(Wx4's inter-dimensional department spanning the ether between the Grab Bag & Harmonic Convergence )
Really Weird and/or Cosmic RR Ads & etc.
massively updated:
I generally think of my fellow rails as practical, no-nonsense types, most of whom also possess varying degrees of cynicism.
This page offers empirical evidence to the contrary - there apparently are many fruit loops in our midsts (not counting Foamers, even), and occasionally they hold positions of influence.
As you will see, this is not a new thing. In fact, based upon the following historical data, one could make a strong argument postulating that the New Age movement originated on the nation's railroads.
Ultimately, I don't know where we're going to wind up, here, but note that I collect this stuff, which says something about my personal place in railroad cosmology, I suppose. - E.O.
Couldn't afford it on eBay
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It sings, doesn't it?
$8.55 on eBay? I don't think so!
While I judge that Dead Silly Johnny makes England the clearcut leader in tasteless railroad advertising, we colonials also are giving it a good go. Witness this fine Metra poster, what? Sadly, it was withdrawn after the traveling public complained that it was inappropriate. Gad, are Chicagoans more sensitive than the English? Mayor Daily, say it ain't so!
Incidentally, a train (or more accurately, a boxcar) hit me in San Jose's College Park Yard many years ago, and plenty of people have met me since then (see the story in the Grab Bag).
I liked this so much, I bought it on eBay, for $3.99!
Further research, some days later: OK, so I figured that a quality site like Wx4 ought to provide accurate data, so I plugged L' ETOILE DU NORD into Babbelfish and came up with "The STAR OF NORTH ".
This does little to improve my comprehension, but still, in this lack of clarity there is revelation. Look at all of this - French words, stars, Indians and general confusion. Yep I can only conclude the obvious: With this advertisement,
the Northern Pacific spawned the New Age Movement!
Northern Pacific, the nation's Magic Mushroom, Indian jewelry and fusion music industries salute you!
Update, 1-20-04: An alert viewer has revealed to Wx4 that L' ETOILE DU NORD is the official slogan of Minnesota. I apologize to you Minnesota-ites out there for not knowing this, but while I have your attention: Is Minnesota a state or province?
No way that I'd pay $3.99 for that. No, I mean the ad!
Here we see some typical Santa Fe customers gathered in the lounge car, passing around a rather large bomber , and experiencing a group hallucination of historical proportions.
Lady on the left: "Joe dear, you're not paying attention to the group hallucination. What are you looking at?"
Too disturbing to bid upon on eBay.
"Look, there's a cute little Indian lad, who is glad to see us even though he grew up so malnourished that his legs are bowed. What say we toss him some coins? More importantly, is the dining car open yet?"
Hey eBay - I'll bid 50 cents for it. Shipping included.
Don't you think it's nice that the Santa Fe turned Joe over to the Southern, safe and sound, rather than threaten him with that photograph showing him chained in bed with a hooker at the Hotel Albuquerque? Ahh...simpler times. Big business isn't so ethical, these days.
Should I have bid on this one on eBay?
Funding for eBay purchase courtesy of NOW.
Hah! Objectively, have you ever seen genius in the railroad industry's portrayal of itself? The Friendly Southern Pacific campaign surely flew like a cow (especially amongst employees), didn't it? Remember when John W. Ingram, decided to gloss over Rock Island's decaying infrastructure and labor unrest with a coat of blue paint? I rest my case.
Rather, what we see here is an early forebearer of Santa Fe's insensitivity in the see people and places campaign (3rd above) mixed with the downright irony that they displayed in the previous Outdoor Sports example - truly a masterwork. Kudos, Uncle John!
Likewise, here we see more historical evidence of the kind of stuff that constantly gets we men in trouble with the squaws, er, women. The lovely Indian gal depicted here ( please note: California Indians did not dress this way; in fact many of them largely did not dress at all during fair weather) has no more to do with outdoor sports than the lusciously curved Victorian beauty depicted above. Thus, we can rightly suppose that the innuendo in these ads deals with indoor sports; that exploitation of women knows no class lines.
The real question is, then: How did all of this sell tickets? I mean, if a guy in Topeka is feeling horny, is he going to tolerate a tortured train ride out to California, or merely take a timely trolley ride over to the wrong side of the tracks?
- yet another hooked ball into the sandtrap of American advertising.
Drat, I forgot to bid on this one on eBay.
At this juncture, I think that it's fair to conclude that women have never produced a piece of railroad ad copy.
See also: the Milwaukee Road Vintage Advertisements Page
I surely couldn't pass this up on eBay.
Hey! Is that Washington Union Station that the saucer is crashing into? Also, does anyone else hear a Theremin, or is it just me?
My $2.20 bid wasn't enough.
That this monstrous image sold train tickets tells me all that I need to know about our society a century ago. (Shame on your insensitivity, great grandpa!) Worse, it appears to be a trend-setter, given that some years later Santa Fe used the malnourished Indian lad (see above) to hawk tickets.
I also wonder if the SP/RI's ad agency was the one that came up with the Pillsbury Doughboy, an obvious rip-off. Ad Executive: Just separate the twins, Bob, and make the pitch to Pillsbury. Too bad that they didn't keep the girl-part, since the later in-kind ripoff of the Doughboy - the monster Sta-Puff Marshmellow Man in Ghostbusters - would have been absolutely killer as a Siamese Twin.
...hmm, interpretations can be wrong. This merely may be some super-crappy artwork that slipped-by E.H. Harriman. Fie on your inattention, Mr. Harriman!
Another eBay success!
I likewise suspect that the influence of N.P.'s ad ranged far afield from the quartz crystal culture. In a bit of cosmic countervailance, this ad seems to be the direct forefather of a stupid trend on Madison Avenue: bury the point of an advertisement so that it is almost indecipherable. Surely you've repeatedly scratched your ass pockets trying to figure out why those nubile twenty-somethings spend a minute prancing around your TV screen - apparently to no end - only to realize much later - after the fifty-third repeat - that the ads are pushing designer jeans. By the time you get the point, you want to wring somebody's neck...and you have become too old to wear jeans.
N.P.'s offering probably did not evoke such a strong backlash, but I'll bet it left folks choked with laughter. Oh yeah; Have you found the real point of the ad? At the very bottom you'll note a miniscule announcement for the premier run of the North Coast Limited, a train that would remain as N.P.'s flagship for the rest of the railroad's existence. Surely they didn't think that the history of N.P.'s monad in a six cent promotional booklet was more noteworthy than a the premier of their new luxury limited, no? But on the other hand, maybe...
In all, this ad is such a tribute to general flakiness that I feel it is my duty to update it to reflect its contributions to the 21st Century psyche. I hope that the original ad's creators enjoy my contribution as they dine with the angels on sprouts and hummus up there on planet XK29.
New 02-10
Why didn't I buy it on eBay?
This hoghead probably started railroading when balloon stacks and ballon skirts were high style. Fifty years hence, he's still working nights in pool freight because he is only 70 years old, and he's still junior to the REAL seniority which owns the cushy passenger runs. In the 'good old days', engineers retired on average at age 70, or 71.
Yep, you betcha!
We believe that this piece of patent propaganda needs to be recognized, because we judge that it represents perhaps the most preposterous piece of advertising claptrap ever put forth by an American railroad. Taking into consideration the other offerings on this page, this is no small accomplishment.
Thus we have come up with a befitting way to laud the C&EI for a truly wondrous exercise in detachment from reality, The Wx4 Crowning Achievement in Railroading Award. Way to go, boys!
New 02-10
It's too pathetic for me to shell out $9.95 on eBay.
Answer: Because, back in the pre-EPA days, railroads used about every kind of noxious, caustic and carcinogenic chemical known to mankind to maintain and fuel their equipment.
For instance, just ask these twenty-something-year-old roundhouse laborers here at the company hospital, where they are undergoing the annual check on their state of slow death. Most of them probably will have to give us written answers, since their lungs are too wracked with mesothelioma to respond verbally.
Nevertheless, why do they look so content? Because this get-together also doubles as the annual meeting of their 1944 Hires Last Man Standing Club. It now being 1951, these guys are what's left of the original 68 members of the 1944 class. Of the originals, two guys quit in the interim, while the others who didn't make the photo were terminated for various rules violations, such as drounding in the turntable pit, croaking from benzene-related illness, or maybe even for being hit by a crane. So, yes, these guys are happy survivors, as were the two iron men who returned for the 1952 meeting.
In reality, the blood drive thing was nothing more than an attempt by the embattled C&EI public relations department to recover face from the hoots and cat calls that received their disastrously funny 1951 campaign (above).
Of course, after this ad appeared, a high incidence of leukemia and alcohol tainted blood nearly put the Red Cross out of business, and those of the public who viewed this ad swore-off blood transfusions.
New 02-10
Ebay couldn't pay me enough to buy this ad.
Around mid-Century, N&W put out a series of ads that strived (unsuccessfully, we opine), to compare their railroad with totally unrelated history.
In ironic fashion, this example is probably apropos. Perhaps the N&W's cut-rate (merely a guess based upon the quality of their work) ad agency executives were subconsciously thinking of the railroad's technological state in composing this masterwork. After all, in 1953, N&W was still merrily constructing steam locomotives well after many large railroads had totally dieselized. Sure, N&W did this to placate coal shippers, but to the larger public, N&W 's fleet appeared more like the Spanish Armada's square riggers at than, say, Bull Halsey's aircraft carriers.
Sometimes accurate associations are not the best thing.
New 02-10
Another clunker on eBay.
Back in the late 1970's we encountered a flatcar sitting near San Jose's Newhall Tower. On top was a beautiful new Chris-Craft 30 foot (or so) cabin cruiser...with a hole in the hull nearly large enough to sail Philip's Armada through.
Sadly, this sort of thing has always been a sore spot with railroading. We ourselves learned that, even despite reasonable care, one's assemblage of valuable merchandise stands good chance of arriving in unassembled condition.
Given the railroad industry's sorry record in this regard, we say here as we literally and figuratively have said so many times before: What in the heck were the ad guys thinking?
Shipping manager: Hey Henry, get a load of this ad! These Reading boys are just plain stupid. Put that load of perfume bottles on the B&O, would ya? Christ...
New 02-10