ABSTRACT
As sociologists using multi-disciplinary approaches, we are attempting to locate the train within its contemporary 'cultural milieu'. In song, as well as instrumental music, the rhythmic sounds of the train can be brought into the service of the composer of songs. As a promotional art form, music trains represent a contemporary movement beyond the 'iconographic' advertising of the classic railway poster, in which the focal point shifts from the product to a setting which embeds the product in a symbolic context. A broad definition of promotional art is that it 'crosses the line between advertising, packaging, and design, and is applicable, as well, to activities beyond the immediately commercial. The railway forms a backdrop to the family fortunes of shipping merchants Dombey and Son. In nineteenth-century railway literature and art there are numerous representations of class.
