Steaming out of the past at full throttle, with crew and passengers in period costume, the 'Best Friend" is filmed in action by a television cameraman. |
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Southern Railway's full-scale replica of the"Best Friend of Charleston," refurbished for its role in the South Carolina Tricentennial celebration this year , will make its first public bow in 1970 in a brief appearance on a nation-wide television broadcast.
"The Ballad of the Iron Horse," a television documentary on the history of the railroads' growth, produced by John H. Secondari Productions and scheduled to be telecast at 7 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, on March 15, over the ABC network, includes sequences showing the "Best Friend" and train under steam with crew and passengers in period costume.
Steaming out of the past at full throttle, with crew and passengers in period costume, the 'Best Friend" is filmed in action by a television cameraman. |
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These were filmed on January 13 near Spartanburg, S. C., on track carefully chosen for the absence of such reminders of modern civilization as automobiles, telephone poles, industrial buildings and the like.
It wasn't really as complicated as shooting the burning of Atlanta for the motion picture "Gone With the Wind." It only seemed that way, considering the logistical problems of bringing the train, the people, the costumes and the weather together in a workable combination.
At the request of Jack Parr, Southern's district sales manager - Spartanburg, a number of local businessmen an their wives were ready to don top hats, frock coats, bonnets and shawls to create the proper sartorial atmosphere to turn back the calendar for the "Best Friend's" photo run.
All was set for the morning of January 12. The train was gleaming in its neW coat of paint. The passengers were alerted, the costumes ready, the television production staff (Helen Secondari, producer; Patricia Sides, associate producer; and Dick Kuhne, cameraman) anxiously awaiting the first full daylight.
Slacking wood aboard the locomotive, a necessary fueling procedure in Ihe early days, is re-enacted for the camera. |
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But, apparently, nobody invited the weatherman.
A night-long fall of sleet coated roads and rails with thin sheets of ice. By daylight, the sky was grey and the going treacherous. In the interest of everybody's safety (including that of the "Best Friend," which has no sander for dealing with slippery rail surfaces ), the proposed jaunt into history had to be postponed.
A lucky postponement, it turned out, for the next day produced a sun to warm a cameraman's heart, a blue sky with wisps of cloud and eight full hours of perfect filming weather .
Recapturing some of the excitement of the Christmas Day run in 1830-"on the wings of the wind. leaving all the world behind"-when the original "Best Friend' reached a speed reported at 25 miles an hour. |
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As any number of costumed passengers can attest, the cameraman made full use of the time. He shot the steaming "Best Friend" from every angle-from head on, from the side, at high angles from a cut bank above the train, at low angles from a prone position, and from an automobile running beside the track.
Back and forth chugged the "Best Friend," for retake after retake with the passengers smilingly intent on this recreating of history .
Cameraman Dick Kuhne of John H. Secondari Productions films passengers boarding the "Best Friend' replica. With him is Patricia Sides, associate producer. |
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After a break for lunch for the passengers and crew and more water for the "Best Friend's" boiler (both arranged at the nearby Firestone Steel Products plant, whose industrial siding was the scene of all the activity) the little locomotive headed back into action. Until the light failed, the television crew was busy capturing every aspect of the scene on film.
What the television producers liked best about the "Best Friend" was finding a historically accurate locomotive in mint condition that could operate under its own steam.
It is an exact replica of the original "Best Friend of Charleston" which inaugurated regularr steam locomotive service in America on December 25, 1830, on the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, South Carolina's (and the South's) first railroad, and the earliest ancestor of today's Southern Railway.
Getting steam up for television is only the beginning of a busy year for the "Best Friend." Resplendent in its new coat of paint and gold leaf, the little train will make a number of appearances in South Carolina during this Tricentennial Year, including the opening ceremonies at Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.