Customer Reviews

Otto Perry's Rio Grande San Juan Express

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...much better and for $24.95 I expected a lot better. I just purchased this video at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento. I am familiar with Otto Perry and his film works of the waning days of D&RGW narrow gauge ...especially the San Juan extension (Alamosa, CO. to Durango, CO.). I was intriqued by the box description and, being a long time volunteer of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RR (a 69 mile remnant of the original line running from Antonito,CO to Chama, NM), I was looking forward to seeing some vintage footage of the line as it was ...especially the line from Antonito to Sante Fe; the "Chili Line".

Unfortunately this DVD production is a mishmash of film footage that is poorly edited and strung together. There is little use of graphics, in particular maps, to show you the overall location of filmed sequences; if you're not familiar with the San Juan extension you will be lost. The film will follow correct geographical sequences for a bit then jump back or ahead losing the viewer and creating a lot of confusion. The end of a west or east bound run is immediately followed, without any sort of seperation break, by the begining of the opposite direction train. I am familiar with the San Juan line and there were many times while watching the production I was confused as to "where we were". I am pretty sure more than a couple of locations were mislabled.

The original 16mm films appear not to have been restored in any manner. The original footage was silent; the producers dubbed in a canned "train" sound track which adds little to the overall production and, after a short time, actually detracts from it. It would've been better to intermingle more narration on the history of the line, discuss the equipment used, talk about Otto Perry and add some music track rather than hearing the same generic locomotive "sound bites" over and over. There were some voice overs; introductory commments and later some stories told by a couple of gentlemen who'd ridden the San Juan express as young boys. The voice overs were difficult to hear because the level of the backgound music in the intro and the train sounds tended to drown them out.

The video garnered two stars simply because it will give you a glimpse of many portions of the San Juan extension that are no longer in existence today. The view of the Chili Line was interesting as were the views of the line from Chama to Durango. The production could've been made -much- better with the addition of informative location graphics (maps), more informative narration and less "train sounds". In short, if you really want this for your collection, find a used copy and pay no more than ten bucks for it.