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 Post subject: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:17 am 

Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2014 3:15 pm
Posts: 594
So I’m looking on my facebook feed when all of a sudden I see a post from steamtown that says in all caps “Steamtown National Historic Site is Closed. No visitor services, maintenance, or other management activities are available at Steamtown NHS at this time due to a lack in appropriations. Our facebook page will not be updated or queries responded to. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

I know about the shutdown, but I think all of us deserve some information on this. It doesn’t seem right at all that Steamtown updates its facebook page nearly every day for the past five years and all of a sudden they post that. Something must have happened with the NPS because I have no explanation for this

Anyone have a good idea on what this is about?

Their facebook page is posted below
https://m.facebook.com/Steamtown-Nation ... 568217222/


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:36 am 

Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:28 am
Posts: 244
Location: Dallas, TX
Read in the papers or watch the news on TV as the government is shut down (except for certain elements) due to no funding at the present. When Congress finally does pass a budget, no telling how long the "interim" budget will last until they finally get the act together and pass a real budget.

Harry Nicholls

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:29 am 

Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 4:02 pm
Posts: 1742
Location: Back in NE Ohio
Semi-related: While the Cuyahoga Valley National Park is closed as part of the shutdown, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad did operate yesterday, it's first trips of the new year. Schedule is Saturday only until March.


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:05 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:07 am
Posts: 737
Location: Philadelphia Pa
Steamguy73 wrote:
So I’m looking on my facebook feed when all of a sudden I see a post from steamtown that says in all caps “Steamtown National Historic Site is Closed. No visitor services, maintenance, or other management activities are available at Steamtown NHS at this time due to a lack in appropriations. Our facebook page will not be updated or queries responded to. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

I know about the shutdown, but I think all of us deserve some information on this. It doesn’t seem right at all that Steamtown updates its facebook page nearly every day for the past five years and all of a sudden they post that. Something must have happened with the NPS because I have no explanation for this

Anyone have a good idea on what this is about?

Their facebook page is posted below
https://m.facebook.com/Steamtown-Nation ... 568217222/


Do you live under a rock? US Government is shut down. NPS is part of the US Government.


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:39 am 

Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am
Posts: 2561
Location: Strasburg, PA
All that is required is for five hundred thirty six numbskulls to do their jobs, and the problem goes away.

So don't hold your breath.

Boy, am I happy that I work in the private sector!


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:01 am 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
I hear what you are saying Kelly!

Many privately operated rail attractions are also closed. Around here we call it winter.

It is good that Congress is having their temper tantrums in January instead of the middle of July. Let them get it out of their system now!

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:18 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:26 am
Posts: 4642
Location: Maine
Interesting comment by one Senator the other evening: "We have a Government created by geniuses and run by morons".

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:08 pm 

Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 am
Posts: 1998
"The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots." Fred MacMurray - The Caine Mutiny - 1954

PC

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:04 pm 

Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:51 pm
Posts: 209
Location: Massachusetts
Richard Glueck wrote:
Interesting comment by one Senator the other evening: "We have a Government created by geniuses and run by morons".


One might think that as dysfunctional as our Congress has proven to be, that at the next mid-term, national election, the electorate would show up in droves to throw the bums out.....but it never happens. The same morons keep getting elected, time after time. I know of no other job, where it would be possible to fail so miserably at one's most basic responsibility....in this case, funding the government....and not get a shoe print on one's butt from the employer.

I don't believe that the founding fathers ever intended for anyone to make a career out of Congress. Unfortunately, that's what we have and we are poorer for it. Once someone is elected to the gravy train, their immediate and most important priority becomes staying there.

/Kevin


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:12 pm 

Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:08 pm
Posts: 396
Location: Amherst, OH
PaulWWoodring wrote:
Semi-related: While the Cuyahoga Valley National Park is closed as part of the shutdown, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad did operate yesterday, it's first trips of the new year. Schedule is Saturday only until March.


That's because while the infrastructure is owned by the National Park Service the CSVR is a private entity.


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:47 pm 

Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:34 pm
Posts: 2758
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Quote:
The same morons keep getting elected,


Quite a few people in Congress were not there 10 years ago, so there is some change. But to restate this in some way meaningful to the management of various other elected groups, like us: Very few elected representatives campaign on the promise of "when I get to Congress, I promise to do whatever someone else tells me to do." Everybody wants the government back in business, but on their terms.

We see the same thing happen in preservation. Everyone wants the museum to succeed, in the manner they think it should.

So, in groups large and small, compromise and agreement also needs to happen at the member level.

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:50 pm 

Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:06 am
Posts: 329
KevinM wrote:
Richard Glueck wrote:
Interesting comment by one Senator the other evening: "We have a Government created by geniuses and run by morons".


...I know of no other job, where it would be possible to fail so miserably at one's most basic responsibility....in this case, funding the government....and not get a shoe print on one's butt from the employer. ...



/Kevin

I would offer some weather prognosticators.....mld


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:13 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 am
Posts: 6399
Location: southeastern USA
softwerkslex wrote:
Very few elected representatives campaign on the promise of "when I get to Congress, I promise to do whatever someone else tells me to do.".


Well, actually, most if not all did in fact make those kind of promises to their major donors. We're actually an oligarchy with pretension to being democratic republic.

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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:46 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 12:15 am
Posts: 585
Kelly Anderson wrote:
All that is required is for five hundred thirty six numbskulls to do their jobs, and the problem goes away. !


Actually it only needs 10 more, the Continuing Resolution (letting the budget float based on last year's numbers, as compared to passing a real budget), passed the house and got 50 votes in the Senate. Because it is budget related they need 60 votes to pass, unfortunately one whole side refuses to work with the other, because their side lost and the president is not acting like a typical spineless politician. He is a crude rude NYC business man & contractor through and through, and doesn't pretend to be what he is not.

Hopefully we don't need to go any further into the political morass here on this subject.

Rich C.


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 Post subject: Re: Steamtown is currently closed
PostPosted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:59 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11482
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
I have no interest in political specifics, but let me talk generalities a minute.

In addition to Steamtown as a de facto "national railroad museum," we also have several official "state railroad museums"--California, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina--and several other railroad-related history museums/sites that operate under state aegis (Cumbres & Toltec, Cass, etc.). In addition, we have the Grand Canyon Ry., which any sensible person can see has an interlaced relationship with the Grand Canyon National Park.

Two weeks ago, I had to do some back-room business at a state-administrated museum. The person I ended up having to deal with directly was a volunteer. But to get clearance to discuss "museum business," I had to go through higher-ups--just simple bureaucracy. But as it turned out, rather than going through some executive director, director, administrator, or curator, the person in question was basically "chief of staff", meaning a glorified volunteer coordinator. This person's pay was being taken care of not by the state, but rather through funds raised by a "friends of the museum" group. The previous director had left, and has not been replaced in large part due to state budget cuts. At a time when this place was having a major fund drive for restoration/building a major piece of infrastructure, it was essentially running on auto-pilot. And this was a chronic situation, not some budget showdown in the state capital. This is a more systemic problem for preservation long-term than any temporary shutdown.

A side observation, if I may:
The New York Times and Washington Post, as well as much of the mainstream broadcast media, are playing this shutdown as a massive crisis for the well-being of the nation. However, my own perusal of the websites of a selection of "flyover country" or "heartland" news aggregators, even in places that should be impacted more severely by a Federal shutdown such as Williams, Arizona, the Federal shutdown is being touted as secondary or even tertiary news at best. The Scranton Times-Tribune, for one, doesn't mention the shutdown or its impact--if any--at Steamtown.


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