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America By Rail: The Heartland

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America By Rail: The Heartland (simply titled "America By Rail" on screen) is a 1994 travel documentary produced by Greg Scholl and Les Jarrett, as the first installment on their America By Rail video series. This volume follows a cross-country journey by Amtrak trains from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, California, with visits to twelve other train rides along the way.

Narrated by John Edwards Hingsbergen and featuring music by Michael Lynch, this program was released on VHS by CounterTop Video in 1994 and on DVD by Simitar Entertainment in 1998.

Summary[]

Beginning in Washington, D.C., the capitol city of the United States, the first leg of the journey is on Amtrak's Capitol Limited from Washington to Chicago.

Upon leaving the District of Columbia, the train enters the beautiful Potomac River Valley that divides the states of Maryland and West Virginia. After stopping at Cumberland, Maryland, the train makes an overnight journey across the Allegany Mountains through the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Upon daybreak, the train arrives at South Bend, Indiana, before traversing the southern shore of Lake Michigan and crossing into the state of Illinois for its arrival in Chicago, the third largest city in the country.

From Chicago, the rest of the journey follows Amtrak's famous California Zephyr, a modern Superliner train hauled by brand new Genesis engines. After leaving the suburbs as the farmlands of Illinois, the train crosses the Mississippi River into the city of Burlington, Iowa, and crosses the rest of the state at night before stopping at Omaha, Nebraska, and entering Colorado in the morning.

Upon leaving Denver, the Zephyr enters the tracks of the Rio Grande as the Great Plains give way to the Rocky Mountains. With a camera in the cab, the train climbs the Front Range, crosses under the Continental Divide at the summit through the Moffat Tunnel, and follows the Colorado River through a series of canyons into Glenwood Springs. Later, the train enters the wideopen deserts of Utah, passing the Arches National Park at Thompson as it heads into the sunset at 80 mph.

After an overnight stop at Salt Lake City, the Zephyr continues west into Nevada, making a morning stop at Reno. Next, the train climbs through the Sierra Nevada range into California through Donner Pass before descending into the state capitol of Sacramento. From there, the train rolls out its final miles along San Pablo Bay toward its final terminus at Oakland; the journey is completed by an Amtrak bus across the Bay Bridge to the city of San Francisco.

Along the way, twelve other railroads are visited in various states;

Release[]

The program was released on VHS by CounterTop Video in 1994. It was first released on DVD by Simitar Entertainment in a bundle with The West Coast in 1998 and separately by Topics Entertainment in 2008, with the artwork revised in 2002.

In 2011, it was included in a six-disc America By Rail DVD set by Topics Entertainment, packaged with the other three volumes and two additional programs by Greg Scholl and Les Jarrett.

Trivia[]

  • This program and The West Coast were released on DVD in Australia by Payless Entertainment Ltd. Both were the only international releases of the series.
    • Both were also bundled into one disc by Simitar Entertainment for their Planes, Trains and Machines boxset.
  • At the time, the Rio Grande Railroad was operating under the Southern Pacific identity. Rio Grande had acquired Southern Pacific six years earlier, but choose to adopt larger SP name by 1992. The combined system would later merge with Union Pacific in 1996.
  • The Ohio Central Railroad was sold to Genessee and Wyoming Inc in 2008, with the weekly steam operations ceasing the same year. The collection is still based in Sugar Creek, but under the ownership of the Age of Steam Roundhouse.
  • At the time of filming, the Capitol Limited was equipped with single-decker heritage rolling stock and Amfleets, including a dome car. The train would switch to double-decker Superliner cars later that year.
  • The program briefly mentions the Desert Wind, an Amtrak service that split from the California Zephyr at Salt Lake City on it’s journey to Los Angeles. This train would be discontinued in 1997, the same as service to Thompson Springs.
    • Another suspended train that split from the Zephyr at Denver, the Seattle-bound Pioneer, would be featured in the next volume, The West Coast.
  • Some have compared the music in the Arches National Park sequence to Bruce Broughton’s score for the 1985 western film Silverado.
  • Footage used in the documentary, plus outtakes, has been used in other programs produced by Greg Scholl and Les Jarrett and others:
    • GSVP’s Steam in the 90’s series features footage filmed at the Strasburg Rail Road, the Ohio Central Railroad, the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad and the Virginia and Truckee Railroad.
    • GSVP’s Narrow Gauge Steam in the 90’s features footage filmed at the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
    • GSVP’s Early Diesels Volume 3 features footage from the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad and the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. All Aboard the Potomac Eagle, which has been bundled with the America By Rail DVD boxset, also makes use of some footage from the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad, as does CSX F’s.
    • Footage from the trackside of the California Zephyr between Moffat Tunnel and Glenwood Springs is included as a bonus in GSVP’s Last Streamliners Through The Rockies.
    • The scenes filmed in the cab between Denver and Glenwood Springs were filmed for a separate three-part program titled Cab Ride Through The Rockies, another joint production of Greg Scholl and Les Jarrett, which showcases the entire cab ride unabridged.
    • Railway Productions’ Colorado’s Scenic Train Rides, which was bundled with the America By Rail DVD boxset, uses some footage from the Denver to Glenwood Springs segment and the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The program also features original music by Michael Lynch.
    • Footage has been extensively used in Marshall Publishing Inc’s Lots and Lots of Trains series.

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