D. B. Arthur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 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]
> 95/12/10/zephyr-californias-gold-610/

The 1950s/1960s were long dead by the 1990s.