with a prime coat... and then you would spray, um, like the orange." "The silver, rather." "Silver should be on - been on fiirst." "[Gorin] Mm-hmm." "[George] Then with masking tape, you can " "[Gorin Narrating] And I would sit through a step-by-step rendition... of the way a train car had found its red, orange, silver and black daylight scheme." "At the end of it all, there was only one thing left to say- "Good-looking train."" "[George] Then you take masking tape and cover up the orange." "Spray the red." "[Gorin] Mm-hmm." "[George] And then when you get through spraying the red... you cover that up with masking tape." "And what's left is black, so you paint the rest of it black." "[Train Passing]" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "[Gorin Narrating] I had felt that when it came down to Farber..." "I had been left many times with another version of the same line." "##[Stops Abruptly]" "Maybe there was some deep-dish reason to it all." "So much of what Farber was painting had to do these days with work and its rhythms." "It had to do with tools - what you do with them and what they do to you... how they set down the pace of a day's work." "It had to do with the way time stretched on the job- long, empty expanses in which there was nothing left than to dream a little... to squeeze in a screwy maneuver or two in a fixed schedule in order to survive it." " [Man] Boy, you got a nice setup." " [Man #2] You gotta have" " See, Harold's on it." " [Chattering Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] For both Manny and the guys... there was so much routine at the core of any flight of the imagination." "Was I after all just in search of a metaphor for my own work?" "[Men Chattering Continues]" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "[Gorin Narrating] On impulse, I called Farber to ask him if I could put his paintings in my film." "He wasn't too keen on being part of a remake of Only Angels Have Wings." " ##[Stops]" " But he didn't say no." "[Clock Ticking]" "[Ticking Continues]" "When I hung up the phone, I got the sense that I had made one step too many." "[Ticking Continues]" "I was going to owe him a film on top of the film I owed to Corky." "##[Resumes]" "[Chattering]" "[Gorin Narrating] That night, the filmmaker stepped in." "Corky, I mean." " [Men Chattering]" " Hi, Ray." "[Chester] There's still columns to be painted." "[Chattering Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] He was the last one as usual... as ifhe was a man always bound to step in for the second act." " How are you?" " Pretty good, pretty good." "Well, looks like we got about enough." "Oh." "Didn't even see you there, John." "What are you doing over there?" "Plotting some good extra moves, or" "[John] Working on the 4:15 local." " Is, uh" " Is Ken here?" " [Clock Ticking]" "[John] He's out there somewhere." "I just saw him walk around." "[Corky] He's not signed in." "Well, we got enough - Uh " "There's a second section to Train 71." "Did you get that marked down?" " [John] No. 71?" " Engine 4402, I think." "Have to check the board and make sure everybody's aware of it." " [John] Okay. 4402?" " Yeah." "Is that a new one or an old one there, John?" "Just old Masabi - 715, you remember?" "Oh." "What, dirty wheels?" "Terrible, dirty feet." "You see what it says over here about cleaning track?" "Absolutely." "That's what gets 'em dirty." "Get out there and tell some of these yay-hoos that get here early and don't clean track." "Right." "Get out there and get it set up." "It's late." "[Gorin Narrating] He was getting impatient with me... as ifhe felt I had done enough of my shooting and little of theirs." "[Corky Chattering, Indistinct]" "[Man] George is getting the " "Well, I'm all set for the action to begin." "Yep." "Everything's all ready here." "Soon as the clocks are on, George." "[Switches Clicking]" " Mmm." " All set to go." "Okay." "I'll tell Diaz." "Mountainair's ready, Diaz." "[Men Chattering]" "Dispatch, everybody's set." " [Switches Clicking] - [Man] Clocks are on." "[Man #2] Clocks on!" "[Switch Clicks]" "Clocks on." "Clocks are on, Diaz." "[Chester] Dispatcher, Westport." "Dispatcher, Train 44 leaving on time at 1:20." "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "[Gorin Narrating] When the clocks were on... and for the duration of their shift, they lived on fast time." " Am I clear on the outbound there, Roger?" " Yep." " [Clock Ticking]" " It was a compressed version of real time." "Ten minutes equaled an hour, an hour equaled six... a day six days, a month six months." " Time had shifted gears." " [Ticking Stops]" " Dispatcher?" " Yeah?" "Mountainair East." "Is 44 on time?" "Yeah." "[Gorin Narrating] It was all work ethic and no time for small talk." "They had 25 trains to run through the night... and in the process, work and play got strangely confused." "[John] Oh, there she comes." "Cab forward on there again." "[Chester] Have a long string, I guess." "[Scott] Yeah." "Good-looking train." "Yep." "[Scott] Why don't you get the dispatcher." "[Chester] Dispatcher, train number 39, engine number 4109..." " westbound arrive Cimarron 1:30." " [Switches Clicking]" " Say, dispatcher?" " Yeah?" "Did Cimarron report 39 out on time this morning?" " As far as I know, it's on time." " Thank you." "[Gorin Narrating] But as the night wore on, they would start to relax." "I like it in here." "If you derail something or goof up... nobody can see you make mistakes." "[Laughs]" "Well, that's kind of neat." "You know, I mean... a lot of people don't know we exist down here." "Ray sure did a beautiful job on that train." "One of the better ones." "I like those side rats, how they stand out against that engine." "Yeah." "That looks real good." "Yeah, the seats and people and - Real nice." "And the lady standing there with the purse in her hand even." "[Laughs] Only thing he missed, I guess, is some dishes on the table in the dining car." "[Laughs] It's pretty well loaded up." "Yeah, no dinner in the diner." "That's what it amounts to." "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" " [Birds Tweeting] - [Train Whistle Blows]" "Dispatcher, this is Mountainair East." "Yeah?" "Train 44, engine 4320... departed 1:45." "[Switch Clicks]" "[Corky] 1:" "45.Just about time to go." "Call that in to the dispatcher early." "[Gorin Narrating] But for me, I'd become another game... which had little to do with their subtle pleasure of running trains on time." " [Birds Twittering] - [Horse Whinnies]" "I had a Citroen, and that night Corky brought in a mini version of my car..." " down to the bend in the fender." " [Chickens Clucking]" "And before I could yell "voodoo," he placed it in the landscape." "[Rooster Crows]" "I was left to dream on the inside." "[Insect Buzzing]" "And from there on..." " Tuesday after Tuesday..." " [Engine Rumbling]" "The boys would move me around and show me the sights." " [Chattering] - ##[Piano.'Ragtime]" " ##[Piano Stops]" " I was in, all right." "[Birds Chirping]" "But how had I signed on for such a tour?" "[Animal Howling]" "##[Strings.'Folk]" "Where I come from, there is not that much space... and one thinks in before and after more than east and west." "But when I found myself in this American landscape..." "I had dreamed so many times about... it dawned on me that it would take more than oneJohn Ford memory to get me through." "That's why I turned to Farber" "Manny, who in three words could pin down the way Cagney sliced through the space... of a ballroom in Wellman's Other Men's Women." "## [Ballroom Jazz]" "Hiya, honey." "Why didn't you phone you was gonna be late?" "Oh, baby." "Use your noggin." "How could I?" "You know I was on that mule." "Wished to all I could." "Besides, I had to stop at the roundhouse and talk to that foreman for about 15 minutes." "Some fiixin' had to be done on the engine." "Then I had to get cleaned up, and that took plenty of time, believe me." "Plumb dirty." "[Shudders]" "Then I had to get into these glad rags." "That took a few minutes, you know?" "Not bad, huh?" "Whew." "Besides, you ain't only missed a dance or two." "Babe, you look like $700 tonight, I'm telling you." "Come on, let's go." "[Exclaiming]" "## [Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] How many times must have I tracked him down... to get a new hint?" " ##[Continues] - [Woman Laughs] What do you think?" "[Gorin Narrating] How many times... must he have grown weary... of this French guy who would so relentlessly... ask him to talk of things American?" "##[Fades]" "But, in fact, he was starting to get out of movies when we had hooked up." "He had painting on his mind more and more by the day." "You could always be sure with Farber that he would be somewhere else... than where you expected him to be." "A few years after we had met, he came up with an oil on board... that he called Birthplace:" "Douglas, Ariz." "It was an openly autobiographical as I had ever seen him be on a canvas." "It was an imaginary trip... back over the years and in the colors of the Southwest... to this border town where he'd been born to a couple of dry good store owners... and where he had lived the first part ofhis life... surrounded by two brothers." "It had been painted on a tabletop... an ever-shifting bird's-eye view." "Douglas was all tracks, he said... and he added that they had marked the town... by letting a train car full of copper roll down to a stop... from the mines of Bisbee." "[Train Passing Slowly]" "[Nelson] Extra 714 out of Summit now." "[Scott] Okay." "[Gorin Narrating] You had to bushwhack your way along Farber's tracks." "[John] You have Western Pacific 913 coming to you." "[Gorin Narrating] There were memories that came back from the familial past... and took the form of an oversized fire sale sign... next to a toy house... a reminder of the time his mother had torched their store... and sold off the damaged goods to follow his oldest brother... to his campus life in Berkeley." "There were echoes ofheadlines... in a group oflead toy gangsters in the right-hand corner." "Some shoot-out memory, maybe, between company toughs and miners... during the copper wars." "[Train Whistle Blowing]" " [Nelson] Top in?" " [John] Yeah." "[Nelson] We better tell the yard they got a good-sized extra coming in." "[John] Good-sized extra coming down the loop." "[Whistle Continues]" "Yard, you got a good-sized extra coming down." "Do you have room for it?" "[Gorin Narrating] There were pun lines galore... like the rump of an ass on the face ofJimmy Douglas... the founding father of the town... and cryptic messages in the way the word "anti"... took over an AuntJemima package." "Douglas was a very racist town, he would say... remembering the black G.I. Camps at the edge of it." "And then he would talk about Corporal Adams... a black guy who played sax... and with whom he and his brothers had formed a small band..." "Corporal Adams and the Farber Brothers." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "##[Stops]" "It was like a map on which he had marked and crisscrossed his own path... and so many times that the border of the frame... instead of offering you a moment of repose... a scenic point of view from which to look at the damn painting... forced you back into the turmoil inside." "With Farber, you were always in the thick of things." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "It was the same thing that he was saying over and over  ##[Stops]" " That it-life- wasn't too big a deal... and that it shouldn't be painted like one... that we're all like bit players in a Preston Sturges movie... ready to testify in front of a small-town jury... in terms whose relevance would escape everyone but ourselves." " But where did that leave me?" " [Train Engine Chugging]" "One day I was looking over some Barney Googles." "It was one of the tracks Farber had sent me to." "And it hit me that if there was one trick that I'd learned from him... it was an age-old one." "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" "When you want to say where you stand in a landscape, you draw an "X."" "Two lines crossing at a single point." "It was going to be 10 years." "The few friends that I'd left behind in Paris, France... were by now sending puzzled messages " ""Why Del Mar?"" "And from what I heard in their voices... they made it sound like Nome, Alaska." "And it seemed to me that the only way to tell them where I really was... was to cross Farber's imaginary landscapes with some other one." "[Man] I've got your 4026 coming out here shortly." "[Man #2] Okay." "[Nelson] Gene, I got your cab forward coming down the hill on Train 39." "Should be in there in a few minutes." "[Gorin Narrating] So I picked up these guys... these crazy realists who worked such a different beat than Farber... and who labored under the strain of their schedule." " 5012 doing this." " It runs good." "Really stays on time when you get it lined up... on the track here." "[Man] Do you have a speed on the Santa Fe?" "[Switches Click]" "[Gene] Yeah, I can get you, uh, Mountain here pretty quick." "Number 4026." "[Man #1 Chatters, Indistinct]" "[Gene] No, no, I screwed it again." "Ran through that switch." "Getting old and senile." "[Man #1] Got a couple of sets of cars for you - [Continues, Indistinct]" "Okay." "Let me get rid of this one and we'll be " "[Switches Click]" " There's your top-end power there, George." " [Switch Clicks]" "Okay." "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" "[Gorin Narrating] One day I took Farber to the airport." "He was carting away to New York a load of paintings for a show." "On the way, we got stopped at a crossing... and watched an endless freight pass by." ""Stuck counting cars again,"he laughed." "And then, as I slumped in the driver's seat, he added..." ""If you could only tell how you got hog-tied."" "The old bastard had me pinned down once again." " [Clanging Continues]" " And I knew that he knew... that he for one had trapped me in this small-scale epic." "[Train Engine Chugging]" "[Train Continues]" "[Gorin Narrating] I was getting too used to that freight yard." "I was starting to know my way around." "[Siren Wailing In Distance]" "[Whistle Blows]" "[Whistle Continues Blowing]" "[Horns Honking]" "[Engine Idling]" "[Man On P.A.] 1-0-4, 104. 1-0-4." "[Horn Honks]" "[Second Man On P.A., Indistinct]" "[Gorin Narrating] I started to send to the outside world... messages whose relevance would escape anyone but myself... namely to my producer Stein in Mainz, Germany." ""Dear Stein..." "Chester says that they have modeled Westport on the old Stuttgart station." "Send pics of the Stuttgart depot from 1900 onward." "P.S. More deutsche marks, s'il vous plaît."" "Answer.'" "[Stein] "Where is Chester?"" "But after a while I finally stopped writing altogether." "Stein was expecting another film anyway... something called G.I. Joke, a small singsong to my Americanization." "He had been waiting for it for a couple of years by now... and on the phone, every six months or so... he sounded like he would settle for a couple of snapshots." "And I got the sense that at best I could send him on a stroll... with the woman fighting a headwind... or have him witness a stranger's demise." "[Man On P.A.] Last call- Train 2 on Track 2." "[Gorin Narrating] Or pay a visit to the woman who had just talked to Walker Evans... and give him a quick look at a storefront signed by the same." "[Birds Tweeting]" "Or let him enjoy some perverse and desperate leisure... with Lolita by the pool." "[Water Sloshing]" "[Man On P.A.] All aboardl [Continues, Fades]" "[Gorin Narrating] So the days passed, Tuesday after Tuesday." "The guys were starting to wonder what kept me so long in there... and each time I returned, I added to their puzzlement." "Nobody who wasn't a train man had ever paid so much attention to their operation... and they started joking among themselves... that I could at least be given the title of an honorary member." "Only Corky, the wizard of Underhill... could reveal the metaphysics of it all." " [Switch Clicks] - [Scott] Hey, Corky?" "Yeah?" "Are you east or west?" "What do you mean, "east or west"?" "[Chuckling] Th-This " "Underhill and Slocomb yards don't exist." "We're in Never Never Land." "This is infiinity." "This " "It's 10 hours from the other guys, or 400 miles or whatever you want to call it." "We're in the - the bottom of the mountains here." " [Scott] That's 'cause you belong there." " [Laughter]" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "[Gorin Narrating] But the fast time clocks were ticking for me too by now." "It was a time strangely stretched... like an endless train wait in a small depot." "In the background, there was the buzzing of those train numbers... and of those arrival and departure times... which echoed all across this anthill." " ##[Stops]" " How many days had passed already?" "[Corky] You get me jabbering here and I forget my own schedule." " You still there, dispatcher?" " Yeah." "I've got, uh, the T.O.F.C. Number 221 going " "Well, it was gonna be on time at 4:05, but it's gonna be a little late." "But it is getting out." "What's the engine number?" "I can't" " I knew you'd ask me that, but I don't have it writ " "Oh, yeah, I got it written down." "4379." "[Chuckles]" "And it's running late?" "Ah, be about seven minutes late." " About seven minutes late?" " It's a hot shot." "It'll pick it up." "If it ever gets out of Never Never Land." "[Ray Chuckles]" "Infiinity." " That's a pretty long train here tonight." " I'm at West Infiinity." "Ray's at East Infiinity." "Sounds good." "How many cars you got on that train tonight?" "My golly." " Everything's moving - - [Train Whirs]" " [Laughs]" " Uh-oh." "What'd you do?" " Dispatcher?" " Yeah?" "Train number 221 's gonna have a slight delay." "Two pigflats just laid over." "[Gorin Narrating] And it took that wrinkle one night... to tell me how entrenched I was... when I heard that two pigflats had laid over... and realized in a mixture of fear and pleasure that I understood what the words meant." "And one of those ironic self-floggings... that Farber had administered in his canvas... flashed in front of my eyes." "Yeah." "But how could I get out by now?" "[Engine Won't Start]" "I got the sense that Corky was using a lot of diplomacy in the wings... to justify my continued presence." "From time to time he would give me a hint." "[Crossing Bell Dinging]" "Had I overstayed my welcome?" "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "[Crashing Continues]" "But nobody could get rid of me so easily." "Who had they to blame anyway?" "I had followed their tracks, and like for the guys themselves... the obsession had become so private... that there was always something else to explore." "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "[Crashing]" "But how did I ever conceive that I could probe the depth of their passion?" "It was a closed world inside that hangar on the Del Mar Fairgrounds." "[Owl Hoots]" "They had managed to find their tribe... and only the love call of the southbound could distract them from their task." "[Train Approaching]" "Hey, guys." "You wanted to see the southbound." " What do we got?" " I don't know." "Is that Night Ghost or the SDX?" "Listen to that thing rumble across the bridge." " It certainly is." " Look at those lights." "What, do you have four or fiive units on there?" " One " " Four big ones." "How do you know they're big?" " Looks like a CF7 on the back." " I see his lights." "Yeah, he counted the wheels." "How many cars do they usually carry at this time?" "This guy usually only comes in with 40 or 50 cars." "Wow, that's not just the long one tonight." "There goes the caboose." " The caboose, yeah." " Yeah, that's it." " There it goes." " Okay, let's go." "Diesel lovers." "[Laughter]" "If it was a steam engine, I'd be over there at the tracks." "[Gorin Narrating] It seemed a good image of the way the world... was retreating these days into small-time obsessions." "But after all these years in Del Mar, I wasn't one to quarrel with any man's hobby." "It was Farber who had sent me through that door" "Farber who was horror of the big subject I had followed to their miniature world..." "Farber who always played high and low with his own culture... who always picked as a subject something that could hold on the head of a pin... and got his kicks from multiplying infinitely the entries and exits into it." "He was on the other side of these guys'innocence... playing hide and seek with Americana." "A long time ago he had recorded our first meeting... and tagged me as his twin brain." "I could have spared myself a lot of trouble back then... if I had taken those words less literally." "Twin brains?" "Me, the twin of a guy born in Arizona... who had grown up to be called "Snake Hips" on the football field?" "He had made for a story that all the shrinks in the audience... would read as a search for the father... and which I kept seeing as an old-fashioned buddy story." "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "It was a termite's life... but at least I had stalked Farber long enough... so that by now the '30s twang of two pals in a Wellman movie... had another flavor than the one I'd perceived some 20 years ago in Paris, France." "[Corky] Here comes that W.P. Extra." "[Man In Movie] You'd rather hang around Fishback's Dance Hall... with that dizzy dame Marie and the rest of them popeyed hash slingers." "[Man #2] Hey, listen, don't be pannin' my lady friend." "[Man #1] Well, keep it up and you'll wind up behind the eight ball." "And what will I be doing?" "Working hard, getting promoted to superintendent." "I'll end up in the front office of GM as sure as you're born." "[Man #2] Yeah, and you're also gonna break your arm... if you don't quit patting yourself on the back." "Here, pally." "Have a little chew on me." "And let's go." "[Screeching]" "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" "[Train Engine Chugs]" "[Crossing Bell Clanging]" "[Ray] Got a good signal." "[Corky] Sure was nice of the Western Pacifiic to redo those new towers, wasn't it?" "[Ray] Oh, yeah, it really was." " [Corky] Last ones running." " Yeah." "God, this extra started out from Westport, one of the fiirst extras out." "Those guys will go dead on the log." " They've been on the road for" " A while." "They're over there eight hours." "That's the way the extras are supposed to run though." "I hate it when these guys run 'em through... faster than the fastest trains are supposed to run." "[Chuckles] Yeah." "Well, it's almost break time." "Somebody getting the clock for break?" "[Switches Clicking]" "Dispatcher, clocks are off." "Yeah, clocks are off." " Clocks are off." " Time to go to beans." "[Switch Clicks]" "[Men Chattering, Indistinct]" " Come on, dispatcher." " I'm coming, I'm coming." "[Gorin Narrating] What could I tell Stein in Germany?" "That for me it was a world of train men out there?" ""Dear Stein, I'll need a couple more Tuesdays to round it out."" "[Men Chattering]" ""I want to take some close-up shots of the gearbox... ofJohn's Rio Grande Zephyr... which Corky thought was a great idea." "He suggested also that I concentrate on the Burlington Northern... and on the 4449."" "Go in here." "Shut the door." ""I'm feeling more in tune with their dream machine... and time seems to drag between our Tuesday nights."" "Somebody gonna" " Hi, John." "Somebody get the kitchen shut down?" "[Door Closes]" " [Vehicle Engine Starts] - [Doors Closing]" "[Vehicle Pulls Away]" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "##[Stops Abruptly]" "By the way, did I tell you the story... that Corky and Nelson polished for the camera?" "Somehow I can't help feeling that it mirrors my own." "[Train Whistle Blowing]" "[Corky] Remember your humorous little episode... with famous American apple pie getting on the train?" "[Nelson] That really got out ofhand, didn't it?" "A perfectly innocent trip." "I'm ordering a meal... and you ordered apple pie, but I did not." "I had my main course, and then later when I tried to get a piece of apple pie... why, uh... the waiter went by with one piece, and" "And what happened to this other waiter?" "[Corky] No, that one waiter" "I don't know if you saw that or not, but he bumped one of the other guys... got mad and threw it all on the floor." "And it was your piece of apple pie." "[Nelson] And it seemed from that time on, every place I went..." "I tried to order apple pie, and they were always out of it." "[Corky] Remember even up north, Vancouver... that gal didn't know what you were talking about when you told her... you were taking a survey." "[Laughs]" "[Nelson] Well, yeah." "It happened with such frequency..." "I finally thought, well, I'm gonna kick it around and make a little gag out of it." "And I'd go in a restaurant and say to the waitress... you know, "I'm making a survey." "Do you have apple pie?"" "And sometimes they'd get a little upset, you know, and wonder what's going on." "But they'd go back and check." "Wasn't long they'd come out and say, "No, I'm sorry." "We don't have any apple pie, but we got cherry, we got this, we got that."" "[Corky] I remember some of them saying, "We always have apple pie." "We don't have apple pie today."" "[Nelson] And it seemed like the more we traveled... the more we ran into that, which" "[Corky] You've got less apple pie when you've ordered apple pie..." " than any guy I know." " [Train Whistle Blows]" "The Rio Grande Zephyr- I think they had apple pie, didn't they?" "##[Piano.'Jazz]" "##[Continues]" "##[Ends]"