Appendix E — What the Movie Has Done for a Great Railroad
A little over two years ago, the loss and damage bill of the Illinois Central Railroad, on carload and less-than-carload shipments, averaged more than $2,500,000 for a single year.
Seven months after motion pictures were adopted to educate employees in proper methods of freight handling, in connection with a vigorous campaign to improve the record, that expense was reduced a cool million dollars! The reduction has averaged approximately fifty per cent for the year. Best of all, the bill is still on the down-grade.
In addition to reels on “Loss and Damage,” the Illinois Central Railroad has produced other films on methods of engineering and switching. Its “visual education department” boasts a collection of 6000 slides, in addition to nearly half a million negatives of still photographs.
There are likewise motion pictures made expressly to educate farmers along the road’s right of way in modern scientific methods of poultry raising, soil treatment, dairying, potato culture, and packing produce for shipment. A force of industrial agents maintained by the railroad holds farmers’ meetings at which talks and films are the order of the day, and conducts field days and other get-together affairs where “the movies” constitute an always dependable attraction.
Visual Education, March, 1923.