I was watching a "California's Gold" episode a while ago where the late Huell Howser interviewed the late Art Lloyd, who worked in the public relations department at the Western Pacific Railroad back in the 1950's and 60's. In this show and in a magazine article Art said that one of their best methods of educating the public about the existence of their premier passenger train, the "California Zephyr", was "word of mouth" advertising. Frequently the railroad would give school children a ride of short duration on the train like, say, between Stockton and Sacramento, as part of a field trip. They'd ride the train one-way and a school bus would take them back to their school. He said "word of mouth" was some of the most effective advertising because the kids would go home and tell their parents all about the neat train they rode, with the friendly crews, the Vista Dome cars, the nice sights and smells in the dining car, etc. Many times, the parents would then later book a trip on the train as part of a family vacation.

That method of having kids ride a train so they can later tell their parents about it can, sometimes, be a mixed bag of success or can downright backfire.

Sometime back in the 1990's, when I was working as a conductor for Metrolink on the Riverside Line, we had a fleet of morning westbound trains from Riverside to Los Angeles for the commute rush. These trains operate on the Union Pacific's Los Angeles Subdivision which, years ago, hosted the "City of Los Angeles" and other famous UP passenger trains. One day the first westbound train had the unfortunate experience of running over a trespasser on a section of double track near Ontario, CA, close to Ontario airport and where a big landfill was made on the north side of the right-of-way. The crew said it was a foggy morning, the train was operating in "push mode" (i.e., cab car first) and both the engineer and conductor were intently looking out the front windows. Out of the dense fog popped a figure of a man on the track, and he was down low, hugging close to the ties and rails. The engineer later told me he looked a little like that Gollum character from the "Lord of the Rings" movies and he was crawling around almost like a spider. The conductor was so shaken by the incident that he had less to say about it but he corroborated the account of what happened. Without trying to get too graphic, the trespasser went under the train and let's just say he was "severely mangled" to an instantly fatal degree. The train had to obviously stop and it took a huge delay as the appropriate authorities had to be called to conduct an investigation, including first responders who specialize in cleaning up body parts that were, in this case, strewn a considerable distance along the right-of-way.

Meanwhile, the other inbound morning commuter trains that were scheduled behind the one involved in the "critical incident" (as the railroad industry prefers to label such all-too-frequent events), needed to get through the affected area. Since the event happened where there was double track, it was decided to run those trains through the area at restricted speed (i.e., no more than 20 MPH) on the adjacent, unaffected track. I was on board one of those trains and, thanks to radio communication, all of the trains were well-appraised of what was happening. In the history of railroading, these were the times where conductors were known to pull down all the window shades on the applicable side of the train so the passengers would be spared the gruesome sight. Unfortunately, most commuter trains these days don't have window shades. I figured the less said, the better, and I seem to recall explaining the extended delay to the passengers with a terse explanation that another train was involved in "police activity". There was like a "conga line" where the commuter trains were stacking up and having to wait their respective turns to receive authority to go through the affected area at reduced speed.

Fortunately, I didn't have any special groups on the train, like small, impressionable school children. Another conductor on another train that was part of the "fleet" had a group of girl scouts (or some such) and he did his best to try and divert their attention away from looking out the window.

I can just imagine a conversation between a parent and kid later that day:

"Well, Little Johnnie, tell me about your exciting train ride today as part of that field trip you've been looking forward to for weeks."

"Oh, it was REALLY COOL! One of the trains ran over somebody and it was like a biology class. On the track I saw some lungs, intestines, a pancreas, a liver and a severed foot!"

Yeah, railroading is quite a bit different from a 9-to-5 office job in a cubicle.

[blogs.chapman.edu]