General Motors Parade of Progress Lightweight Train Exhibition, 1950s

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General Motors Parade of Progress Lightweight Train Exhibition, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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General Motors Parade of Progress Lightweight Train Exhibition, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1953–1959

AA-2026-CD41B3

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In the 1950s General Motors took its Parade of Progress on the road with the conviction that if Americans could simply be shown the future in person, they would line up for it — and as this crowd confirms, they did. The GM Lightweight Train, its fluted aluminum flanks painted in the optimistic oranges and blues of a decade that believed transportation was about to become something genuinely wonderful, sits on display while hundreds of Sunday-dressed families file past under tall pennant banners chosen to suggest that standing near a railcar constituted a festive occasion. A mother steers two small children toward the exhibit with the focused efficiency of a woman who has promised them something educational and intends to deliver it. The men in sport coats examine the train with the evaluative squint of people who understand horsepower but are deciding whether to feel excited about aluminum. General Motors was simultaneously building the highways that would make trains like this irrelevant, a conflict of interest the banners did not address.

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