Hell On Wheels Pt2

In March 2014 I had a voicemail left on my phone from a person who said she was with a production company in Calgary Canada, getting ready to film a show called Hell onWheels and wanted me to call her back.

At first I thought it was a show about fast cars and assumed it was something like the Fast and Furious movie and dismissed it as a low priority and did not return the call until 7 days later.

When I finally called her back she informed me that Hell on Wheels was a television series about the roving tent city that accompanies the transcontinental railroad’s western expansion. The show was returning for its fourth season and that the script called for a fully stocked 1870’s letterpress/newspaper/job shop called the Cheyenne Leader, which actually printed its volume 1, #1 newspaper on September 19, 1867.

The Hell on Wheels crew brought me to Calgary for 4 days on the set. They had all the equipment in its Cheyenne Leader building.

My previous post details the equipment package that I put together and shipped to Calgary. In addition to my equipment the set director also bought a C&P, 8”x12” from New York and a Washington hand press (approximately 14”x34”) from Briar Press. The C&P was very rusty, almost frozen and had fallen over in shipping and the main shaft with the drive wheel had broken along with the feed table support arms.

My job was the get all the equipment cleaned, set up and printing correctly and arranged to approximate a working 1870’s newspaper shop. They gave me a crew of 2 or 3 guys who would clean move or build anything I needed to assist in the shop assembly.

The crew welded the broken shaft and feed table supports. They then set up the Washington press, which had been shipped in pieces. They then sourced the correct bolts for the Paragon Paper cutter, which were lost in transit. Built shelf’s and work tables…then they broke for lunch. These guys are good, I mean-real good, if only I could have these guys and their resources in my shop for just one day…

After I had all the presses & cutter back put back together I hand set type for jobs which I used to I set up and run on each press and get them into working order.

 On the Golding 4”x6” tabletop press I printed a business card for the Cheyenne Leader’s Editor.            On the 5”x8”Golding Pearl, treadle press I printed a post card size ad/bill for the Leader.                      On the 8”x12” C&P I set up and printed a card for the Palace Saloon’s bingo day, meat raffle.                On the Washington press I printed a No Credit sign for the Casino/Saloon and a Wanted for Murder poster.                                                                                                                                                       Finally I cut a stack of 'Paladin's' business cards on the Paragon Paper cutter to make sure it was true and parallel.

Ultimate Press Check. The last day I was there we had a large group of people do a walk through the shop to see how it all looked. The director,producer, writers, set decorator, property master and a few more showed up. I explained how letterpress worked, what each piece of equipment was, answered questions. Then I worked with 4 extras. Each one took a turn on the presses so that they could get comfortable running them and look like they knew what they were doing. These guys may be in the background shot working the equipment.