I think this thread should be locked. I feel both SupperHeater and Ross are acting like a bunch of bratty kids. and this is not the way you should show younger rail fans to act. I'm by far a big time railroader, but I been rail fanning for close to 30 years, and to have this kind of thing going on a Railroad Preservation web forum, I feel is uncalled for.

This kind of thing is not going to bring people into Steamtown , it's going to push people away.

Start acting your age people and lets get back to trying to preserve railroading of yesterday years.

Leonard F. Shaner, Jr.
Pottstown,PA.

Actually, I'm done with that topic. Its now up to the readers to make their own judgments about sincerity at this point as specifics remain unexamined.

However, lets not get carried away with this idea that great ventures are conducted with the enforced & regimented grace of a white-gloved eighth grade girl being hauled off to a cotillion, forced to say "yes" and "thank you" to every clumsy request, from boys forced to wear jackets & clip-on ties and equally forced to ask for a dance from every girl there. It just doesn't work that way,especially because I think knowing of such events only betrays my age and irrelevance.

Not that this advocation compares in significance with the formation of the country, but go back and read the accounts of the gatherings that produced the constituitive documents of this country. The view that they got together and gave out "care bears" for good ideas, is santized nonsense. They had at it, over sweltering summers, in an unairconditioned rooms off streets where manure cooked in the sun, without daily baths or deodorant and with passions fueled by plentiful pints of ale. They cared about what they were doing and had at it.

If you want to show the youth "how to act", don't "railfan", be an active enthusiast. Contribute time, talent & treasure as circumstances permit, don't be a tresspasser with a camera. At least buy a ticket.

This is an internet chatboard, a tempest in the teapot, nothing more, nothing less. Its not like somebody's blaring rock music in the Sistine Chapel.

As they go, this is a pretty tame board. If it gets any tamer, it will need to be referred to as a bored. Try reading one devoted to politics or better yet, one devoted to free/open source software or UFO's. God help us if we think internet chatboards have any chance to be critical elements in the moral formation of the youth.

Now if you want to say, "hey I'm sick of it", I'll support your opportunity to do so. I even agree with you. Just don't cloak disgust in high-brow injunctions about proper conduct.

Well said Superheater.

I think debates are natural and need to play out. But there is an emerging feeling in our society that debates are some kind of preventable violence, or worse yet, an expression of judgmentalism. Adherents to this new thinking believe that neither side in any debate is right or wrong in their position, but that debate itself is wrong, and therefore, both sides in any debate should be forced to stop debating.

Well, then we're in trouble, because force has to be marshalled and controlled to be deployed. Actually this philosophy not only emerged before but it's been implemented multiple times. Its alway preceded with Orwellian psychobabble.

I'm thinking of a picture of a man standing before a tank in 1989, tienamen square.

Good thing "debate" wasn't squashed when Dr. Pasteur challenged the unsanitary butchery of his day.

I'm with Superheater, get out and volunteer or contribute, both in short supply in the preservation world.

Later!
Mr. Ed

P.S. See, I have an open mind!

"If you want to show the youth "how to act", don't "railfan", be an active enthusiast. Contribute time, talent & treasure as circumstances permit, don't be a tresspasser with a camera. At least buy a ticket. "

I do help out with preserving railroading of yester years. I'm a member of the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and I ran a few steam locomotives in my life too.
I'm also a local historian for my area. I do talks on the canals that traveled this great sate of PA. and the railroads too.

I have helped with four historical books two on the railroads.
I don't tresspass on any railroads. I view from a public viewing area.
and I rode on alot of railroad excursions in my life. including steamtown. I was there in 1995 for the grand opening of the NHS. I was also there shortly after it moved from vermont. I was also too Steamtown USA in Vermont.

I take alot of railroad video, I own a video production company.

Len.

Len, dont' forget that fiasco you were involved in a few years ago about the abandoned PRR locomotive in the quarry. Remember? You even posted on other boards how you had witnessed seeing the cab roof first hand? That did a lot for preservation. Good job.




One of those R&N videos you posted recently had a viewpoint from where you left the camera on the middle of the track and let the locomotive and train run over it. That wasn't trespassing.....

Like the threads regarding the K4s, #1361, I don't think the Steamtown threads are productive any longer. Anyone can swing or bash Steamtown, or any steam operator, with the possible exception of the Strasburg. At this point, it's simply two champions of opposing viewpoints, hurling invective at each other. What is to be gained by baring it in front of the rest of us?

If somebody wishes to advance a proposal for Steamtown, something that might be entertained and positive, I'd be willing to listen to it, otherwise, "if you can't say anything nice..."

Gentlemen,

I apologize for being somewhat AWOL from the Interchange of late. But one read of this thread says it is locked NOW!