# History Channel TV series -- The Men Who Built America



## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

If you can't quite endure the Presidential Debate tonight (Oct 16, 2012), you might tune in to a new TV series beginning on the History Channel: "The Men Who Built America", with a large focus on the evolution of America's railroad industry from titans like Vanderbilt, Morgan, Rockefeller. Sounds quite interesting, with lots of recreated industrial-revolution scenes / footage.

http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america

TJ


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## broox (Apr 13, 2012)

sounds interesting, if it pops up on my sources I'll grab it.

For a bit more dramatisation, did any of you guys watch Hell on Wheels? I got s few eps deep in the first season It was pretty good. But need to have a mini marathon to catch up. I think the 2nd season just finished recently. Its not suitable for the little ones so I have to be selective about when I can watch such things.


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

Clearly a better choice. Do you really want to know what type of pizza each candidate likes?


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## Dave Sams (Nov 24, 2010)

*The Men Who Built America and Lionel*

Who saw the show?

JP Morgan visited Edison's shop and saw a post war transformer powering a steam loco on 031 track!

What was the loco?


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## lionellines (May 18, 2011)

You're kidding! 

I didn't see that, but did notice all the locos in the scenes about Commodore Vanderbilt's railroads were European.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Exactly! I just ranted about that over in this thread:

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=6098



tjcruiser said:


> OK ... this "trains on TV" moment kind of irked me ...
> 
> I was watching The History Channel's documentary series The Men Who Built America last night. In general, the series is well done, though a bit too drawn out. It focuses on the industrial revolution business empires of Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, etc.
> 
> ...


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## Handyandy (Feb 14, 2012)

I missed the electric train scene, but was wondering why all the British looking trains when they were talking about the NYC and Pennsy.


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## Kwikster (Feb 22, 2012)

Handyandy said:


> I missed the electric train scene, but was wondering why all the British looking trains when they were talking about the NYC and Pennsy.





lionellines said:


> You're kidding!
> 
> I didn't see that, but did notice all the locos in the scenes about Commodore Vanderbilt's railroads were European.


Haven't watched that part yet, but it's typical. The majority of viewers wouldn't know a PW steamer from a clockwork.

It seems they think most wouldn't know a John Bull from a Mikado. Kind of like the old movies where a revolver would be shot with infinite ammo like a video game. 

There's actually several inaccuracies throughout the series thus far, most who watch it don't know any different. For instance, the "Homestead strike" left out a few details, such as the sheriff being called in first, and made the casualty rate higher than actually was. There is also a discrepancy as to who fired first. You'd think the History channel would do a diligent research and attempt to portray things in a more historical light, rather than somewhat glorified accounts. That alone kind of turned me off. Ironically, I had just been reading about the strike a few days before I watched that part.

Carl


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## rrbill (Mar 11, 2012)

I saw the electric train scene in this series, and thought the model locomotive didn't look period-correct, though I couldn't discern what type it was. TJ, you've got a sharp eye to have figured all that out from that brief, not very well lit scene.
Also, some of the other scenes in the series were not what we would call well-lit, which made some details difficult to make out. That's my story/excuse, and I'm stickin' to it.


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