Railroad+Group

Task: You are the owners and promoters of the railway. Each team must create an advertisement promoting the Central Pacific Railway. Your goal is to create customers by portraying the journey as an exciting excursion. You will also want to promote settlement of the land you acquired from the Federal government when you built the railway. This will allow you to create a steady need for your services and thus insure that you remain a profitable enterprise. Your role is to "boost" the railway, to create some degree of "hype," to advertise the most exciting sights along the journey and the luxurious manner in which ticket holders will travel. To some degree you are creating the myth of the West in your advertisements.

Format: Your advertisement can take on any form you choose. You could create a brochure, imovie, series of posters, or other items that will create interest and excitement for your customers.

Before you create your promotional item, you need to complete the following steps. You should take notes for each step.


 * 1) Map the significant places along the route. The journey starts in Omaha, Nebraska and ends in California.
 * 2) Make a list of the landscape, animals, towns or cities, and human endeavors that travelers in the 1870's would be excited to see.
 * 3) Find out what the journey would cost, and what would be included for the price of a ticket.
 * 4) Find out how passengers would eat their meals and sleep on the journey.
 * 5) Find out how long the journey would have taken before the advent of the Transcontinental Railroad and how long it would have taken in the 1870's by train.
 * 6) Find out what land is for sale along the way? What would be the advantages of settling on it?
 * 7) Plan your graphics, an important component of any advertisement. You can do original art, download photos and graphics from the Web, or use a combination of both. Your brochure should include a map of the journey with significant stops along the way.

Helpful Sites:
 *  The West, Episode 5: The Grandest Enterprise Under God: [|__http://www.pbs.org/thewest/program/episodes/five/__]
 *  Images from the West: [|__http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/five/__]
 *  Places of the West: [|__http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/places/trails_ter/__]
 *  Union Pacific Resources: [|__http://www.up.com/aboutup/history/photos/index.htm__]
 *  RR Museum: [|__http://cprr.org/Museum/index.html__]
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> RR Maps: [|__https://www.loc.gov/collection/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/about-this-collection/__]

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Also, go to Mr. Fralick’s site and use the Sweet Search link to find any additional resources that you may need.