June 26-27th was a lot of fun! We finally started filming the documentary Engineering Tragedy - The Ashtabula Train Disaster. On this trip, we spent our time at the Ashtabula Maritime and Surface Transportation Museum and the Jennie Munger Gregory Museum at Geneva on the Lake interviewing historians, doing a small reenactment and filming artifacts. We had a great team of people helping and I could not have done it without them. A special thanks to Maryjane Bumgarner, Carrie Wimer, Gary Tabor, Dick Mullen, Carl Feather, Robin Thaxton, Lynette Seith, Bob Frisbie, Jim Travers, Dave Lepard and the Staff of the Jennie Munger Gregory Museum for opening their doors to our production.
On June 10th were at the University of Akron. Here we interviewed Prof. Kevin Kern and Prof. Gregory Wilson. These two historians appear in the film a number of times and help tell the story of America's first big business, the railroads, and the powerful men who ran them. They also talked about the great industrial growth and technological developments of the day and the lack of regulatory oversight of steam trains, steamships, and bridges. Each of them had between 18-20 scenes in the script, so it was a long day, but a good day. Don't worry, we'll be back in Ashtabula again soon! We have a full year of filming yet to do.
On Aug. 12th we were at Hale Farms to film civil war reenactors who recreated the battle of Gettysburg. As you know the Ashtabula Bridge was conceived during the civil war so we needed some of that footage. A big thank you to the folks at Hale Farms for allowing us to film there.
Attached are some photos from our different shoots so far.