He didn’t think back on his old rival often, only at times like these when he felt the weight of his continuing career more deeply. As he was being carefully lowered into his new underground exhibit, to be the first thing visitors to his museum would see, he remembered that first exhibition at the Century of Progress. They’d been displayed next to each other then, in comparison, one of them a shining beacon of a bold future and the other a guarantee of a safe and secure present.
But the Burlington Zephyr was ahead of his time. It was the Depression after all. What use was a bright tomorrow if you weren’t certain you’d make it through today?
So the people made their choice. It wasn’t as if Pioneer had a competitor’s spirit to fight for their favor anyway. That’s why he only lasted nine years.
Still, the City of Salina thought he might – for once – have been better at this than him.
Salina did well enough, to be sure. He was winning, always had been. Maybe he was even a little cocky about it, but the people responded well to that. The times had changed though and Salina was looking his age. His brown and yellow paint were dated, first to the 30’s and again to the 70’s. He was thought of as a relic of harder times. Pioneer would have been better suited to this era; the people were optimistic and he’d been so shiny and modern. If he had made it this long, his underdog affability and Midwestern agreeableness would have even made it all look easy even.
That was the difference between them though. Pioneer was built on a fantasy that life could be easy, a gentle Western breeze. He’d broken the speed record first and had rested on his laurels. When Salina had surpassed his speed and rolled into the Century of Progress with the title, Pioneer congratulated him warmly as if they were friends. He seemed to have no idea they were at odds or competing.
Hard working people might have liked the friendly way he spoke and the promise of ease his stainless steel carried, but their suspension of belief was thinner during a downturn. It didn’t even carry him past a decade.
Salina’s sixty years were enough to know that the world was cyclical though. Times were good now, so everything was colorful and bright. Give it ten years and times would turn again. People would retreat back into the safety of earth tones, and he in his brown and armour yellow would still be here, reassuring that uncertainty could be weathered.
Pioneer’s auspicious manner would have been more Useful until then though.