There is a bit of a story behind the flat car with the camera crane mounted on it.
During the pre-production work when the cars were being converted into the movie equipment in Chama each car was labeled with a tag as to what it would be: Lion car, Giraffe car etc. The flat, #6314, that was to be used for mounting the camera crane shown in Earl’s picture was labeled “Steven’s Crane”.
If I recall correctly, the final decision to use this car was not made until after the train had been moved over to Antonito for filming. A couple of days before filming of the train/car chase scenes was to take place I received a rather urgent call from the production manager. She explained that there was a particular shot Mr. Spielberg REALLY wanted that required using the crane mounted on this car, was there any way we could get it moved over to Antonito in time?
As Earl noted, we were using every available locomotive at the time on a daily basis. Choreographing all the equipment moves over the railroad for these few weeks was an interesting exercise.
I explained that we were unable to add the car to the regular train as it was already at tonnage but we could run an extra train in the evening after the passenger train returned, if they were willing to pay for it. The immediate response was ”We’ll pay, do it” So, we ran a hill turn one evening with the 6314 and a load of company coal for Antonito. I think the crew was Marty and Me but I can’t remember for certain now. Unfortunately, I did not keep detailed records like Earl did back then.
The movie company was really good to work with and they were very happy with the service the C&TS provided.