Hey All,

In the last few weeks we’ve heard some heartbreaking news, dropping the fire on 1522, the CATS shutdown, the EBT continuing woes, the 614 (‘nuff said), 952 lawsuit just to name a few. However I’m convinced that all is not lost. Maybe its the long hours here in my tower, or the constant rumbling of a 1917 2-8-2 outside my window, but I still believe there are some bright spots. To that point I’ll name a few...

1. Here in Scranton weÂ’ll have two big steam engines alternating chores on an excursion with near mainline speeds and a string of solid green Pullman cars. ThereÂ’s even talk of double heading the two over the July 4th holiday weekend. In addition IÂ’m fortunate to be witness to the amazing rebuilding of the Laurel Line interurban for both freight and passenger service.

2. I see news of the Santa Fe 3751 making a trek out to the Grand Canyon Railroad, surely a Herculean feat in todayÂ’s world.

3. The famous Circus train in the Midwest will see steam power for part of its journey for the first time in a long time.

4. WeÂ’ve seen a class 1 Railroad, the CP, actually START a mainline steam program, which seems to be going quite nicely.

5. Thanks to the Ohio Central there is another operating 4-8-4 (plus several other engines) in our midst.

6. WeÂ’ve seen the return, even if briefly, of the American Freedom Train.

These are just off the top of my head. While I am deeply worried about the CATS, EBT and the some others, I think we should also note the good. I do believe that, perhaps weÂ’ve seen the end of the mainline steam era as we know it, and perhaps we may loose some of the smaller operations (Kettle Moraine comes to mind), but all is not lost I hope. Yes, support the institutions that are in dire straights, but also be sure and come up to Scranton or visit Savannah or Spencer or The Grand Canyon as well, might just do your heart some good.

So who else out there has got some positive news?

Dave Crosby


bing@epix.net

Hear, hear.

Funny you should mention the operations you did: Steamtown, Electric City Trolley Museum, Grand Canyon, Spencer, CP, and Ohio Central... one common thread they all share is that a lot of the moving and heavy lifting is done with either direct government ownership, or private enterprise funds. What they are NOT is volunteer-driven enterprises, though in many of them volunteers play a very important supporting role.

A few interesting factors here:

1. Many of us are volunteers on one or another preservation project, and I think we sometimes have the greatest empathy/interest in other projects where volunteers are in the driver's seat. I sometimes think we give short shrift, or worse, constant "not invented here" criticism to operations which arise from other sources, whether it's a Congressman's log-rolling in Scranton or an astute businessman's semi-private hobby in Ohio.

2. I also think we sometimes give short shrift to operations which concentrate their core attention on the broader public audience rather than on us hard-core preservationists or even railfans in general. Lots of darts get shot at D&S, Steamtown, etc--in part because while they welcome railfans, they are not ALL ABOUT railfans.

3. It's human nature to feel losses more sharply than we enjoy gains, as any investor over the last two years can tell you weepingly and at length. Still, it is remarkable that news like 1522 (bad) has a way of emotionally outweighing news like CP and OCRR (good). Thanks for reminding us to use our thinking heads to recalibrate our feeling hearts. It's a salutary reminder.

4. Economics are catching up with us, and a shake-out is on the way or already underway. I sometimes think that we're going to be left with four tiers of railway preservation enterprises:

a. large museums with a public affiliation or source of support: Steamtown, Spenser, CSRM, RRM of Pa. Though B&O does not get direct public support it's endowment from CSX and other factors also probably mean it should be lumped into this class

b. volunteer-governed museums with strong management, good facilities, and a VERY limited program of live equipment operations (to control expenses and husband resources). Here we have most of the best trolley museums, Portola, IRM, Orange County, WW&F.

c. steam tourist lines in well-established tourist areas with well-equipped shops and also ood lodging and other attractions in the immediate area. D&S, Grand Canyon, NH&I

d. Small depot museums with only static exhibits.

Who's left out of this list? Nearly all mainline operations in the "have engine-will travel" tradition. Many tourist roads with small or worn-out facilitites, or locations off the beaten path or far from other family attractions. Many museums with mid-sized collections but weak governance and no direct access to public support.

Sometimes I think the day has come when we must buckle down and concetrate our resources and energies on the outfits we think have one or more of those extra factors which will allow them to survive and thrive for the next 50 years: state- or federal ownership; very mature volunteer governance, or limited and achievable ambitions.



Durango Herald article
eledbetter@rypn.org

On the good side:

Thronateeska Heritage Center - small city history museum - in Albany GA repatriating a rare combine deaccessioned by a large mature museum refining their collections.

New Hope Valley RR - all volunteer NRHS sponsored line just tested its newly restored steam locomotive. An update on debugging day one will (hopefully) be posted by Hume soon.

Roundhouse Railroad Museum in Savannah, GA - city owned, non profit operated museum - actively pursuing equipment and line nearby for operation. City of Savannah - getting close to streetcar line demonstration project.

SAM Shortline - state operated tourist railroad - will begin operating diesel powered passnger trains from Cordele, GA through Americus to Plains and Archery GA (Carter boyhood home) as a sort of country, low budget CATS to help build economy and tourism in the region. Expect to see it this summer.

Must agree with Erik about the marginal and less well thought out operations decline. Perhaps we will be a fat and happy country again with plenty of wealth to devote to preservation in another 10 years and more interesting and colorful things will come back. If this phase of economic Darwinism encourages us all to become more professionally sophisticated and to learn to work together and make real inroads to engage the imaginations of the general public it will be healthy in the long run.

Dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

> 4. Economics are catching up with us, and a
> shake-out is on the way or already underway.
> I sometimes think that we're going to be
> left with four tiers of railway preservation
> enterprises:

> a. large museums with a public affiliation
> or source of support: Steamtown, Spenser,
> CSRM, RRM of Pa. Though B&O does not get
> direct public support it's endowment from
> CSX and other factors also probably mean it
> should be lumped into this class

> b. volunteer-governed museums with strong
> management, good facilities, and a VERY
> limited program of live equipment operations
> (to control expenses and husband resources).
> Here we have most of the best trolley
> museums, Portola, IRM, Orange County,
> WW&F.

> c. steam tourist lines in well-established
> tourist areas with well-equipped shops and
> also ood lodging and other attractions in
> the immediate area. D&S, Grand Canyon,
> NH&I

> d. Small depot museums with only static
> exhibits.

> Who's left out of this list? Nearly all
> mainline operations in the "have
> engine-will travel" tradition. Many
> tourist roads with small or worn-out
> facilitites, or locations off the beaten
> path or far from other family attractions.
> Many museums with mid-sized collections but
> weak governance and no direct access to
> public support.

> Sometimes I think the day has come when we
> must buckle down and concetrate our
> resources and energies on the outfits we
> think have one or more of those extra
> factors which will allow them to survive and
> thrive for the next 50 years: state- or
> federal ownership; very mature volunteer
> governance, or limited and achievable
> ambitions.

I don't think our operation fits into any of the above categories, but we are doing OK.

The Pacific Locomotive Association operates the Niles Canyon Railway out of Sunol, California. We are an all-volunteer group with very limited public support, but operate very close to a large population base (the San Francisco Bay Area). We operate trains on a 12-mile roundtrip three Sundays a month in summer, and two in winter, as well as special operations during wildflower season and our very popular Polar Express in December. While we were diesel powered for the last year and half, we recently completed the FRA rebuild of the Quincy RR #2, a 2-6-2T, and we again have steam (as well as diesel) on two Sundays a month. We are actively extending our track eastward toward an eventual connection with the Union Pacific, and are continuing the rebuild of another steam engine. We are fortunate to be so close to such a large population base, both for ridership and for volunteers; even so, our chief problem is not having enough people to work on maintaining the operating equipment and also on all of our restoration projects. As a result, we have to limit our operations to our current schedule, and carefully prioritize our projects.

There must be many more volunteer groups such as ours that are doing OK.

Chris Holombo

holombo.chris@ssd.loral.com

I believe you are referring to Orange Empire. Thanks for the compliment of being included in an impressive list of excellent institutions. Ü We are less than an hour from Orange County, but actually in Riverside County.

> b. volunteer-governed museums with strong
> management, good facilities, and a VERY
> limited program of live equipment operations
> (to control expenses and husband resources).
> Here we have most of the best trolley
> museums, Portola, IRM, Orange County,
> WW&F.



Orange "County" Ry Museum
wyld@sbcglobal.net

Oops, yes, OERM--Orange Empire indeed. Sincere apologies!


eledbetter@rypn.org

> I don't think our operation fits into any of
> the above categories, but we are doing OK.

I hearby promote you to group B, with special points for prioritizing your projects and being near a large population base!

Seriously, there's room for all kinds; I just meant that back-of-the-envelope taxonomy as a way to get us thinking about different models that seem to work well over the long haul of decades to come.


eledbetter@rypn.org

Large population base is definitely an advantage in having a handy source of not only passengers and a pool from which to draw workers, but not having one doesn't seem to hurt some operations that don't have the public sector backing of an outback railroad like CATS.

Consider the Hawk Mountain Line in rural PA. You really have to want to go there to go there. 14 miles off the PA Turnpike towards no particular tourist destination. Everything comes in and out on rubber tires. Lots of reasons these guys should be dead but they are doing a fine job of a nice small tourist railroad operation and succeeding.

Rob, share your secrets for success please.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

As long as the glass ain't empty, it's all good (that means the sight glass and the after-hours pilsner glass).

Let's look at Eastern PA, Dave, and lets fill the map in with good news...

Steamtown, by my calculations, is celebrating 18 years of continuous steam operations in Scranton (right, #2317 made her Lackawanna Valley debut in 1984?). That's a pretty good record... A VERY good record!

Paul and the New Hope gang are in steam once again, continuing a streak dating back to their management's start 7 or 8 years ago.

Kempton is running for something like 40 years of steam!

The Ashland coal mine steam train is also celebrating continuous steam for almost that long.

Strasburg is running multiple steam as usual and cranking out restorations like Hershey makes kisses... Frequent and sweet!

Kurt's employers are so jealous of the Thomases that Lynn has been building across the street, that they went out and made a blue GP-30. ;-)

The "Levin E-8's" have brought the PRR keystone to towns on the Pennsy main and Port Road (plus others).

Andy Muller is back in the passenger biz (and just did a really sweet thing making a special run of his private car to give one last train ride to an elderly lady who made said it was the dream of her golden years to ride a train again, but couldn't afford Amtrak.) Class act, Andy!

The collection of cabooses at Catawissa is one of the most important in the country.

The Reading Tech guys continue to build the second-most significant single-road collection in the country (after the PRR at the RRMPA).

The M&H is polishing the rails again.

The CNJ-painted F-3 A's have been running out of Jim Thorpe along with George's other power.

Susquehanna #142 is coming back to NJ Transit (would have been for the 3rd year straight, but last year was cancelled in the post 9/11 sadness).

They are not a museum, but the Delaware-Lackawanna guys are keeping an EMC SC and a slew of historic ALCos in tip-top running condition.

I know I'm forgetting something and someone...

So look at that! That's just one half of one state. There's plenty of good going on!

Rob Davis



trains@robertjohndavis.com

I agree that there are too many museum's and operations going on through out the USA. That being said, how would you ever merge them?

Each museum probably draws from an area of 100 miles. That's why OERM in Riverside Co and SDRM in San Diego County can both be successful - they are far enough apart.

However, with 100 miles of OERM is Ponoma, #3751, maybe Fullerton, Travel Town .... IF you could put those together, you would have one of the finest museum in the Country.

How to do that is the real question.

http://www.sdrm.org

Jim, perhaps things have changed since my Retail Marketing classes, but back then it wasn't necessarily the size of the circle ("100 miles"), but the density of the potential clientele within a given radius. In densely populated SoCal, you can squeeze a whole lot of families looking for a fun weekend activity into a circle 15 miles in diameter.

Orange "County" Ry Museum
wyld@sbcglobal.net

The West Chester Railroad Company, right here in my home town, runs mostly weekends with a GP-9? and most likely ex-W&W MU cars. Runs from West Chester to Glen Mills down the old SEPTA route into Philly.

Technically it's not PA, but darn sure close enough...

The Wilmnington & Western is just shy of the PA border on the Delaware side. Literally only a couple miles away. They have steam here and there via #58 an 0-6-0 which as a kid I never thought would run again. Looks great!

Jeff Lisowski
West Chester, PA

unfunkyufo76@hotmail.com

> In densely populated SoCal, you can
> squeeze a whole lot of families looking for
> a fun weekend activity into a circle 15
> miles in diameter.

And in densely populated Southern California there are a great number of attractions within a 75 or 100-mile circle. These include the beach, mountains, desert, and a plethora of entertainment/amusement venues. These venues vary from cinema complexes, malls, city parks, sports complexes, to the many theme parks. The competition is not the railroad museum down the road, but rather all the other things that people can do with their expendable time.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net

The competition is not the
> railroad museum down the road, but rather
> all the other things that people can do with
> their expendable time.

> Brian Norden

I believe there are plenty of people to visit our museums. However, are there enough people to become hard working volunteers to keep everything painted and operating? Is there enough money to go around, or, could there be some real "savings" by combining some together? I believe that the LA area could have one of, if not the finest, rr museums in the world if they could pull everything together at one site. Possible - not really. But, I can dream (one man's dream is another man's nightmare - example - second wifes!).

Jim

> Hey All,

> 1. Here in Scranton weÂ’ll have two big steam
> engines alternating chores on an excursion
> with near mainline speeds and a string of
> solid green Pullman cars. ThereÂ’s even talk
> of double heading the two over the July 4th
> holiday weekend. In addition IÂ’m fortunate
> to be witness to the amazing rebuilding of
> the Laurel Line interurban for both freight
> and passenger service.

Dave,
I guess by your above note that the 2317 will be back running in July, as noted on the Steamtown website. Where do the other shop/repair projects-26, 514, 1361, and 3713 stand right now? Also, how close is the Electric City Trolley excursion to running THROUGH the Crown St. Ave. tunnel?



JBeutel611@aol.com