Amherst Railway Society
June 19, 2007
Meeting Announcement

The next meeting of the Amherst Railway Society is Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 8:00 p.m. at the Amherst Middle School.

Selling the Diesel
By Mr. Preston Cook

SELLING THE DIESEL is a look at the effort to promote the diesel locomotive mounted by EMD, and the challenges faced by ALCO, Baldwin and Lima in trying to respond to Electro-Motive’s intrusion into the locomotive market and to sell their own diesels at a time when they were still building steam locomotives. The program presents a combination of advertising materials,  sales presentations, sales promotional materials, railroad photography, and supporting materials arranged chronologically to demonstrate the diesel’s progress in eliminating the steam locomotive the US market. It has a number of surprises, including Winton’s ads trying to advance themselves as a locomotive builder, some of ALCO’s very unusual ads for steam power and the DL-109, and early Fairbanks Morse promotional efforts that heralded the success of their engines in fleet submarines. The program also includes screen reproductions of several “flip card” presentations just as used by the manufacturers in their sales meetings with railroad executives.

Preston Cook is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. He worked for the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors for 16 years as a Field Service Engineer, Training Center Instructor, and District Engineer managing accounts with the US Government and Military Services. Since 1987 he has worked for MK Rail and their successor organizations, and is now the New England Representative for Motivepower (Boise Locomotive Co.). He is the author of four all-color books (ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES (1987); BEFORE GUILFORD (1988); C&NW MEMORIES (1989); and THE RAILROAD NIGHT SCENE (1991) all published by Old Line Graphics, and has also authored magazine articles on railroad, marine, naval, military and travel subjects.

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