Interesting Facts on Petticoat Junction
(This is from a fact sheet written during the second
season)
- The real train is in Sonora,
California
- It is not a narrow gauge - it is
full-width
- The wood in the tender is window
dressing - It [the train] is converted to
oil
- It was made in 1901 and has been seen in
countless pictures
- It cost $21,000.00 new
- An exact replica on the stage at General
Studios cost $85,000.00
- It was made by Fox
Studios
- It belongs now to a motel in Portland,
Oregon
- Filmways Studios rents the engine. They
rent it from the motel owner
- The baggage car & combination
passenger car is a duplicate of the one in Sonora and belongs
to filmways
- An overhead crane on the set will lift
the sides and store them
- It comes apart in many pieces and can be
taken down and put together in minutes
- Only Smiley Burnette and Rufe Davis have
seen the real train
- Neither have ever driven
it
- Only the doubles go on
location
- A transparent screen with a projector is
used to show the background moving behind the mock-up engine.
The scenery moves, not the train. To make it appear that the
train has passed a tree, a black screen is moved across in
front of a light
- An electric smoke-maker is held in front
of a wind machine to simulate the engine smoke
- The whistle cord does not blow a
whistle
- The train never moves an inch. It has no
axles
- All sets are on two stages. The train,
Drucker's Store, a paper hill that goes to the Shady Rest
Hotel, and the Hooterville Depot are on one. The other has the
Hotel front porch, the Lobby, the Dining Room, the Kitchen, the
Bedrooms and the little cafe in Hooterville
- The Beverly Hillbillies are next door
with a similar set-up
- It is supposed to take two and a half
days to shoot as episode, 26 minutes. So far, t'aint
so
- Company starts shooting at eight, shoots
until six, quite often until nine
- Make-up call is thirty minutes before
stage call, if the cast is light. If cast is heavy, make-up
call can be earlier
- There are seven in the regular
cast
- Drucker, Herby and Nutty Norman are
near-regulars
- The cast and crew are fond of each
other, but after a long run of several weeks, everyone gets a
"I'll bite you" attitude. It is, however, only skin deep. It is
not carried too far
- It is reported that the show is sold for
1965
- The rating charts have fluctuated up and
down, as low as tenth at times and in the top five other
times
- It's a business that says -- you stay
high, you stay long...otherwise????