In the 60s, was there much in the way of intercity passenger train advertising on radio or TV? I was 8 years old in 1969 and living in suburban Philadelphia but I don’t remember if PC ran any intercity train advertising on the airwaves. I do remember seeing a spot for Amtrak around 1972, but that was Amtrak.
I’m curious to see if RRs did anything to advertise passenger service to the masses in those last pre-AMTK years.
motor
…I can’t be specific but some did and others did all they could to discourage passenger patronage…They wanted out from under the responsbility of running money losing passenger runs.
That has been an item missing for the most part in the Amtrak era…but I understand they simply don’t have the resources to do much advertising…Too bad as I’m sure many potential customers don’t have any idea of what services are really out there…
National Geographic did a lot of Ads for railroads in the 60s thru the 7early 70s
In the Chicago area, I can remember Santa Fe doing some occasional advertising on the 10 PM News on WBBM-TV (CBS). The North Western pushed its suburban service very heavily on radio, even to the point of sponsoring rush hour traffic reports on several stations.
What a stroke of geinus.
Kurt
I also remember the Santa Fe ads on TV in the Chicago area when I was growing up. I was too young to remember many details, but one thing that comes across my mind as I sit here and think about it, was that one ad (or more?) had a large model of some passenger car with a removable roof so that the interior layout could be shown, a dome car perhaps?
Santa Fe also sponsored ads on the 10PM news in the DFW market in the mid-1960s. These were generally targeted to the California service, the low sleeper fares to KC on 111/112 and the TX Chief. They maintained a downtown ticket office almost to the end.
Santa Fe ran ads on TV in the L.A. area in the late 1960s.
Terminal is right on the money.
Their National Geographic ads were classics. I have box of ads which I cut out of NG as a kid and taped on paper. My favorite ad was a New York Central Water Level Route ad showing a streamliner at night along a river in a valley somewhere (it doesnt matter where) with the caption “one by one the cars go to sleep on the Water Level Route” or something to that affect.
They were making the case that their “water level route” was much smoother than the PRR’s mountain pass route and thus, you could sleep.
ed
I lived in central Indiana at that time and there were no TV or radio ads whatsoever. The only ads I recall from the 60’s were in print, either magazines or newspapers.
From reading the above posts, it looks like Santa Fe was about the only road actively promoting their passenger service (and I had read that was the case in a Classic Trains issue).
In Chicago, during the late 50s and early 60s, the Chicago and Northwestern sponsored “The 400 Hour” every weekday morning. One hour of Classical music and the most glowing descriptions of luxury train travel you could imagine. Later they also pushed their suburban commuter service.
One television commercial I still remember was a shot, taken inside one of their new double deck commuter cars, showing a happy commuter relaxing and reading his newspaper, while out of the window you could see the parallel Northwest Expressway with traffic completely clogged and at a standstill… Very effective!
Yep, and the sponsorship of the traffic reports on radio had to be just short of genius.
Both Great Northern and Northern Pacific ran ads on TV during the 1960’s promoting the Empire Builder and North Coast Limited respectively. The GN also promoted Glacier National Park and even their freight services. Most of these ads were during the evening news hour.
The New Haven ran ads.
There are some online somewhere.
Even today Metra here in Chicago metro runs ads sponsoring the traffic reports on the bigger radio stations with lots of drivetime listeners…“METRA, THE WAY TO REALLY FLY”.
It didn’t happen in the 60’s, I can’t remember exactly when but WSM in Nashville used to broadcast the sound of a passing train live.
Sorry I just don’t remember all the details.
In the late 50’s in Cincinnati they used to interview people getting on and off trains live and they also did the show from the Greyhound bus station.
The WSM boadcast of the southbound PanAmerican began in August 1933 from a point in Brentwood 12 miles south from Nashville. The 878 foot WSM radio tower can be seen from I65 today. Air times were changed to meet scedule changes of the Pan. Regular broadcasts of the Pan ended in 1945.
In the last few years, WSM has gone into its archives of tapes, including the Pan tapes. 2005 has been WSM’s 80th year of operation.
The PanAmerican was a L&N train on a 24hour schedule from Cincinatti to New Orleans via Louisville, Nashville, until the arrival of Amtrak in 1971.
They also had newsreels made for theaters (Or broadcast TV?)
You may find these on the Internet Archive.
Are they playing the tapes on the air or making them available some other way?
I thought it was an L & N train but couldn’t remember. I used to see the PanAmerican leave my hometown, Cincinnati.
I remember the Milwaukee Road had ads on TV in the mid-50s. I was fascinated with the Skytops and the Super Domes.