JonMyrlennBailey
Well-known member
that are free of graphic violence and are suitable for small children to watch.
Railroading films would be chiefly centered around trains and train life.
Some TV series, songs and films in our culture have portrayed railroad employees as crude, violent, drunkard, slobs, anti-social, and savage. Yard bosses, conductors and division supers have been portrayed as men of iron with blood of snakes. They are portrayed as hating gentle-natured hobos and RR trespassers as if they were rats with the deadly plague. Train jumpers' being brutally beaten or killed by RR employees is a common scene in train-related film about freight-hopping. I don't know if real-world American RR's are this bad. I have seen some RR employees that can be ornery, however, particularly on Cal-Trans in the SF Bay Area in California. Some SP workers there have been unfriendly when I once dropped a small stone off a pedestrian bridge onto the cab top of an SP switch engine as a teenage juvenile delinquent while some SP engineers have waved at me as a little boy near the grade crossings. I have been on some passenger trains with rude personnel: namely Cal-Trans. Amtrak personnel weren't very sympathetic to me as a paying passenger when I complained about the California Zephyr's being five hours late to Denver in the mid-'80's as well as my gripes about the questionable quality of the diner food. Some RR workers seem anti-social like many local transit bus drivers, not nice and friendly like most well-dressed Greyhound drivers in my traveling experience.
However, children's songs and story books often portray trains as cute-sy, innocent and fun things.
There is a mish-mash of both positive and negative "choo-choo" imagery in our culture.
Amtrak's horrible safety record is not helping to engender a warm, fuzzy feeling about trains to boot. Much of that former train fuzziness and warmth was felt in the 1950's when Santa Fe ran that elegant, silver, long and glamorous Supercheif and El Capitan train. These modern Amtraks are carelessly-operated massive man-killing machines on iron highways. Railroads are seen by the public as corporate, reckless and ruthless in placing profits above the value of human flesh.
Railroading films would be chiefly centered around trains and train life.
Some TV series, songs and films in our culture have portrayed railroad employees as crude, violent, drunkard, slobs, anti-social, and savage. Yard bosses, conductors and division supers have been portrayed as men of iron with blood of snakes. They are portrayed as hating gentle-natured hobos and RR trespassers as if they were rats with the deadly plague. Train jumpers' being brutally beaten or killed by RR employees is a common scene in train-related film about freight-hopping. I don't know if real-world American RR's are this bad. I have seen some RR employees that can be ornery, however, particularly on Cal-Trans in the SF Bay Area in California. Some SP workers there have been unfriendly when I once dropped a small stone off a pedestrian bridge onto the cab top of an SP switch engine as a teenage juvenile delinquent while some SP engineers have waved at me as a little boy near the grade crossings. I have been on some passenger trains with rude personnel: namely Cal-Trans. Amtrak personnel weren't very sympathetic to me as a paying passenger when I complained about the California Zephyr's being five hours late to Denver in the mid-'80's as well as my gripes about the questionable quality of the diner food. Some RR workers seem anti-social like many local transit bus drivers, not nice and friendly like most well-dressed Greyhound drivers in my traveling experience.
However, children's songs and story books often portray trains as cute-sy, innocent and fun things.
There is a mish-mash of both positive and negative "choo-choo" imagery in our culture.
Amtrak's horrible safety record is not helping to engender a warm, fuzzy feeling about trains to boot. Much of that former train fuzziness and warmth was felt in the 1950's when Santa Fe ran that elegant, silver, long and glamorous Supercheif and El Capitan train. These modern Amtraks are carelessly-operated massive man-killing machines on iron highways. Railroads are seen by the public as corporate, reckless and ruthless in placing profits above the value of human flesh.
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