Train travelers are rare birds these days, but the glories of passenger rail travel are remembered fondly.
Golden resident Richard Luckin has made it his life’s work to capture the fast-fading memories of America’s luxury trains.
“Daylight: The Most Beautiful Train in the World” (8 p.m. Saturday, KBDI-Channel 12) is his third, following similar videos on the California Zephyr and the Santa Fe Chief.
Non-rail fans will find the frequent run-bys of the Daylight, which ran between San Francisco and Los Angeles from 1937 to 1970, repetitive, but interviews with former passengers and Southern Pacific employees bring to life a more relaxed time – before airport security and oversold airliners.
“Daylight” makes its national PBS debut on June 26.
Friday
It’s last watch for “Third Watch,” airing its final episode, “Goodbye to Camelot,” with a spectacular finish when a gang assaults the precinct (8 p.m., KUSA-Channel 9).
Is he or isn’t he? SpongeBob SquarePants happily goes to work in a hamburger joint in the season premiere (6:30 p.m., Nickelodeon).
Saturday
Gather up the children and imaginative adults for “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” the 2002 film all about Harry and his fight with dragons (6 p.m., KMGH-Channel 7).
Sunday
The “real” Elvis Presley, not the two-part series King, takes center stage all day long with back-to-back showings of his movies. Who could ever forget 1963’s “Fun in Acapulco” (8 p.m., AMC)?
Spinster English detective Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) comes back in a two-part mystery, “A Murder Is Announced” (9 p.m., KRMA-Channel 6).
Around the dial
Jamie and Danny fans up in arms! For those not “in the know,” the popular morning duo disappeared abruptly last week when KFMD became Spanish-language KXPK. No other station has expressed an interest … KEZW 1430-AM rebroadcasts its 2004 live coverage with Rick Crandall of the 60th anniversary of the landing at Normandy at 8 a.m. Sunday to mark the 60th anniversary of VE Day … The Metropolitan Opera ends its radio season with Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” (11:30 a.m. Saturday, KVOD 90.1-FM) … Westminster’s Angie Green, slated to appear tonight on Stupid Human Tricks on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” tells all about it on KALC 105.9-FM at 8:30 this morning. … Quotable: “Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour.” – John Ruskin
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-820-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
