Trains In TV Commercials?

[ironhorseman]

OK, there's the UP commercial.

NS has run some commercials, last time I saw was over a year or two ago.

There was an SUV commercial where the two train wait at the crossing for the SUV come blazing through.

Now Dr. Pepper has used a train in one of it's commercials. It's some kind of F-unit, orange, possibly Rio Grande? Shows only the front of the engine for the first 5 seconds of the commercial. Then the lady gets off the train singing for the next 30 seconds and that's pretty much it. Anyone else see it?

Any other commercials with trains?

[BaltACD]

A couple of years ago, Chevrolet or GMC had a comercial showing a truck on top of a bridge with some form of work gang, next shot showed an oncoming train, the the tag line of the commercial was something about when reliability in a vehicle really counted.

The oncoming train was in BN green and the thought conveyed was the truck had to get off the bridge before it was run over by the train. What a way to run a railroad.....the commercial really conveyed SAFETY on the railroads. NOT!

[Anonymous]

Ironhorseman,

maybe this is an interesting link, click here

[Anonymous]

I've seen two commercials with Canada's GO Transit commuter trains in them. One was a car commercial and I think the other was for a beverage or food.

[Anonymous]

Mabee this is a little off subject but the train safty issue is totally lost on the general public. I was watching a movie just last night, I think It was "final destination" where a train hits a car and dosn't stop. I can't recall off the top of my head where any train/car collision in a movie caused the train to stop. It's as if in TV land trains are this big automated evil entity and the engineers are all blind and or ignorant to the fact that they just obliterated a car/truck/whatever. It makes me laugh every time. Oh how clueless the masses are. But what can you do, no one cares anyway.

[Anonymous]

Years ago there was an Alco FA unit in a beer commercial. It has been too long for me to remember which beer. Take your guess. [:D]

[Anonymous]

Waaaaaaay back in the fifties, National Brewing Co. of Baltimore did a series of animated spots featuring a troubador, a pelican and some other critters [HEY, give me a break; this was nearly fifty years ago!]. Anyway, they sang a jingle about the "Land of Pleasant Living", and the wonders of National Bohemian Beer as they cavorted around Chesapeake Bay country. I've no idea how many different 'toons were done, but one sticks forever in my memory. Just about the time the Ma & Pa [Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad] was pulling out of Baltimore [1958], National Beer placed the troubador and friends on a Ma&Pa train and ran them around the animated countryside, up hill and down vale, even running a tight curve around a large tree that the railroad didn't have the heart to cut down. The steam engine looked like a cross between the "Lil Engine that could", and a teakettle. I always had a kinda soft spot for Natty Bo after that. The beer is still available, but brewed elsewhere. The old brewery in Baltimore, like so many other former factories in Mobtown, is being converted to condos or artist's studios.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wisser

Mabee this is a little off subject but the train safty issue is totally lost on the general public. I was watching a movie just last night, I think It was "final destination" where a train hits a car and dosn't stop. I can't recall off the top of my head where any train/car collision in a movie caused the train to stop. It's as if in TV land trains are this big automated evil entity and the engineers are all blind and or ignorant to the fact that they just obliterated a car/truck/whatever. It makes me laugh every time. Oh how clueless the masses are. But what can you do, no one cares anyway.

While at Wal*Mat the other day, I saw a kid playing an arcade game. in the game, you race 18 Wheelers, & in one level, you have to race an AMTRAK Metroliner train over a crossing. the kid barely made it. And we wonder what is happening to society [:(]

[Anonymous]

Here on the west coast Sleep Train Mattress Co. regularly has trains in its commercials. The best one shows what looks like an NYC streamlined Hudson (Empire State Express) coming to a jackrabbit stop at the station. I think many years ago (early '60s perhaps) Victor Borge was in a commercial playing a grand piano on a flat car pulled by GTW 4-8-4 6323. Can't remember whether it was for General Motors or Memorex.

[Anonymous]

How about a commercial on a train?

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=27989

You'll have to click, they won't let me link to just the picture.. [V]

[dharmon]

GO Transit F40PH and Bombadier DD cars in the Toyota Camry commercial....

[Anonymous]

There was a commercial on he NCAA game last night with a woman drinking some sort of a yogart drink on a passenger train.

[Anonymous]

I can remember from a few years ago a Duracel commercial with a German ICE train.

I can also remember another commercial also from a few years ago with a South African steam hauled passenger train. It emphasised the soot and how dirty the crew was. Then this woman walks bye who is feeling fresh perhaps because of soap or deodorant or whatever they were advertising and all of a sudden the smoke gets sucked back into the smokestack of the engine.

Have any of you ever seen the show "The Best Commercials You've Never Seen"? There was a good train commercial shown on there once from Austrailia advertising XXXX beer. There's a guy on a train and the conductor is collecting his ticket. The man asks him, "So, when does the train stop at Bowen?" The conductor replies, "This is Wednesday, the train doesn't stop at Bowen on Wednesdays." The man then says, "Oh, but I've got a big appointment at Bowen." "Well", the conductor says, "I'll see if I can get the driver to slow down when we go through Bowen, but you'll have to hit the platform running." You then see the train going past Bowen station. The conductor is holding is holding him out of the train and his legs are moving. He sets him down and the man lands on the platform running alongside the train. Him and the conductor exchange a thumbs up. Then, someone grabs him from the last car of the train and pulls him back on. You then see them inside. The guy who grabbed him inside says to him, "You're lucky I got you there, mate. The train doesn't stop at Bowen on Wednesdays." You then see that they're in a bar car. "Oh well," the man says. He then sits down at the bar and says, "Well, I reckon we could do with a XXXX." Very funny commercial!

I once read something on the internet about a commercial that was going to be shown in Brazil advertising Nissan trucks. It had the truck racing a train to a crossing and then running into it and causing the locomotive to fall over on its side. The Brazilian railways took them to court to prevent it from being shown on the air. I'm really glad they did. A commercial like that simply disgusts me!

[espeefoamer]

In the late 1960s Santa Fe used to advertize on channel 5 evening news in LA.
During NASAs Murcury program,they showed Gulf Oil commercials.One showed a unit train of Gulf tank cars in Europe.
There was a commercial a few years ago,I thank it was advertizing car batteries,that showed a car stopped on the tracks with a train coming.The driver waits until the train is almost at the crossing, then starts the car and pulls off the tracks a few seconds before the train gets there.[:(!]

[Anonymous]

back in the seventys CP Rail ran a comercial with a singing railroad man of sorts.

always think safety and support freedom

David brown

[passengerfan]

Buick commercial a few years ago featured the ski train in Colorado using the former Via Rail Tempo equipment painted in Rio Grande gold and black. Great ad lots of train footage with buick traveling to meet someone arriving on train.

[M636C]

In Australia we had a commercial for the French Peugeot 406 coupe' which was set in the American west. The car is driving beside a train, a silver F unit and about four cars. When they get to a crossing the boom gates close across the track and the F unit is seen waiting as the car crosses. The locomotive had black "wing" edge striping reminiscent of the Milwaukee Road FT scheme, but without the orange paint. It could be a unit from one of the "dinner trains".

This sounds like the same idea as the SUV commercials mentioned earlier, but this one may have been earlier. I think this commercial may have been used in Europe as well, since I might have seen it on a European cable channel as well.

Peter

[jockellis]

You guys must have missed the all-time great ad with a train or at least a station, the Windsong perfume commercial where a preppie type is waiting on some rural station for his girlfriend and the music plays and the song goes, "I can't ever forget you, your Windsong™ stays on my mind." Reminds me of taking the Long Island out to Southamption to visit relatives.
Jock Ellis

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M636C

In Australia we had a commercial for the French Peugeot 406 coupe' which was set in the American west. The car is driving beside a train, a silver F unit and about four cars. When they get to a crossing the boom gates close across the track and the F unit is seen waiting as the car crosses. The locomotive had black "wing" edge striping reminiscent of the Milwaukee Road FT scheme, but without the orange paint. It could be a unit from one of the "dinner trains".

This sounds like the same idea as the SUV commercials mentioned earlier, but this one may have been earlier. I think this commercial may have been used in Europe as well, since I might have seen it on a European cable channel as well.

Peter

I think I may have found that commercial on the web at http://www.movie-trains.com/peugeot97.html . This is from the site of a company that locates trains for use in films. Also, there's a list of all the commercials they've done ( http://www.movie-trains.com/commercials.html ). Has anyone seen these?

[enr2099]

There was a commercial for the Tom Harris GM Dealership in Nanaimo, BC that aired not too long ago. It featured a quick shot of two Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway GM GP38's with a short freight blasting past the car lot.

[M636C]

Sask_Tinplater,

Thanks for finding the website. At least my recollection of the train was correct. The 406 was introduced a couple of years later locally, so the commercial was probably shown a bit more recently in Australia.

As with all movies, from the stills it's clear that the crossing scenes were filmed at a different time with only a couple of cars.

I wonder if they built new boom gates for that crossing for the commercial? They (or it!)is/are on the wrong side of the road, so they didn't just rotate it. Perhaps it just had crossbuck signs in reality!

Peter

[Anonymous]

Their was a commerical with the Cadillac esclade with it crossing infront of a train so guess what EMD complained about it. THAT WAS STUPIUD OF CADILLAC TO PUT IT ON

DOGGY

[CBQ_Guy]

Recently I received an offer from Pentrex offering a video of RR commercials on closeout. Maybe they're still available. Their web site is at:

http://pentrex.com/

[mustanggt]

A few months ago there was a commercial for ITT technical institute which showed a string of FEC aggregate hoppers going by and the the guy explained how he became a technical engineer for railroads. When I saw it I said " Those look familiar" and I looked up at my display case and said "oooooooohhhhhhhhh..... Because I have a set of HO scale ones