I really appreciate everyone on here with inside knowledge of Steamtown and the NPS for sharing your experiences.

My company has a very intimate relationship with the Park Service as well, and I watch from a short distance. Luckily, my position does not require me to have much direct connection with NPS, except when overgrown brush is pinstriping the sides of our equipment and removing said vegetation requires months worth of investigation and paperwork.

I can imagine the challenges with Steamtown being run by the Park Service, and I agree with the sentiments expressed from those who know. When I visited over the summer, I saw what I had always expected, a lot of missed potential. It's very sad.

Eric Hadder

I don't think you have a full picture of this. Possible doesn't mean feasible or efficient and I'm not sure why you would cite the experience of an artifact that ultimately wasn't preserved ito support your claim that "the system can work", whatever that means.

There was a time when Steamtown had several paid T&E staff. Two road engineers, a yard engineer, a paid yard engineer/conductor, a paid yard conductor, a paid fireman was the typical roster. I think at one point there was seven or eight.

Each time one of those folks retired or left, the position was eliminated and for a while, the volunteers left very few holes. The reduction in excursions starting in the early 2000's with a concentration on weekend (Saturday/Sunday) operations allowed one of the paid staff to be scheduled so as to ensure there was a qualified person should there be a lack of volunteers or a volunteer call off.

As the paid staff continued to dwindle due to retirements, this became less workable, so the decision was made to qualify shop crews as conductors as engineers (a couple already had qualifications).

Now of course this means that a paid shop crew member needs to be qualified (meaning attending rules, safety and physical characteristics classes, undergoing qualification trips and needing to work in the supplementary craft(s) to remain proficient. Operating a train on the Pocono Main Line (1.8% grades and high degree curvature) is challenging enough that one doesn't want to rely on a single trip annual minimum.

While I understand Sup. Hagen thought this was staff count triage; the reality is that understanding the ideas of diseconomies of scope and switching costs (jobs or activities, not between tracks) plays a role. A downstream activity might rely on the successful completion of multiple prior activities, delaying one might render the timely completion of others moot. This was the whole point of management tools like PERT/CPM and Gantt charts.

Leaving the shop to work on the train, often with short notice disrupts the sort of routines that allow people to complete tasks as expeditiously as possible.

Worse, as noted by Mr. Mowbray the shop has encountered several retirements, and you can't fix a critical staffing problem by switching people from area with critical staffing issues to another. Ultimately, knowing that the shop faced a mass retirement risk, this was unwise.

Just remember one really basic fact. The reason the National Park Service was even created was to take a national treasure (like Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.) and keep people from loving it to death and exploiting it. Basic mission is to protect the asset from destruction by visitors. When you sign up with NPS, you really hope you get to Yosemite, Gettysburg, almost anyplace except __________.

I've seen NPS get along fairly well on some locations, it's not universal, but 'leave the railroading to us' still seems the best approach, even if the property is NPS. But I've also seen a tendency toward empire-building with at least two sites I've worked with; expand the geography and reach (and budget) by using a railroad connection as an excuse. Neither succeeded. And don't forget it was a miserable fail at EBT, I remember that well. My favorite memory of that short era was watching the Ranger give his talk at Colgate Grove while standing under the running air pump - and being clueless that no one there could even hear him.

When you're an operating museum, you're bridging the gap between operation and preservation, and that, bluntly, is a mission challenge cut to the core competency skills. Nobody mentions Promontory, but that has been a pretty solid sustained mission. So it's not everybody.

It's not unique to NPS, working with Texas Parks & Wildlife, West Virginia, etc., had many of the same underlying issues, many which involved for-profit activities on 'public' sites got in the way of normal business procedures necessary for economic survival.

When I was in private industry, it was also evident that in any multi-location enterprise, public or private, there was 'that location' that deserved or not, became known as the effective penal colony for management paths. You really can't fire them, but you can send them to _________' That may be an unfair characterization, but it does exist, so be aware. There's also the infamous 'Vice President of Special Projects' position where your first special project is to go look for another job.

Hyde Street Pier has a very active volunteer group. When you go to the home page of that park, a volunteer invitation is prominently displayed.

https://www.nps.gov/safr/getinvolved/volunteer.htm

Steamtown does not have the same advertisement, but it does have volunteer opportunities buried in another menu. I don't know why the difference.

The ferry Eureka has received extensive maintenance over the last 50 years. Much of the exterior wood has been replaced. If it had not received this care, it would be gone much like the Wapama. A lot of money was also spent on the Wapama, but it was too late. Sidewheeler Eppelton Hall has also received some maintenance.

Hyde Street Pier shows it is possible to maintain expensive mechanical objects in the National Park Service.

And now, the rest of the story,

Steamtown (at least the locomotive shop) had a terrific group of 6, to sometimes as many as 10 volunteers that would reliably show up every weekend to help with the #3713. Some of them had no special skills, but were happy to help out in any way they could. Scraping grease, bead blasting, priming and painting, any kind of general help that was needed. These same folks lended a hand when extra hands were needed with dissasembly, moving heavy objects, or even when a team was needed for riveting. A few of these unskilled folks were happy and appreciative when their leader taught them some advanced skills such as welding, torch work, riveting, and basic machine work. This leader was handed the William Purdie award for his work mentoring young people in railway preservation. The amount of work getting done was mind boggling. In fact, the new superintendent was amazed at the amount of work getting done and the number of volunteer hours logged in on the #3713 project. Then, for some reason, the same superintendent that was amazed at all the work being accomplished, decided that these hard working volunteers had to follow her new restrictive regulations that made it next to impossible to freely volunteer in the shop in a worthwhile manner. All volunteers had to be put on a set schedule up to months in advance. They had to have a usable skill and a set project assigned to them before they even could walk in the shop door. There had to be a set task for them to do when they showed up, when they were done with that task, they had to leave. They weren't to be taught any special skills (sup."because then they would leave ST and go to work for the competition"). One paid staff person had to be with each volunteer the whole time they were volunteering. And there was to be no more "general" help.

End.

As far as paid shop staff on train crew. For years, there was a request from a few shop people to become qualified conductors, firemen, and engineers. (one already was) Mostly for the ability to move equipment around for service and repair. Then one person pushed to become a fully qualified road fireman and engineer so that when necessary, he could take at locomotive and train on a run to do sort of a running inspection, especially when heavy repairs were made. It gave him the ability to "feel" the machinery and pick up on anything that might need work. This morphed into a " hey, why does he get to do that and I can't" condition with the other shop guys. Then in the typical govt. fashion, "alright, everybody will be on train crew now". Even people that didn't want to be in train service, had to become conductors at a minimum. This gave the NPS the ability to fill in for train crew when volunteers called off. However, at some point, the situtation was abused and shop people were signed up for train service before there was a need for it. Perhaps is was easier to just list a shop person than it was to call around to find volunteers to fill the crew roster, and this became the norm. Until, there was a derailment caused by a shop person. Who's reaction to questions about what happened was, "it's not really my fault, this is not in my job description to be out here doing this". That immediatly caused, in typical govt' fashion, the pulling of all shop crew licences and train operation qualifications. As of this past July, shop crew personell were not permitted to be in train crew service.

PS. It was said by the super that the two new train crew personell would be able to go into the shop to help in between train runs. It was explained to her why this would be be feasible.
End.

Bruce, that wasn't the first time they did a bizarre 180.

I think you might remember that they opened up a car host "position" to interested volunteers who wanted to be involved with train operations but either couldn't (age, time, commitment) or didn't want go through NORAC, physical characteristics and the rest of the training, but would be happy to come up and assist w/ non hours of service activities such as assisting with boarding, punching tickets and attending to rider inquiries. I think most of the train crews were happy to have them along, in part because of their enthusiasm and in part because it allowed extra focus on operational issues like slow orders. We even had a couple of young teenagers, one of whom Aiden won a national award. Then the management decided that car hosts either had to be a part of interpretation (no matter that some had stage fright when addressing a car full of people) or in a transitional orientation phase with a firm commitment to joining train and engine.

Hence the two ladies that used to accompany me quit.

I know the NPS likes to model itself in part on military methods, but they really, really, really, really should learn the difference between present day volunteers who might not want to go to the front lines and might quit rather than go and WWII conscripts who had no choice but to salute and go.

Hell I know a woman who just enlisted in the army over the age of 30 and in the all volunteer army she was able to ensure that she would be trained for, and assigned to a Stryker mechanical unit.

For those who do not know Bruce Mowbray recently retired from Steamtown National Historic Site (NPS)as the Supervisory Preservation Specialist (shop superintendent). The group of volunteers he mentored were a huge asset to the park and real progress was being made on several projects, especially the 3713. There was absolutely NO reason to implement the new superintendent's rules except as a "control" measure. Her rules forced the now skilled volunteers to leave the park, and volunteer with other organizations, exactly what she said would happen if her rules were not implemented. He wanted to finish the 3713 before retiring, but I image his frustration level with the park's management led to his choosing to retire before completion. Another case of skills leaving the park because of management's lack of listening to and following through on the employee's with the most knowledge on the task (railroad related)ideas . Bruce's skills and knowledge will be greatly missed in the future of the park.

Mike Tillger

One of the reasons why forming an organization like the Iron Horse Society was necessary. The more you can get spelled out in a formal agreement, the better. Bruce’s description of events is heartbreaking. May Steamtown see another 32 years before the next anti-Christ.

When the IHS was being formed, the late Mr. Shore and I had some rather pointed conversations with the then Superintendent. Her idea was that the group would "start small" to develop skill and capacity. That part was agreeable, at least in principle. Her other thought was that there'd be a meeting annually where the SNHS management would offer a list of project needs and the friends group would pick among this list, so that "professionals' were setting the agenda (because they had done so well so far /s).

We explained that for volunteers and donors to be engaged, they would have to see their efforts directed to something that they were interested in, rather than buying the next round of off-road vehicles. Perhaps the experience is different elsewhere and friends groups just passively write checks, but we knew that wasn't going to work. The recent receipt of the testamentary bequest for the rebuild of the ACL/TMSL SW is a perfect example of this. For whatever reason, the donor developed an interest in the little switcher and well, that's where he wanted his money to go. Fortunately it seems, they are accepting the gift for its intended purpose, rather than saying no thanks, we have other ideas.

If there's two things you learn as a student of railroads, it's that qualified means qualified on the rules and the territory and that the rules need to be adapted to the territory. The Park Service has a set of rules (and just as important culture, habits and disposition) that seems to work for self-renewing "Woodsy Owl" parks and units and for facilities that encompass static, non-consuming artifacts. A museum attempting to operate railroad equipment is simply not in their wheel house. Analogously, the vast majority of facilities are masterpiece paintings; where Steamtown is a palette with period specific pigments.

If the new Superintendent comes from the outside, there'll be at least a three year period where every day will be a confrontation with a dizzying array of aspects of a whole new required body of knowledge that just doesn't exist in the NPS.

In any large organization, how middle management interprets the rules can make or break performance. It is analogous to the "work to rule" protest of a labor union.

I suspect that different NPS regions interpret the national rules in different ways, and at different times. This is unfortunate. An administrator could feel pressure for career reasons to "work to rule".

At my institution, there was a very large top-down announcement of new policies with respect to personal data privacy. We had meetings and received instructions on how we should manage data. Well-intentioned and certainly something we should be aware of and monitor, but it quickly became apparent that the specific instructions were unworkable (e.g. at our institution, student id numbers are also their email addresses).

We have more or less moved on and no longer discuss this topic. If someone insisted on enforcing these guidelines, our work would slow significantly.

I wonder if anyone tried sending a complaint higher up in the chain at NPS?

I also wonder if recorded volunteer hours are part of the performance evaluation of the management. If not, then it would explain why some managers don't value it.

Hi 1st time poster here. To add on to what Bruce and Mike T have stated, I was part of the group of volunteers that worked on 3713 and pretty much anything else that needed work done. We came in with no skills but were willing to help and learn, and learn we did from many of the people in the shop at that time. But said super made a whole bunch of us feel like we were not good enough due to her new "restrictions for no reason" Said super even went so far to expel my significant other from the park and then procced to essentially make them feel crazy. This was all due to a incident that had happened and was covered up by park personnel. I will not go into detail but yes we had some very good teachers which did allow us to move on and be successful other places that needed our help. It is quite sad there is no outward plan for getting 3713 done. Also filing a complaint higher up gets you know where cause they cover each other and nothing happens.

Former Steamtown shop and T&E Volunteer

Exactly why the NPS should focus on running a museum and allow the excursions to be operated by a vendor. There is already a model for it - Cuyahoga National Park and the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

Getting comments and opinions from the actual people on the ground is is really valuable and and I want to thank the posters openly. This isn't a series of railfan rants, it is far more significant than that.

I had one good friend that was a volunteer there in the shop, and he quit, certainly knew his opinion, and it more or less falls in line with what was posted here.

I'm still trying to determine how much is individuals and how much is really policy, as in any organization, the ones being ruled certainly begin to wonder how this evolves.

Whether we like it or not, it's held up as an example of why 'it won't work' for other potential projects, so simply shaking your head and walking away isn't a solution either. It echoes far beyond. And if you just walk across the bridge to what was 'the Mall at Steamtown", (now the Marketplace), they just will not give up, you have to admire Scranton for digging in on that one when it's been so close to death itself.

I observed the same thing when visiting Glacier Park. NPS took care of conservancy while vendors offered tours, boat rides/rental, and guide services.

Wesley