NS Public Relations

[csx6900]

So it's official. I believe that NS has simply the best PR of any railroad out there. Heritage units, steam, and other special events aside, they truly cater to railfans, even in small ways. They never cease to amaze me.

Case in point:
I was roaming Instagram today (I'm not big into social networking, but this is my one exception) when I came across a post by Norfolk Southern from their official feed. It was a picture of a trio of SD40-2s pulling a train through Atlanta.


Now, most railroads (CSX for example) might provide a caption something along the lines of, "Our trains pull a ton of freight 300 miles on one gallon of fuel." But NS? Nope, they get down to the nitty gritty. Their caption tells us the train symbol, control point name, division, location, and yards that the train services. They're not aiming these posts at investors; they're aimed at railfans.

But this isn't even the best part of their post. In the comments section, a random user wrote to them: "Love those standard cabs, especially when they're leading! Send some up to the Pittsburg Line that can lead!" Again, the typical company would probably ignore this comment. But NS? Nope, they reply to the railfan and say: "request noted! "

Of course, I highly doubt NS will actually send out an order to their power hostlers to send trains out with standard cabs leading on the Pittsburg Line this week, but the fact that they even acknowledged his request shows that they understand the railfan culture and are willing to cater to it. This amazes me and I think NS deserves a big pat on the back for having such a great PR department!

-Evan Lofback
Maryville, TN

[E.M. Bell]

NS does have some great folks in the PR dept, a few of which I can say are personal friends. While the stuff they do on Facebook, Twitter ect may seem to be directed towards the railfan community, its not. Its all part of keeping the name out there in the public, and trying to keep that name in a good light.

When the general public is exposed to the RR, its generally because they are stuck at a crossing, or see very biased news reports of wrecks, derailments, deaths ect.  They stuff you see NS post themselves is almost always positive, but hey, thats just good business! 

Carmon is good friends with the one lady who does most of the facebook / twitter stuff for them, and you wont find a nicer person. We have spent a lot of time with her at events ect in the past, and she works hard to keep that positive image alive... 

[MotoLinz]

Agree with the whole gist of your post, Evan. NS is general public PR genius.

That lady you're speaking of is a treasure, EM. She's made my boys' days on a thousand different occasions. I don't know how she manages everything she does, but she deserves a medal.