Pennsylvania Railroad Named Freight Trains

[Nato]

                   This is for all the SPF's out there and the closet SPF's like myself. I have been reading the large book "Pennsylvania Railroad Art" by Chuck Blardone published by the Pennsylvania Railroad Historical and Technical Society. A fascinating book that covers all time periods from the start of the various predecessor companies right to the bitter Penn Central end. This book is divided up into date eras and we learn that sometimes the railroad had its own advertising bureau, but quite often relied on commercial  advertising agencies in Philly and New York. Most of the adverts are reproduced in large size some of them full page, many are in color. The bios of all the artists are given next to their works. On page 110 in Chapter 4 1929-1939 we learn about the "Uncle Sam" A big Market Basket on Wheels, just one of the fleet of 60 named Pennsylvania freight trains that carries produce and live stock from the mid west to the east coast. Then on page 109 we have and advertisement for the "Uncle Remus". That's right the "Uncle Remus" which the advert says highballs North. A nice drawing in B&W of a speeding freight train, in the upper right a small illustration of Uncle Remus speaking to a young boy. I' am not going to directly quote the dialogue in the advertisement which would be considered rather racist today, but the jist of the text is that the Uncle Remus brings fresh produce and fruit daily from Southern Markets (states) like Florida to the North. Very interesting. A list of all the train names is not presented anywhere in the book, it would be interesting to know what others were. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[pjm20]

Here is a list that Jerry Britton compiled: http://pennsyrr.com/index.php/operations/92-freight/521-symbols

[eric220]

I'd love to peruse Jerry's list, but the "mobile optimized" version of the site is totally hosed, and I can't figure out a way to force the full site to come up. Oh well.

[FrankCampagna]

"The Purple Emperor"?

[Nato]

  PJM 20 Thanks for posting the link to the list. "Purple Emperor" +    Nate Goodman (Nato). Maybe it should have been the "Ming The Merciless"