When will you post the results of your survey, so that people here can consider and evaluate its findings?

Will claims of abuse include the identity of the organization where the claims are said to have occurred?

If so, will the survey results also include interviews of the alleged perpetrators of the abuse to obtain and include any comments made by the alleged perpetrators?

I can relate two instances of sexist attitudes towards women in railroading I personally witnessed, one in preservation/tourist railroading, and one as a Class I railroader. Both instances happened long ago, one over 40 years ago and the other about 20 years ago.

The first was with a NRHS chapter operating a steam locomotive-powered excursion operation that still exists as a successful non-profit Diesel operation. The NRHS chapter no longer exists and the steam locomotive has not run in 30 years. At one point a couple joined the chapter and locomotive operation as mechanical volunteers. The wife was actually a better mechanic than her husband, but the old-school sexists in the organization ran her and him off fairly quickly. This wasn't the only problem in dealing with people the organization had, and those issues eventually led to the decline and end to the organization.

The other incident happened while I was an engineer trainee at the turn of the Century. A Road Foreman was riding along with my training engineer and myself for part of a trip to see how I was doing. They were talking while I was sweating out the scrutiny, and the conversation turned to all of the new people who had come in to absorb the Conrail split. At one point the RFE just outright said, "Women don't belong in freight", that it was fine for Amtrak, but not with his railroad. I don't know what attitudes are currently like, but sexism certainly did go into the 21st Century.

Spend any amount of time hanging around an organization (once again, not just railroad related) and you will find the clique of people with plenty of built up sexism, bias toward LGBT, my way or no way type individuals, etc. I would sincerely hope that groups out there are working on policy's to deal with this type of behavior that runs rampant so often and bring them up to modern ways of thinking.

You never answered Ron Travis' question.

Nick,

This is a great project and I especially like the questions quoted above. When it comes to sexism, misogyny, racism, bias against gay people, etc. etc. the hardest questions to ask are the ones we need to ask ourselves. While overt cases are easy to spot, it's the not so obvious ones that can create deeply toxic cultures. If we don't train ourselves to see and understand the issues, it's hard to fix them.

There are a lot of hard questions ahead for non-profits and businesses alike. The status quo isn't good enough - and you will note the loudest defenders of the status quo are almost always the people in the majority. In other words, the people who run the system tend to like it.

As part of my professional life, I volunteer to counsel college students looking for advice or support as they head into the working the world. The generation coming out of college right now has a very low tolerance for bias. They revel in differences and seek to understand them. And, as one young woman so succinctly put it, it is not the marginalized person's responsibility to make everyone else comfortable. The keepers of the status quo are the ones with the work to do.

And the students aren't the only who benefit from these conversations. I see it as essential to understand cultural shifts, and to hear it first hand. It makes me a better person and one who is more likely to get things done as the world evolves.

The challenges of railroad preservation are going to grow exponentially if under-represented voices are not heard. The status quo is not an option. Besides the obvious trouble of getting volunteers, it will be harder to get grants and lawsuits will hang over the heads of organizations that don't provide a safe and equitable environment.

These are the conversations I am looking forward to having on Ahead of the Torch, RYPN and in person.

You struck a nerve, Nick. One that needed to be struck.

I look forward to your results,

Rob

PS: As this thread evolves, I will be looking for comments from women. So far, I don't think there have been any. The problem may be manifesting itself right here.

Here's an idea. Don't force your female staff to be in the spotlight so you can brag about having them. That's the only reason some of you won't fire an otherwise useless employee, to keep your diversity up.

This topic has come up a couple of times on RYPN in the last few years, but the answer is pretty obvious, if you just look around. There are lots of videos, for example, on YouTube, showing women (and very feminine women) handling steam locomotives with skill. Just search for them! ("steam locomotive female engineer") Here is an example:

https://youtu.be/n0UPojsQwlA

I have a hard time with the concept that this is "unique" or "unusual" today.

I also found this news story that has a pretty standard good news/bad news approach:

https://youtu.be/Zymr2_RdsCY

Nick - My apologies if I missed this but:

1. How will you vet the stories you collect for accuracy? Without accurate facts it is difficult for me to draw accurate conclusions as to the task at hand.
2. What is your time period of interest?
3. If someone experienced some sort of bias in an organization 20 (or 30 or 10) years ago, how will you determine if it is still relevant in terms of what needs to be done today?
4. Are you going to look at what the organization(s) in which the alleged bias occurred have done since the alleged (if unverified) incident to address bias?

I attempt (not always successfully) to approach things with a mindfulness that no one (least of all myself) has a monopoly on virtue. I am disheartened that this concept, which perhaps loosely can be labeled as humility, does not appear to have much support any longer as there seems to be an ever-increasing intolerance for both the present and even the sometimes distant-past foibles of others.

As one who still has a great interest in historic rail preservation and in historic preservation in general, I am a firm believer in the value of learning from the successes and challenges of those who came before us, but it seems to me that there is a fine line between learning from the past and living in the past.

There is currently much talk about opinions being stated in the public square in a manner that appears to indicate a lack of understanding or even a total disregard for basic scientific principles yet my perception is that the fundamental distinction between correlation and causation has been discarded.

It seems there are many causes of bias. How does one minimize bias or biased thinking without looking at root causes? Black letter law can eliminate most overt bias, but what of the more covert (and sometimes more insidious) bias? In my limited experience, an adversarial, condescending, or didactic approach is not an effective way to influence how someone else thinks.

Tough topic. I did the best I could with my post. Thanks in advance for your kindness and consideration.

Public sector organizations have volumes about this in their regulations. Private nonprofits..... not so much. Most, if they have competent counsel or management, have copied verbiage from other organizations and pasted it into their official documents, but it's up to corporate officers - who are in effect elected winners of popularity contests - to enforce it (or not so much) as their tastes dictate. Most of those I have known have been very interested in maintaining popularity and any status quo that is comfortable to most of the membership, until it reaches a point of becoming economically detrimental before performing a show of reluctant action. So, I'm wondering if structural change in the way in which private nonprofits are governed could be worth thinking about? How do you break the cycle of perpetuation apart from waiting for enough people to die off and be replaced or bankruptcy and dissolution? For profits are interested in avoiding expensive interruptions of pursuit of ongoing business and are more mindful of public image and therefore responsive.

Excuse me, but nobody has thrown this bit of chum in the water yet: There's a form of sexism that's universal in rail preservation, and pretty widespread on the Class I s -- Or, IS it sexism when we lay off the dirty jokes and cussing whenever there are women and children present ?? You know, REVERSE sexism, because we're not treating everybody the same way ?? If you ask me, it's just good manners and common decency.

This, and any other kind of "ism" can be debated endlessly (and it looks like it will be, right here). Maybe I can simplify it. For one thing, no matter what a person may do in life, if you try hard enough, you can always find somebody who has a problem with it.

For another, good manners and common decency are concepts familiar to everybody. Practicing them is a good way for individuals to "combat" sexism or any of the other "isms". I think it's more effective than endless debate, so I'm trying my best with that approach. Lots of other folks are, too.

Really?

With the upfront admission that I'm old fashioned and in today's world undoubtedly out of date, to me steam railroading is a male domain suited best for men. The youtube link above shows the female engineer working in short sleeves and gloveless, two no-nos IMHO.

We have a number of female members in our volunteer organization who make a great contribution overall but not in engine service.

In today's all diesel or electric world females are fine and I'm sure make as many good runners as men.

I certainly agree that watching our language and deportment when women and children are present is just good manners.

Thanks, Ross Rowland

I am impressed how many women have responded to this question in this thread. The women in preservation are making their voices heard. But seriously maybe RYPN isn't the correct venue to ask this question. Maybe you need to go out in person and talk to the women face to face. I imagine they would respond openly and genuinely to a more personal approach.

Last time I checked, presence or absence of a johnson bar has no impact on compliance with safety practices.