The Santa Fe "Chief" trains have captured the public imagination and a good deal of the attention when it comes to luxury class trains between Chicago and Los Angeles. Not to be overlooked however is the Union Pacific's top entry on this route, "The City of Los Angeles". The video starts out with a fine map of the Union Pacific routes between Chicago and the west coast, including the Cities of Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salinas among others.

The focus then moves to the title train "City of Los Angeles". Most of the video consists of exterior shots of the train across various parts of the west, along with an adequate amount of video taken from inside the train of the scenery passing by. Much of the action is during winter and even though the video is entirely in color, some of the scenery as well as video of the train's exterior is somewhat drab looking as a result.

Still, it would be asking a lot of video that was filmed 50 years ago or so (the scenery shots from inside the train was likely taken as home movies from passengers) to expect it to be of the quality of new videos being made today with high resolution photography equipment used by professional video makers. The video in this film is still extremely valuable as historical documentation of UP's great train, its equipment, its route and its ambiance.

Even though I might have wished for slightly higher quality image in some parts of the video, I really did get the sensation of being a rider on the train while it was still popular, enjoying the scenery of the west as it passed by the window and listening to the sounds of the diesels throbbing and the horn blowing from time to time.

The narration was interesting and informative, covering key historical information not only about the UP railroad and this particular train but about the other UP passenger trains of that era. I would have liked to have seen more photos of the interior of the train, such as of the observation lounge car, domes, sleeping quarters and dining car. This would have been a truly outstanding video had those kinds of images been included. There was a very short photo of a table in the dining car but it was only a few seconds long and didn't provide much worthwhile information about the dining car my opinion. The same goes for a few very brief shots from inside the dome. I would like to have seen more of those.

There was also some video of UP's Gas Turbine locomotives in action and which added a nice, interesting touch to the overall production. The same can be said for several minutes of UP's 8444 steam locomotive in action, including it attacking Sherman Hill during a heavy blizzard.

While I also wish the video had been longer, I think that Sunday River has done a fine job overall with it. For those of us who never got to ride the great trains of the west when they were in their prime, this certainly provides us with at least some sense of what it must have been like.

Additional remarks by Scott:
Narration: Just enough.
Would kids enjoy this? Yes.
Image quality: Good.
DVD Value: Good Value
Recommend to others? Yes.

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Very good video wish they had done more with Union Station

Additional remarks by mitcho:
Narration: Could have used more.
Would kids enjoy this? Maybe.
Image quality: Good.
DVD Value: Good Value
Recommend to others? Yes.