High school graduation. Time for friends, family, celebration, and taking senior photos and videos. Lots of young people seek the perfect artistic backdrop: a “vanishing vista.” What better, more artistic vanishing vista is there than railroad tracks diminishing into the distance, right?
Wrong—dead wrong. Apparently, the practice of taking senior photos and videos on railroad tracks has become popular as well as a big problem, and Union Pacific is doing something about it by reaching out to young people with a couple of brief but shocking video messages accompanied by some common-sense advice:
http://www.up.com/aboutup/community/safety/photo_safety/index.htm
“Think about it. Tracks are for trains, not your senior photos,” is UP’s theme for this safety campaign targeted toward high school graduates, and perhaps even professional photographers who might think railroad tracks make a nice backdrop. “Everybody loves getting senior photos taken, right? After all, your senior year of high school is the exciting culmination of one journey and the beginning of another. Don’t let this journey get cut short—choosing to take your senior photos on railroad tracks is not only illegal; it can be deadly. Sure, railroad tracks seem like a cool backdrop for a photo. But imagine a massive locomotive coming at you, with momentum so great it’s unable to stop. You’re certain you’ll be able to hear it and get off the tracks in time—but chances are you won’t. Why take that chance?”
UP goes one step further by offering, through social media, a means for young people to share photos and videos while promoting safety: a hashtag, #TracksAreForTrains. For anyone who has already taken senior photos (presumably not on the railroad tracks), UP offers them a means to show the railroad and people in this growing social network “the fun, creative and safe places you’ve chosen to celebrate your senior year by sharing them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #SafeSeniorPhotos.”
So pay attention, folks, lest you want to wind up vaporized in a vanishing vista.