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ATTRM name change announcement
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40217		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Les Beckman [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 10:17 am ]
Post subject:  ATTRM name change announcement
Seems as if ATTRM will now be known as the Heritage Rail Alliance. A most welcome change in my opinion.

Les
Author:  Kelly Anderson [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Just when I was getting used to ATRRM.
Author:  Otto Vondrak [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Les Beckman wrote:
Seems as if ATTRM will now be known as the Heritage Rail Alliance. A most welcome change in my opinion.

Les


Where did you find the announcement? Nothing on the web site...

http://www.atrrm.org/index.php/home

A quick search on Google turned this up as first listing, which doesn't appear correct:

http://www.railroadheritagealliance.com/

-otto-
Author:  Les Beckman [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Otto Vondrak wrote:
Les Beckman wrote:
Seems as if ATTRM will now be known as the Heritage Rail Alliance. A most welcome change in my opinion.

Les


Where did you find the announcement? Nothing on the web site...

http://www.atrrm.org/index.php/home

A quick search on Google turned this up as first listing, which doesn't appear correct:

http://www.railroadheritagealliance.com/

-otto-


Otto -

Please note that the new name for ATTRM is not quite the same as your referenced Railroad Heritage Alliance. A different organization entirely it appears!

Our museum secretary sent out the ATTRM October-December 2016 online quarterly to museum members and that online entry had the new name at the top. I checked through that issue and saw no "official" announcement of the name change and when I questioned our secretary, he forwarded a separate official document sent out yesterday outlining the change and some future things that the organization is going to be doing.

If you send me your e-mail address Otto in a PM message, I'll forward the announcement to you.

Les
Author:  gmray [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Announcement coming this afternoon to RYPN.

This is just the start of several enhancements being incorporated this year.

G. Mark
President, HeritageRail
Author:  Otto Vondrak [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
gmray wrote:
Announcement coming this afternoon to RYPN. We just posted it on our online magazine...


Thank you! Looking forward to what's coming next.

-otto-
Author:  Bobharbison [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Sounds like a good call, the ATTRM names was a bit clunky, though it did present a pretty concise summary of what the organization is all about.

Rather surprised by the logo, are you part of Iowa Pacific now?
Author:  ARM TRAIN editor [ Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
This was supposed to be the official announcement, but the cat's out of the bag, so here it is anyway.

ATRRM is now HeritageRail Alliance


The Association of Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums has re-branded itself. Its new name is the HeritageRail Alliance, accompanied by a new slogan, "All the bells and whistles".

Why change the name? When the Association of Railway Museums merged with the Tourist Railway Association in 2014, its leadership felt it was important for the name to clearly state who we represented. In fact, it was modeled on the Association of Short Line & Regional Railroads. Both names are a mouthful, but they tell who you are.

The next two years were spent establishing who ATRRM was, and gearing up its mission and work plan. During that time it became clear that the name was cumbersome (16 syllables). The abbreviation ATRRM was just a bunch of letters that needed to be explained before we could advocate for the industry. It wasn't working.

A firm specializing in re-branding was hired to lead us through the process. Together we looked for the words that best described our mission. "Heritage" and "Rail" rose to the top. They are universal whether you run a tourist railroad, a trolley museum, a depot museum, an archive-based railroad-specific historical society or even a live steam or model railroad museum. HeritageRail covers all of it. The word "Alliance" drives home that we are in this together to promote and improve the field of heritage railroading.

The new name extends to this magazine as well. Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums (TRRM Online) is now HeritageRail. We'll retain the old ATRRM logo for awhile so regular readers won't think they're lost, then phase it out.

We'll continue to produce the only online magazine devoted exclusively to North American railway preservation.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
HeritageRail

Attachments:
HeritageRail Alliance Logo wTAG and Formerly.jpg
HeritageRail Alliance Logo wTAG and Formerly.jpg [ 123.33 KiB | Viewed 10307 times ]
Author:  Otto Vondrak [ Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Les Beckman wrote:
Please note that the new name for ATTRM is not quite the same as your referenced Railroad Heritage Alliance. A different organization entirely it appears!


Yes, I know, that's my point. I searched for "Hertiage Rail Alliance" in Google and "Railroad Heritage Alliance" came back as the first search result. I imagine this is because the name is new and once the change starts to permeate through the infinite layers of the Internet, the proper result will emerge.

Am I in the minority camp that liked the old name and logo of TRAIN? :-)

-otto-
Author:  Rick Rowlands [ Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
I disliked the ATRRM name as it was too long and clunky, but the new one is so close to the name of an existing organization so as to cause confusion. Heritage Rail is not the order in which those two words are usually used, and I suspect many will transpose the words and refer to it as Railroad Heritage Alliance, which is an organization in Johnson City, TN. This conflict should have come out in the branding process with the hired firm.

Someone grabbed the Iowa Pacific logo, changed the words and threw in a rail section. No,no,no. Could someone come up with a unique logo that does not mimic an existing one?

So the new name is a transposed version of an existing name, and the logo is basically stolen from an existing railroad.

"All the Bells and Whistles" does not convey the professionalism that i would like to see this organization represent. My first reaction to seeing that tag line is "this must be a joke".

This could have been done so much better. Why no involvement from the membership? Many of the members have experience in branding and could have helped guide the process.

Sorry for being so negative, but branding can make or break an organization.
Author:  Walter [ Wed Jan 11, 2017 4:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Umm, Rick, didn't IP 'nick' their logo from the IC? (to use a bit of British Slang)....
Author:  Bobharbison [ Wed Jan 11, 2017 6:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Otto Vondrak wrote:
Am I in the minority camp that liked the old name and logo of TRAIN? :-)

-otto-



Well, I also liked the "TRAIN" name, it's really hard to come up with anything that more closely aligns with the industry.

However, I can see why they chose to go with something else. TRAIN was "Tourist Railway" Association, and many of the current members are not tourist railways. I presume that at least some of them would also prefer to not be lumped in under that designation. As mentioned in the current "Paint Matters" thread, there are plenty of approached to "Heritage Railways", ranging from "As authentic as we can possibly make it" to "This is a theme park, so yes, the engines are bright colors, we have diamond stacks and yes, there's a train robbery... Deal with it." Tourist railway brings to mind operations that are on the lighter end of the spectrum.

So, my guess, and it's only a guess, is that the name was dropped so as to not alienate any members who didn't want their operation lumped into that genre.
Author:  Bobharbison [ Wed Jan 11, 2017 6:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Hot Metal wrote:
Someone grabbed the Iowa Pacific logo, changed the words and threw in a rail section. No,no,no. Could someone come up with a unique logo that does not mimic an existing one?


As I mentioned before, that was my first reaction too, and it certainly looks like the IP logo, which, as was mentioned, is in turn based on the IC logo. I think it's unfortunate that the logo so closely resembles one of the big players in the rail heritage industry.

On the other hand, coming up with a unique logo may not be as easy as you'd think. Squares, circles, ovals, diamonds, rectangles. Just about any logo you can think of is going to remind somebody of some railroad's logo.

If it doesn't look at all like a railroad logo, then they miss the mark of honoring the railroad industry. So, either way, somebody will complain it's not right. Maybe one inspired by something that's not currently in use, I don't know.

Besides which, it can happen to the big guys too. Anyone else recall the "Bank of Amtrak" kerfuffle when B of A introduced their new logo? It bore a strong resemblance to the Amtrak logo, eliciting lots of grumbling and "how much did that cost you?" comments.
Author:  Overmod [ Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
To make it even worse, Iowa Pacific has a "Heritage Rail" (Leasing) subsidiary.

I'd be tempted to have the organization do a competition for 'best logo' and 'best slogan' before spending excessive time and money trying to make turkeys fly, as it were.
Author:  psa188 [ Thu Jan 12, 2017 2:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ATTRM name change announcement
Without getting into a debate regarding the effectiveness of the organization, the name "Association of Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums" is a mouthful and shortening it to ATRRM just makes it sound like just another "alphabet" group like AAR or ASLRR. I agree with the name change but will leave it to folks in the know to comment on how useful the group is...
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