Traffic Payout

by guest blogger Vickie Sheehan

We’ve launched a new advertising campaign for Amtrak Cascades this fall. The “Verbs” campaign is designed to educate people about the benefits of train travel and highlights the wide variety of things people are able to do on a train, but are difficult or impossible to do with other forms of transportation. Each element

Example of an ad you may see as part of this campaign,  "Tweet to Vancouver B.C."

of the campaign highlights both an activity passengers can do on a train, as well as a specific destination—in just three words (ex. “Eat to Vancouver B.C.”, “Text to Olympia”). The campaign tag line "Get Away Along The Way” conveys how Amtrak Cascades allows people to have fun and relax while they are traveling, versus having to wait until they reach their destination to start enjoying themselves.


The ads are out in the Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C. metro areas and you can see them locally here in Seattle on Sounder trains, Sound Transit Link Light Rail, outdoor billboards (downtown Seattle billboard tri-vision at Valley & Fairview), and on-line at KING 5 news, Weatherbug, and KOMO News.

Newspaper Ad

Or listen to the radio spot (mp3).

Let us know what you think about the new campaign!

UPDATE: Wi-Fi is coming on-line on board Amtrak Cascades in December. We are finishing up the testing phase to make sure it is working correctly and will launch the service as soon as that is completed. So you will be able to YouTube, Skype, Tweet and more on Amtrak Cascades!

The AAA Foundation released a major report on Parents and Teen Drivers this past Tuesday. This was the first naturalistic study that observed the interactions of parents and teen drivers during the learner stage of driving using in-vehicle cameras which were mounted the dashboard. The study found that while many parents do a good job of providing good advice, the wasn't enough practice time overall and specifically there wasn't enought practice in different conditions such as heavy traffic, incliment weather or driving at night. This is an important message for parents of teen drivers to hear because there is absoulutely no substitute for practice when it comes to driving. Footage from our study was used by a variety of news shows including on NBC's Today Show and ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer.