Some additional SP advertising

I’ve recently posted a number of examples of the “institutional advertising” that Southern Pacific published in the 1950s, bright, eye-catching graphics from their advertising agency of the time, Foote, Cone & Belding. This is defined as advertising not to those who were necessarily actual customers or potential customers of the railroad, but the public at large, and was placed in general circulation magazines such as Time.

I began with a number of these “institutional” ads that to me are interesting because they promoted the image the railroad wished the public to have, a progressive and modern railroad. That first set of ads was contained in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/sps-public-advertising.html . 

In a following post, I showed more of the same kind of ads, but also included a few of the advertising efforts SP made toward their actual customers. that post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/other-sp-advertising.html . Lastly, I returned to more of the public ads, along with an interesting example of SP advertising to companies who might be considering a new plant location in SP territory, Here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/more-sp-advertising.html .

Now let me show a few more of the vivid Foote, Cone  & Belding examples, with one simply intended to draw attention to the “Golden Empire” as a possible plant location. As mentioned previously, this is from the latter part of the 1950s, because it has the later-era addition of the Cotton Belt to the Golden Empire logo. You can click on the image to enlarge if if you wish to read the text.

Next is another example of SP emphasizing how much of certain agricultural and mineral products were produced in the Golden Empire:

In this period, SP also liked to publicize various modernizations that the railroad was achieving. This one is a good example. President Donald J. Russell was eager to promote SP to the financial community as progressive and modern.

Next  is an ad that actually may have reached out to railroad customers, once again including publicity for SP’s trucking subsidiary, Pacific Motor Trucking, and the related piggyback service. Note also the inclusion of one of SP’s largest and most profitable freight categories of the time, lumber. That was the main reason the the SP freight car fleet contained 10 percent flat cars, while the national average was just 3 percent.

Beginning in 1956, SP experimented with “dual-fuel” arrangements for diesel locomotives, promoted here using the traditional engineer’s glove. The two fuels were conventional diesel fuel, and cheaper “residual” fuel oil, so thick it had to be heated to flow. Dual fuel would be abandoned in the early 1960s.

Lastly, they decided to publicize the enormous project of replacing the Harriman-era Great Salt Lake trestle with a fill, with a dramatic comparison of the volume of material used. The project was carried out from 1955 to 1959.

All these ads have, naturally, a similar style that the agency created, and as this series of posts demonstrates, they covered a wide range of aspects of the railroad that could be promoted to the general public. 

Tony Thompson