I am still sticking with Eric...but some of the posts here do make a lot of sense. "What is a city?" is a good question. I worked in the City of Cortland, NY..20,000 people with no metropolitan area; I am now in Binghamton, NY, less than 50,000 but a larger, almost 300,000 metropolitan area; but I was born in New York City and grew up in Metropolitan NJ. My real definition of a city is New York. Or Chicago. That is why I picked Eric's shot. However, further, I would suggest a shot of a passenger terminal throat, mass transit, clogged highways, masses of people, and huge skylines would have done more to portray the city-metropolitan-urban railroad scene.
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Compare Bergie's picture of Chicago Board of Trade Building
http://www.trains.com/trn/objects/images/bnsf-yard-chicago-sears-tower.jpg
with pictures of Chicago Board of Trade Building before Sears.
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/1/6/9/7169.1041994380.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/5/4/2954.1223356173.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/0/2/7/9027.1182812400.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/7/3/0/8730.1233848617.jpg
http://photoswest.org/photos/00002501/00002550.jpg
http://photoswest.org/photos/00013501/00013583.jpg
The city argument can go on forever! Anyways, Bergie got my vote simply for the 'dramatic' back ground, some color for the foreground and the clean crispness of it all. And yes, I've noticed in many videos and pictures that yards are being more or less kept clean. (This could be an interesting contest-clean vs. dirty yards..) And in Aaron's defense, what overpass doesn't have a billboard on it?? Even though the ads themselves evolve over the years along with the engines/rolling stock hence making it easy to date the scene, that it's a Coke advertisment gives it more or less of a timeless feeling.
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