Amtrak's manga "See something, say something" poster
I originally posted this collection of photos on Cohost! Thought I'd bring them here, with additional writing about some information I've discovered since then.
On an Amtrak ride I took in August, I found this "See something, say something"-type warning poster inside the El Paso station, next to the Amtrak ticket counter.
Here's a good close-up image that some people ended up trying to do meme shit with on Cohost:
Sus indeed. And here's the handsome train worker making sure the message hits home:
Well, it turns out that this is not the first time Amtrak has chosen to connect to the youth via the power of manga. This tweet from the Amtrak official account tells a whole ass Amtrak themed shoujo love story. The exact same hot Amtrak employee character appears in it as well.
Because I don't trust twitter to continue existing week by week anymore, here's the whole comic strip from the tweet thread. The text of the original tweet is "Your meet cute is one ticket ride away. 💞"
This is the funniest shit. I wonder what Amtrak's youth outreach program even looks like? I know that a lot of the energy for taking Amtrak comes from rail and transit enthusiasts, who are often young, and younger than me, so pitching a whirlwind train romance is likely to work on SOMEONE on planet Earth.
Romance aside, it is true that an Amtrak trip is likely to help you have conversations with complete strangers. The observation car and the dining car (if you're lucky to have access to the dining car--in some cases you need a sleeper ticket) definitely put you into conversation range with completely random sets of people, and that's actually one of the reasons my husband and I like it so much. We have had some truly interesting encounters there. They're not always good conversations, but even the awkward ones are often deranged enough to be a highlight of the trip. (We once ran into a guy whose hands and forearms were almost completely covered in chemical burn scars. After uttering a bunch of truly vintage right-winger land-owner style opinions, he informed us that he'd spent decades making weapons for an aerospace company. A real life Bond villain, I guess.)
I think our most unusual encounter, however, with was a couple heading to a cowboy gun shooting competition. They were, surprisingly, WAY more into the historical clothing aspect of the competition--the wife made the accurate outfits and the husband wore them. She told us she was traveling on Amtrak with an entire steamer trunk of outfits. She went on to describe her involvement in various historical costuming societies and her hatred for steampunk. I loved talking to both of them.
I have no idea how Amtrak would possibly sell the reality of the Observation Car experience, though. "You may meet some truly weird retired people! They might have amazing hobbies! They might be a weapons dealer!" Selling the fantasy of romance on rails is probably a decent middle ground between the good and bad realities of Amtrak socialization!!