1953 - Pennsylvania Turnpike Tunnels- improved video

[timmyb58]

This is soooooo coooooool. Thanks for sharing this amazing video!!!

[NewYorker591]

Tooo bad those tunnels are lost and forgotten.......... Laurel Hill, Rays Hill and Sideling Hill were all forgotten. Even the Cove Valley Travel Plaza was forgotten.

[01bdowne]

I love these "every day life" old movies. Really is like looking through a window in time. Thanks for sharing!

[MooPotPie]

"Holiday For Strings" … perfect choice of music for this!!! Only 4 of the original 7 tunnels are in use today.

[bluetheta]

Really nice restoration work. Do that for any other movies you might have (dont need to be posted), so they can be preserved.

[robertwmartens]

@bluetheta I have already preserved and posted many other films by my grandfather. Just look them up on my channel! username: robertwmartens

[form109]

i love old highways!....its too bad this stretch is abandoned and forgotten today....EXCELENT vid.

[SebiStudios2]

Pretty good camera for 1953.

[kosmo2cat]

This video is GREAT! I was out to see the abandoned 13 mile section and the two abandoned tunnels (Rays Hill & Sideling Hill) twice. Each time I walked that old busted up road, I imagined in my mind a scene identical to what I see in your video....old cars whizzing by - - old music playing----on a carefree Sunday afternoon in the 1950s. Your grandparents were brilliant to have filmed this in '53!

[civicvandal]

Great film, your Grandparents were way ahead of their time! My girl and I are heading out to Pittsburgh this weekend and plan a stop at the abandoned section and this video helped put things into perspective.

[QuanticChaos1000]

Were they driving a Studebaker?

[robertwmartens]

@QuanticChaos1000 My grandfather was always drove Buicks - but does something in this movie make you believe that it was filmed from a Studebaker? If so, please tell me, thanks!

[dadsoldtapes]

I've wondered what one would have needed to record sound with these home videos... then again at the time no one knew they would one day be converted to VHS (let alone digitized for YouTube) so they were just made to be played on projectors.

[tweeetme]

Excellent !!!

[CenTexVideo]

Nice video. Fav'd!

[jugg1492]

thank u for throwing this up on here. 

[robsemail]

This is very nice, and the music works great with it. I wish I knew more about working with video, but I think that there are free software pkgs that will stabilize this video beautifully, at the expense of jagged edges. It's the same type of software used to stabilize the Zapruder film some years ago. I think running that type software on this film would really bring out the scenery, except of course at the edges.

[robertwmartens]

@robsemail Thanks for the idea! I'll look into it.

[ave2timeslip]

Nice conversion!  Really looks like film!

[theliftchannel]

note that rays hill tunnel does not have a fan room. since it was only three thousand feet long, it only needed one fan room, which was at the side they exited.

[ORUPRANKSTAZ]

I wish I had been alive during those days...

[kosmo2cat]

Me too, Pal! I say that CONSTANTLY! I was born in the wrong time....

[theliftchannel]

they bypassed rays and sideling hill tunnels to aveliate bottlenecks in 68. Laurel hill was bypassed 4 years before. the other 4(Blue mtn, kittatinny mtn, tuscarora mtn and Allegheny Mtn. They sold the Rays and Sideling Stretch to the southern alleghenies conservancy for a dollar. they are converting this into a bike trail-an on-ramp will be a parking lot access and the toll booth will function as a fee booth. it will be at the site of a demolished bridge on 30.

[Summerslam96]

OMG This is unbelievable footage right here. I'm sure a lot of Pennsylvania residents would appreciate this. I'm 18 and I am laughing right now. 1953 OMG

[Summerslam96]

@Summerslam96 I travel the same turnpike now often as I had brothers and a sister the went to University of Pittsburgh and now I go to IUP and travel through it a lot now. 2011 to 1953 sheeesh!!!!

[MSFproductionsMAIN]

Thank You So Much for this Video. I've always loved the Pa Turnpike. Within the next 5 years I plan on visiting the Eastern Portal to the Sideling Hill Tunnel & the remains of the Clove Vallry Rest Stop. Evem though it's just the parking lot that is left.

[JohnMc52]

Absolutely wonderful, thanks so much!

[skippydmb]

This is a real piece of history. Thanks for posting it.

[PurpleGurlx3]

Very cool. Haven't been on the turnpike in a while, but next time I am I'll check and see if any of these tunnels still exist. I think its cool how your grandparents thought to film this, who knew it'd end up on Youtube :)

[veritasvg]

@PurpleGurlx3

Most of these have been bypassed. There was serious talk about bypassing the Allegheny Mountain twin bores awhile back but I understand that's been shelved due to the economy.

[ansoninc]

I think the music was a theme song for a TV show. Jackie Gleason maybe?

[robertwmartens]

@ansoninc It was the theme for The Red Skelton Show.

[rando714]

Maybe Pennsylvania should abandon the Pirates too...

[bobbyhill789]

wow really cool video..shows parts of the abandoned turnpike

[theliftchannel]

what about allengheny mountain and laurel hill???????

[robertwmartens]

@theliftchannel Probably my grandmother said to my grandfather: Will you stop wasting the film on those stupid tunnels? There won't be any left over for the Family Reunion!!

[theliftchannel]

@robertwmartens they might also have gotten off before those last 2 tunnels!!!!

[dixiewife47]

This is so cool.. Thanks for sharing.

[CRQ5508]

It's eerie to watch this video, after watching other videos of these same locations today, most of which are left abandoned, slowly being reclaimed by the woods. These are just about as spooky as coming across an old abandoned railroad.

[jakphlash]

Love it!  Did the same trip in 55, but no video

[Malibunightrider]

does this song have a name. i always loved this 50's sounding music

[robertwmartens]

@Malibunightrider Holiday For Strings, composed by David Rose

[rogerstill71]

This is an irreplacable piece of Americana & a copy should be in the Smithsonian.

Incidentally, I learned to drive in a '53 Buick-last of the straight eights (in Canada)

[horailfan]

After watching the videos of these tunnels in their abandoned present condition it is a real pleasure to see them in their hayday.Thank you for putting up this video.

[59squire]

WOW, real cars built in America by Americans, no Japorean tin. What a great country we used to be.

[reiltations]

Priceless footage!

Thanks for sharing!

[crazeenydriver]

wow this is classic. thanks for posting :-)

[snoqunmxz]

Awesome!!

[4WDlifeform]

This is just awesome!! Thanks for sharing this! Very cool.

[mikester695]

Thanks, on my fav list now.

[ramblergarage]

love the video and the cool Studebaker in front of them. What kind of car were your grandparents driving?

[robertwmartens]

According to my dad, Grandpa was always a loyal Buick customer, and he changed cars every few years, so in all likelihood he and Grandma were driving a Buick model from the early 1950's. Thanks for enjoying the ride!

[jwo3]

Thanks for posting this video! A week ago, my sons and I hiked through the Rays Hill Tunnel after seeing The Road. It's great to see how it looked back in 1953 -- there were way fewer tress around there than there are now. Great video!

[asicswrestonenc]

great vid, if you can focus, it almost takes u back to 1953. I think at the time there were a total of seven tunnels, but the road has since be reconfigured some and now there are only four

[Deckerb8529]

Great quality!

[beerdeddi]

The Pizzicato strings are famous!

[hep2jive]

really sweet, thanks for preserving history!

[blockheadjoe2]

Thank you for posting, I love the pa tunnels, My family and i bike the old abandoned ones.

[Vearrow]

Thank you for posting this. My great-grandfather worked on building the turnpike, then after completion worked as a toll-collector.

[EduarquiRJ]

This video is a gift for fans of infrastructure history, highways included, and I believe your grandpa and grandma were and are very special persons. Thanks for posting this lovely memory for us.

[sonicepochguy]

This is a fantastic video and an irreplaceable artifact of time! Wouldn't happen to have the raw video file available would you?

[robertwmartens]

Hmmmmmmm . . . why do you ask?

[sonicepochguy]

Because I could have the highest quality version, burn it to disc, and 20 years from now if YouTube vanishes, I might still have this. :)

[john33STEW]

Wow, I would imagine with one lane each direction accidents were pretty common

[veritasvg]

Yes, they were. The tunnels were all eventually double bored or bypassed and now there's an initiative in Pennsylvania to get rid of them completely. They've become a safety and maintenance headache.

[1royalpalm]

As a young kid in the early 1950s, my grandparents took me to Ohio (from Maryland) via the Pa. Turnpike, almost every year to visit relatives. I recall some of those old tunnels, as well as the road signs saying "falling rocks," deer crossing." etc. Seeing your home movie of the tunnels and the cars of that time was great,

[beerdeddi]

The cool music is the best!

[quentinnor]

Checked out Rays Hill in Breezewood Pa. Really cool to see what it was like while in use.

[11weinstein]

If my memory serves me correctly, these tunnels were originally constructed to carry tracks of the potentially defunct South Pennsylvania railroad, to compete with the PRR to the north. Roadbed was built but I believe construction stopped before any rails were laid..

[bingbongstar]

That's Red Skeltons theme!

[MoeDiggity]

Nice Vids its a true un-hollywood look into the past

[ostrich67]

Thanks for posting this wonderful video! I and many others really enjoyed it! I grew up in Pittsburgh and never realized that there was a 13 mile section with three tunnels that was abandoned! What kind of car was your grandparents driving?

[geepbee]

great video of the heyday

[JaxAunt]

Last Sunday, I was standing inside the Sideling Hill Tunnel. What a treat to see it in its heyday. Thank you, Robert and Grandpa!

[merks62]

As the now abandoned Ray's Hill and Sideling Hill tunnels - let alone the abandoned stretch of PA Turnpike between them - are among the world's most remarkable highway artifacts, I was truly thrilled to see this footage of them them taken roughly fifteen years before they were bypassed. Walk inside them today, and it's like hiking inside a bell, the echo is so overpowering!

[mountainplace2009]

again i live in southern huntingdon county, pa and i must say that is film work that frank cappra would pat you on the back well done

ps. get it copyrighted

[veritasvg]

Yeah, I agree. You want to preserve it.

Say, Mountain...my relatives live in Lewistown and that area has changed a lot just within the past ten years. I-99 and the new road through the Narrows east of town is gonna make a big difference especially in the winter.

Take care.

[renegade3552]

Excellent classic Pennsylvania Turnpike video. The quality of this video is superb aswell!

[EddieVanhangover]

Bravo

[robertwmartens]

Little did my grandparents know when they made this little movie in 1953 that it would be receiving all this appreciation today! Somewhere up there, they must be smiling.

[cadrolls1]

A very nice piece of American history. Thank you for sharing it with us. If not for people like you, things like this would be lost forever or tucked away in a trunk in an attic somewhere.

[wakkanne]

That is just a great piece of film history you have there and it's wonderful that it survived all these years. It's great that your grandparents had the sense of mind to film it and to not miss any of the tunnel entrances or exits. It's especially nice that two of the three bypassed tunnels are shown here, so that one can see them as they once were. Good job with the new uploaded version.

[deliveryguyrx]

Golly Wally, it's color and everything!Gee whizz!!! Seriously,a great job.Loved the Stude and the '49 Chevy!!

[yankeeclipper2]

Robert many many thanks for this record and sharing it on YouTube, you have saved a great record of America that has long gone the tunnels and cars /trucks 1953 vintage were just great, 5******, well done.More Please.

[shvybzik]

Too, too cool. I have many memories of childhood Thanksgiving treks westward from the Philadelphia area to Uniontown via the PA Turnpike and a fascination with the 5 twin tunnels (dating myself). It's amazing to watch this footage and I hope to make my first trek to the abandoned portion this summer. Thanks for the thrill!

[rwells2265]

Fantastic job with the remastering. You couldn't have picked better music ... that whole "plink-plank-plunk" so perfectly nails the era.

[JCJasion]

Awesome! I remember riding through all of the then 7 tunnels in 1957. I was 6 and my dad was driving our family out to visit his kid sister and her husband out in Chicago. I had already started my roadmap collection by that time and was completely dazzled by the new transportation infrastructure, though I wouldn't have known about the word at that point.

[Quarkman0]

Brilliant Rob! "Holiday for Strings" if I remember correctly?

[robertwmartens]

Yes. Performed by that quintessential middlebrow orchestra, The Boston Pops. From my late Grandparents' record collection, appropriately enough!

[fordroad]

Well done, a very interesting & YES improved record of the PA Turnpike tunnels. Have you any other records of Grandparent's Film auto adventures. The cars in the foreground just great. 5 ***** More please FORDROAD AUSTRALIA

[robertwmartens]

Greetings from New York! My Grandparents did film a few other sequences of vintage car traffic. None of them are as extensive as this one, but I'm sure you'd enjoy them. I'll digitize them eventually - right now I can't afford it. Damn this financial crisis!