PC: PC book cover (Really!)

[Jerry Jordak <jer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Last weekend at Summerail, a friend who was selling railroadiana at the 
flea market stopped me and told me he had a Penn Central item that I *had* 
to see. It was a Penn Central book cover, like the type of book cover used 
to cover your textbooks in high school. It had a large picture of a Penn 
Central Metroliner train somewhere on the Northeast Corridor. The train 
itself is in black-and-white, but the rest of the picture has an orange 
tone to it. In white letters, it reads "KEEP OFF THE TRACKS...unless you're 
on a train/Penn Central Route of the Metroliner". It was too large to fit 
on my scanner, so here's a picture of part of it:

http://pc.smellycat.com/docs/passenger/bookcover.jpg

Along the top of the book cover are installation instructions. The left 
margin has an open area marked "THIS SPACE FOR DOODLING" and the right 
margin has a place for the student to record their name, address, etc. It 
was published by The Colad Company of Buffalo, NY.

Turns out my friend was looking to sell it, so it come home with me for a 
reasonable price. Out of all the PC railroadiana I've seen, this one was a 
new one to me. Anyone ever see a PC book cover like this before, either in 
school or at a railroadiana flea market? I'm just kind of curious how 
unusual this is, and if PC regularly partnered with schools, etc., to 
promote railroad safety in this way. (Obviously this was way before 
Operation Lifesaver came along.)

Of course, I'll probably find out later that Gary Farmer has a case of them 
in his basement... :-)

-JWJ