Span Unlimited

[trainman74]

Saw this on Twitter -- 50 years ago today (March 30), marketing firm Lippincott & Margulies presented its branding suggestions for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. As you can see from this excerpt of the minutes from the meeting, there were three name suggestions given...

 

[MisterUptempo]

I guess baked beans were off the menu the day they chose the name. I love baked beans. Baked Beans would have been the perfect name for America's Passenger Railroad.

 

[John Bredin]

Span would've kept front and center the purpose of spanning the nation. On the other hand, there's nothing particularly "railroad" about the name, as highways and air routes also span the nation.

 

[jis]

SPANTRAK?

Track spanning something - maybe the nation, maybe not

 

[Asher]

I like to keep it short, Trak would've been sufficient.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I think "Amtrak" sounds kind of silly and dated in the modern travel market, but maybe they were drawing inspiration from something like Pan Am back then, and on the plus side at least it's not Traky McTrakface. It's also difficult to separate the name from the product. If riding was a five star experience would the name feel more sophisticated?

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

They paid someone to come up with these names? Nice job if you can get it.

I would have liked Trek, but probably a copyright problem there. It might have made the trains go a tiny bit faster, though, if they didn’t want to look bad compared to the Enterprise.

 

[zephyr17]

Personally, at the time l kind of liked "Railpax" and I thought "Amtrak" sounded stupid (still do, honestly).

 

[Manny T]

According to the excerpt from the minutes posted above, L&M was tasked with developing a summary for the "rational" for the selection of the name Amtrak.

My thinking is, this is probably the last time you will find "rational" in the minutes of an Amtrak board meeting. Just saying.

 

[me_little_me]

I guess baked beans were off the menu the day they chose the name. I love baked beans. Baked Beans would have been the perfect name for America's Passenger Railroad.

Well, SPAN and eggs (that rubber sandwich didn't count) were off the menu for a while. Hopefully, real eggs will be back even on the eastern trains but SPAN is not likely. Too good for Amtrak.

BTW, my M key is not working.

 

[trainman74]

According to the excerpt from the minutes posted above, L&M was tasked with developing a summary for the "rational" for the selection of the name Amtrak.

I'd be interested to see the full results of the survey that was referred to ("the reactions to candidate names by a sample of the traveling public"), but I assume if those still exist, they're buried in some archive somewhere.