I am excited to announce that the FRA will be hosting seminars at the 2016 ATRRM Fall Conference.

The first seminar will be about the Part 243 training rule. While this rule doesn't apply to non-general system tourist railroads, the remaining population of tourist railroads are impacted. Mike Ramsey is expected to present this seminar. I expect lots of the discussion about this topic at the conference. If you're not familiar with this rule and what it means, then here's a chance to learn.

The second seminar will cover bridge loadings and the dynamic effects of steam locomotives on bridge loadings. An ASME paper prepared by the FRA on this subject will be the basis of the seminar. Either Gary Fairbanks or Harold Weisinger will do this presentation.

As a reminder, the hotel room block closes on October 8th. The Hilton DeSoto is sold out. The overflow hotel is the Marriott Courtyard at 415 West Liberty Avenue. The reservation link is

http://cwp.marriott.com/savdt/aatrrm/

Also, early bird conference registration closes October 11th. For more conference information, go to

http://www.atrrm.org/

G. Mark
President - ATRRM

In these days of GoPros and digital cameras, it should be standard practice that these seminars be videotaped and then placed on the ATRRM website on the members side so that those of us who cannot attend the conference can learn, and those who did attend the conference can have reference materials to consult.

I made that suggestion many years ago when working with TRAIN and even offered to do it for them.

The prevailing opinion seemed to be that if you could stay home and watch the seminars, then there's less incentive to come to the convention. I have no idea what the current attitude would be.

That would be a very poor attitude to have, if it still exists at the ATRRM. We pay our dues but I really don't see much point to it. What do we get for for the dues? Even the newsletter is available for free, and there isn't much on the members side of the website to justify the amount of money paid. At least if the video proceedings of the conference were available it would give the membership a bit more of a reason to remain members.

If they were to adopt a practice of videotaping the presentations and making them generally available to the membership, then it should be standard practice to advise the speakers of what they are going to do at the time that they issue the invitation to present a program, not when the speaker shows up to present it. It could influence decisions on what materials the speaker can include in their presentation under "fair use" provisions.

PC

I imagine an organizations percieved value of ATRRM membership can vary depending on the individual organizations needs. I view ATRRM membership to have more value than newsletters and seminars at a conference.

One of the big benefits my organization has seen is in regulatory matters. ARM/TRAIN and now ATRRM have been successful in influencing FRA rules to allow historic equipment to continue to operate and not to be burdened with operating rules that while they make sense in the general railway world, just don't fit well in a tourist railway/museum world. That is not to say that the modified rules compromise safety in any way, they are just common sense modifications of rules that recognize that the preservation world is different from the general railway system.

An example is reporting rules for ENS. For a the general railway system, having 24/7 phone answering for grade crossing issues is the right thing to do. But for a tourist railway or museum with limited and seasonal operation, it is overkill given the infrequent operation. ATRRM got the rule modified to allow answering machines to collect ENS calls during non operating hours and live answer when operation was taking place for properties that met various requirements. This is a big value gained from both the administrative and financial aspects realized by not having to deal with 24/7 phone answering. There are many things like this in regulatory matters that speaking in a group voice is more effective than trying to change the ways on your own.

Finally when I was working with the state agency that handles grade crossings in getting our ENS file and numbers established, they were initially unfamiliar with the then "new" FRA rules that benefited tourist railway operations, so some of their early suggestions and comments flew in opposion to the new rules and followed past practice. To be fair to them, the rules were very new and we were the first operation to apply for ENS grade crossing numbers under the new rules in my state. I was uncomfortable with the conversation I had and wanted some help in dealing with the situation. I called the ATRRM's legal counsel and discussed my organizations situation. I recieved excellent advice and it helped prepare for my next conversations with the state agency. As it turned out the state agency had brushed up on the new rules and the next conversation went very well. We got our ENS numbers and today pretty blue signs are on the museums grade crossing. Oh the cost of the legal counsel from ATRRM, NOTHING! It was just another benefit of membership.

Steve Heister
Northern Ohio Railway Museum

You get out of it exactly what you invest in putting it to use.

Most of the past conference presentations can be found on the ATRRM website and are available to member organizations.

If you're organization is a member of ATRRM, you can now obtain your own login and password to view material restricted to Member's Only. Instructions on how to do this can be found in the most recent Association newsletter.

G. Mark

> event is sold out
> don't want to stream video, might hurt sales


EXACTLY.

Remember the TED talks? Only an idiot would pay $5000 to go to a TED conference when you can watch it on Youtube for free. I haven't checked but it's a sure bet TED is bankrupt by now.

Information wants to be scarce.

Just to be clear, my comment was not related to ATRRM. All of my dealings were with TRAIN, prior to the merger. When they merged, they also merged the websites and no longer needed my services, and my dealings with the association ended. So they never stated any position on this matter to me as ATRRM.

They may totally endorse the concept, or they may be totally against it. Generally speaking, anything that discourages conference attendance tends to encounter severe resistance unless you move to a subscription based online format.

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see where that would change things. Whether you're presenting it to a live audience or on the web doesn't change the copyright rules. Something is either acceptable under "fair use" or it's not. Does how the audience views it change that?

I suppose you could argue they were selling the seminars online, but aren't they doing the same thing by charging for conference attendance?

Presenting to a live audience is not copying the work. Making a digital copy that could potentially be downloaded by every single person in the world is.

Thank you Dennis, nicely stated. Exactly what I was trying to get across.

And it is common courtesy that in all events and meetings, if an organization is going to videotape a person's presentation, that they inform them of that intention when they invite them to give a presentation or talk, so that the presenter can decide whether to accept or decline the invitation on that basis and select the content.

PC

Actually it is, especially if you're charging admission. Even if not charging for the show, many a small bar or restaurant can tell you how ASCAP cracks down on playing music for the patrons without paying the licensing fee.

However, I would agree that is exceedingly unlikely to see any kind of enforcement action.

While I admit, Mr. Cook did say "fair use," which implies use without permission, many people who prepare presentations DO ask permission to use materials, or even for copies of the images to be presented. Often, the copyright holder will agree to a presentation, but request that the image(s) NOT be distributed further. Which is why Mr. Cook is requesting that if taping or other further distribution is to be done, it be stipulated at the time of the invitation... It does make a difference as to what materials may be available.