Cover of current system timetable

Why did Amtrak use photoshop (or similar) to remove the road numbers from the GEs on the front cover?

Not just the current timetable, but most of the system timetables going back to 2003 have the locomotive numbers removed. I've always wondered why they took the time to do that.

They also photoshop the numbers off locomotives when they make safety blitz posters. The latest one I saw actually looks like a spot on the Shore Line, but with the catenary and catenary poles missing.

The hourly rate for freelance graphic designers is $35 to $60 in Chicago/New York/Washington D.C., where the work is very likely done. Even an experienced designer would require several minutes to Photoshop-out those numbers and retouch the image so that the alteration appears "natural."

Perhaps there's some vague "security" reason for removing the numbers. Perhaps some mid-level Amtrak executive simply has a phobia about giant numerals. Either way, the meter is definitely running while the designer is "improving" the images.

It's one more instance of Amtrak frittering away its ridership revenues -- and your tax dollars -- on cosmetic non-essentials.

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I believe it's pretty common for a number of reasons.
Among them, to give a more pure "clean" image and to make things more fleet agnostic. (i.e. passengers don't expect a specific locomotive or the like. Heck, witness the fascination that a few folks have with 911, simply because of the number.)

I was given a locomotive calendar for 2011. Except for the BNSF
loco on the cover and a Southern Pacific loco inside, the other
locos all had all the numbers blanked out. Seems strange for a
calendar obviously produced for interest by primarily railfans.

I love their judicious use of Photoshop LOL. There is a picture of a train crossing the Long Bridge across the Potomac. The catenary poles are gone, and parts of the bridge are painted green.....DEFINITELY doesn't look like that in reality.

There's a couple more in there....can't recall them all though.

This is not that new, many, many years ago the Association of American Railroads used to black out the railroad name from locomotives and cars in their publicity photographs. Does anybody remember the "EAST WEST RAILROAD"?
Noel Weaver

I remember both the EAST WEST RAILROAD and the NORTH SOUTH RAILROAD shown in photos in various AAR publications.

EastCleveland wrote:The hourly rate for freelance graphic designers is $35 to $60 in Chicago/New York/Washington D.C., where the work is very likely done. Even an experienced designer would require several minutes to Photoshop-out those numbers and retouch the image so that the alteration appears "natural."

Perhaps there's some vague "security" reason for removing the numbers. Perhaps some mid-level Amtrak executive simply has a phobia about giant numerals. Either way, the meter is definitely running while the designer is "improving" the images.

It's one more instance of Amtrak frittering away its ridership revenues -- and your tax dollars -- on cosmetic non-essentials.

The reasons I have seen given for removing the engine numbers are two fold. One, if the engine in the photos, especially on the front cover, were to get in a bad accident in the 5-6 month period the system timetables were being distributed, some would notice it and that photo might end up in all the news stories. Second, some people might think the engine number is the train service number and get confused. The photos are cropped and digitally manipulated anyway - to balance color, gamma, remove unsightly items, likely sometimes removing people in the background because they don't have signed consent forms for them. Digitally removing the engine numbers is a trivial task. The photos are ads which are to represent an idealized reality, they are not news photos.

I have not looked, but I would not be surprised if the airlines remove the tail number of the planes in photos in brochures and marketing material. This is a silly issue to make a fuss over. Next somebody will be upset that the faces of the models and actresses on the cover of magazines are not really that blemish and winkle free in real life.

I remember an early Amtrak brochure that showed an Amtrak GG-1 (painted in red, blue and silver colors) with the catenary wires AND the pantographs airbrushed out.

That might work for LIONEL or American Flyer, but not on the Northeast Corridor.

I think it was the last timetable before the present one - the engine numbers were photoshopped out, but they could still be seen, reflected, in the river or lake or whatever was down below... whoops.

afiggatt wrote:The reasons I have seen given for removing the engine numbers are two fold. One, if the engine in the photos, especially on the front cover, were to get in a bad accident in the 5-6 month period the system timetables were being distributed, some would notice it and that photo might end up in all the news stories.

If the locomotive became involved in a serious accident, a photo of the wreck (or simply another Amtrak locomotive) would appear in the news regardless.

Either way, it's bad news for Amtrak -- especially since the giant Amtrak logo is always clearly visible, even on "official" photos where the engine number has been removed.

afiggatt wrote:Some people might think the engine number is the train service number and get confused.

Confused about?

afiggatt wrote:I would not be surprised if the airlines remove the tail number of the planes in photos in brochures and marketing material.

Actually, they don't. The major airlines (including Continental, American, Southwest) include tail numbers in their print, web, and TV marketing materials. Although airlines have never been paragons of frugality, even they clearly prefer to find better ways to burn their marketing dollars.

afiggatt wrote: This is a silly issue to make a fuss over.

Time spent on non-essential retouching = money spent paying someone to do that retouching. In one way or another, that money is coming straight out of my wallet. And yours.

At a time when Amtrak's paltry budget can't cover far more important service, equipment, and operational problems, wasting its already-limited resources is never a silly issue.

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Do the graphic people charge by the hour or by the job?

Like it takes more than 3 seconds for someone to take out the numbers either way...

Noel Weaver wrote:This is not that new, many, many years ago the Association of American Railroads used to black out the railroad name from locomotives and cars in their publicity photographs. Does anybody remember the "EAST WEST RAILROAD"?
Noel Weaver

I have fond memories of their GG1's.