Which Photo Would You Pinup in Your Cubicle ?

I have received criticism from some quarters that my photo editing is somehow an assault on the "recording" of the "reality" of railroading. Well as Alvarado, of Firesign Theatre fame would say "What is reality?"  The first photo is a detail shot on an ex Conrail C40-8 truck as recorded by the CCD chip of my Fuji S5100. A chip that is calibrated in a manor similar to the way slide film is calibrated to record objects with an 18% reflective value representing a mid tonal value. In other words, this image is already a contrivance of design and compromise. The very same image is shown as edited by Google's Picasa. I pumped the saturation, increased the shadows, and did a few other minor tweaks to the photo. Notice now, how the "6-1/2" stencil now stands out. Also please notice how much more texture (dirt) is visible. For myself, the second image is much more pleasing visually, and represents "reality" far better than the raw image from the camera.