A Swing and a Miss: musings about Caltrain's 1982 paint scheme, Governor Medfly & B.F. Biaggini
Below we find proof that favorable lighting combined with a gifted photographer can (temporarily) transform the proverbial cow's ear: Santa Clara, January 1984; Brian Jennison slide, Wx4 Collection But earlier... A couple of years earlier (1980), I was a brakeman on what my crew caller dubbed the "Governor Medfly Special", the PR train that introduced Caltrain to the media. Somewhere in Union Pacific's archives there is an SP publicity shot set up by SP PR head Andy Anderson depicting me and conductor Bob Preace (the other brakeman demurred) posing with Governor Jerry Brown. The Gov plainly was not having a good time. When Andy asked him to "talk to the conductor" during the shot, Brown acidly shot back, "YOU talk to him!" A real man of the people, what? SP Chairman of the Board B.F. Biaggini, on the other hand, was quite convivial. While I was manning the platform gate back in San Francisco at Fourth Street, he emerged from a crowd of high-ranking SP men, strolled over to me, slapped my hand and began asking me questions about my background / family. If given a chance after the trip, I would have led a coup to replace Brown with Biaggini as governor, even though I had voted for the former. -EO |