Advertising on TV is no big deal to CN. Way back when (the 70's) CN regularly ran spots on "Hockey Night in Canada" trying to tell Canadian hockey fans that CN was a business that was ready to do anything as professionally as possible. Those ads had great footage of then new SD40w2s in the Fraser canyon!
Another ad had the United Aircraft-Montreal Locomotive Turbo Train in it! CN fought it for nearly ten years, before "selling" it to VIA rail, who found out that it was not going to deliver the promised service reliability that was expected of it. I recall a CN/VIA foreman at Spadina engine terminal in Toronto saying " They painted this the wrongshade of yellow!"
A ride in the front end lounge behind the engineer was quite revealing. For one thing, it smelled like kerosene, a malady I was told had dogged it and its US counterparts 'til their long delayed trip to the scrap yard. Then, too, it had a nasty tenancy to bounce around its passengers and crew at every little irregularity in the tracks, like low spots, crossovers, road or railroad crossings at grade. They also leaned a bit too much on curves if the engineer didn't reduce speed enough, spilling drinks and throwing passengers and crewmen around, until they could get a handhold somewhere.
This ad is basically what is referred to as an institutional ad. At the end the viewer is advised to obtain a prospectus prior to investing. It falls a bit short of some of CNs vintage ads!
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