Been watching this thread with great interest... as usual, excellent points made by all. A couple thoughts...

I believe the model behavior is to not let ones personal beliefs and opinions color the response you make "on behalf" of whatever museum/ group you are in the role of representing ( however small, unplanned, temporary, empowered or unempowered that role might be ). You are no longer Just You, even to the casual public every word will be listened to as though it came from the Dali Lama. A Big Responsibility not to clag the pipes by attempting to have the casual visitor understand the machinations of the internal workings of the museum, which may be quite dysfunctional upon close inspection, but be presenting a magical experience for the normal visitor. I cannot condone egregious distortion of fact to keep the experience magical, nor can I accept needing to expose the visitor to the bilious politicking and rumor rampant in any group human endeavor. But there is a point of Too Much Information that a lot if us fail to recognize.

For the non-casual visitor ? A more diplomatic way to handle the heavier inquiries would be to suggest that the person arrange a visit when the right folks could be made available to answer questions- certainly the up-front, honest, above board person who earnestly wanted to study whats going well and what hasn't should understand that. It displays a genuine attempt at being open yet minimizes the risk to the organization of being skewered for a gaff. Should the right folks be the Executive and Chief Operating Officer of the Keepers of Rust, so be it. Its not buck-passing, its admission that the situation is usually more complex than a toss-away sound bite. Reality usually is. ( Hopefully the organization has had the good fortune to have folks who understand diplomacy as well as they understand why steam is more interesting than diesel, but I digress...)

I doubt that anyone on this forum can stand up and say that they believe their group is operating at full efficiency or hasnt made some bonehead moves that they regret. But to what extent they "owe" the community-at-large an open kimono is unclear.

Some things are quite frankly better left unsaid and unshared. It seems Lessons Learned are given freely when people have the confidence that they themselves have overcome the issue- seldom are folks comfortable revealing their insecurities or failings. However greasy and slightly eccentric we may be, we are all indelibly human.



staybolt@bellsouth.net

In summary:
For the public ... if you can't say something nice, don't say anything.
Anybody Else ... refer to the "Proper Authority".

lamontdc@adelphia.net

> Philosophical question for yÂ’allÂ…Â…..

> I visited a well-known railroad museum not
> too long ago, one that (for want of a
> gentler way to phrase it) has been through
> good times and bad recently.

> I was able to get a chance to talk with
> quite a few of the operationÂ’s operating
> staff and volunteers in scattered places and
> circumstances. What I found intriguing was
> that, for some reason, everybody I tried to
> talk to, once the topic shifted anywhere
> away from basic information (All examples
> from here on in made up as general examples:
> In this case, going from “when was this car
> built?” to “when do you hope to get it
> operational?”), the people in question
> started hiding behind “You’ll have to talk
> to the head office/Public Relations
> folks/restoration chief.”

> I certainly can understand one or two
> “newbies” not willing to comment to a
> stranger about specifics they may not know
> enough about. But the more I talked to more
> folks in a variety of settings on and off
> this site, it became somewhat painfully
> obvious that the institution had placed some
> formal or informal “gag order” on its
> personnel, apparently desiring to control
> every aspect of not only news release, but
> gossip as well. Some of them were apparently
> just deferring to those with more knowledge,
> but others were obviously deferring to some
> “Big Brother” or “Loose Lips Sink Ships”,
> judging from their body language and word
> choices.

> Now, IÂ’m not going up to, say, the Railroad
> Museum of North Kennsylzona with a TV crew
> and pointing a camera in faces and saying
> “what’s this about a toxic locomotive in
> your building, jeopardizing the health of
> thousands of people who go through every
> year?” (Again, fabricated example.) And I
> was there as an obviously card-carrying,
> hat-wearing and belt-buckle-wearing railfan
> and rail preservationist; every time I
> talked I attempted to identify myself as
> someone who works with several rail museums
> and preservation projects; and I discussed
> things with people in public and back behind
> the scenes. My questions might have at times
> been either rather complex or perhaps nosy
> (“How did you find the money to restore this
> car so quickly?” “How do you find your
> Baldwin parts?” “Need some manuals we may
> have?” “What are your plans for this
> building/car?” “Think we could trade some
> surplus books/cars between institutions?”
> “Why’d you stop the repaint midway through
> the job?”), but nothing ever likely to
> launch a scandal. But it got to the farcical
> point where if I had asked *anything* beyond
> their prepared script, they were going to
> refer me to the “PR department”:
> “What day is it?” “You’ll have to ask the
> information desk, I can’t tell you....”

> Now, I know from discussions with others
> that this particular placed got mired in
> considerable local “political” controversy
> over some recent events, so IÂ’ll grant them
> a modest degree of holding the cards close
> to the chest, especially to a stranger.
> However, at some point such “secrecy”
> becomes self-defeating. For one thing, and
> perhaps most importantly, it makes the
> institution look like it has something nasty
> to hide—not good when public trust and
> goodwill needs to be involved. Also, it
> makes communication difficult—and
> communication is critical to such assistance
> and events as, say, the donation of goods
> and services to finish a project, or the big
> California rolling-stock trade recently. On
> the other hand, I can see how a place might
> want to keep “rumor-mongering” in check. But
> at the same time, can anybody tell me of
> instances of harm coming to an institution
> or a restoration project because of chatty
> gossip on TrainOrders, RYPN, TrainWeb, or
> the like? (Case in point below on the
> “Interchange”—we still don’t know for sure
> if the RF&P business car in Richmond is
> available for preservation or not. Does it
> matter? If it turns out there are plans to
> preserve it at that park, have we hurt those
> prospects by rumoring that itÂ’s available?)

> WhatÂ’s your take on this, folks? How much
> gossip is too much, and how much
> “information control” is too much? Is there
> a firm policy at your institution? Is it
> enforced? Do superiors troll the Internet
> boards and reprimand those who mentioned
> something to a board or a poster? Would you
> have a different standard for talking to,
> say, someone on this board or from Trains
> Magazine versus Joe “Patch-collector”
> Blowhard with a camera around his neck?

> And might this be YOUR excursion line/museum
> I'm describing? Why, then?

Sometimes "nosy" questions can be answered diplomatically. At Orange Empire, visitors sometimes look at our main transformer bank and ask about the cost of electricity to run our 600 VDC supply and building light & power. I usually reply, "That's not my department, but if you got our bill by mistake, you'd be on the phone to the Edison Co. in a hurry!" Another issue that trolley and combination museums face is the "GM-Firestone-Standard Oil Conspiracy". Many visitors have seen various stories and TV shows that portray the National City Lines takeover of many transit systems as a diabolical plot to take away our beloved trolleys and replace them with smelly buses. It's a lot more complicated than that, and one must be careful in saying "According to MY study of the matter...." not to ruffle visitors' feathers, yet try to correct inaccuracies without attempting to speak for the whole organization.
Then there's the situation of members discussing nebulous future plans. Many years ago, we had a member (now deceased) who told visitors how we planned to build a line south to a park area, and that there would be a beer garden with German oom-pah bands playing (as I recall, he was from the Milwaukee area). We now try to instruct streetcar and train service crew members to watch what they say to visitors about future plans. If the conductor says "We'll have that interurban (or locomotive) running next year" and it's something that the visitor (or an ancestor) rode on or worked on, and it's still in pieces two years later, it doesn't help the museum's credibility.
One place where even the most zealous member should refer questions to an officer or spokesperson is relations with local railroads and transit agencies, and acquision of long sought items. Here's where loose lips really can sink ships, or at least derail projects.
There's an old saying: "Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to say something and remove all doubt."


brunettedavis@aol.com

> Sometimes "nosy" questions can be
> answered diplomatically. At Orange Empire,
> visitors sometimes look at our main
> transformer bank and ask about the cost of
> electricity to run our 600 VDC supply and
> building light & power. I usually reply,
> "That's not my department, but if you
> got our bill by mistake, you'd be on the
> phone to the Edison Co. in a hurry!"
> Another issue that trolley and combination
> museums face is the
> "GM-Firestone-Standard Oil
> Conspiracy". Many visitors have seen
> various stories and TV shows that portray
> the National City Lines takeover of many
> transit systems as a diabolical plot to take
> away our beloved trolleys and replace them
> with smelly buses. It's a lot more
> complicated than that, and one must be
> careful in saying "According to MY
> study of the matter...." not to ruffle
> visitors' feathers, yet try to correct
> inaccuracies without attempting to speak for
> the whole organization.
> Then there's the situation of members
> discussing nebulous future plans. Many years
> ago, we had a member (now deceased) who told
> visitors how we planned to build a line
> south to a park area, and that there would
> be a beer garden with German oom-pah bands
> playing (as I recall, he was from the
> Milwaukee area). We now try to instruct
> streetcar and train service crew members to
> watch what they say to visitors about future
> plans. If the conductor says "We'll
> have that interurban (or locomotive) running
> next year" and it's something that the
> visitor (or an ancestor) rode on or worked
> on, and it's still in pieces two years
> later, it doesn't help the museum's
> credibility.
> One place where even the most zealous member
> should refer questions to an officer or
> spokesperson is relations with local
> railroads and transit agencies, and
> acquision of long sought items. Here's where
> loose lips really can sink ships, or at
> least derail projects.
> There's an old saying: "Better to keep
> silent and be thought a fool, than to say
> something and remove all doubt."

Well stated, Bob.

You never know who is asking the question, standing nearby, or riding on the car. It could be an officer of the local railroad or a local polictico or a safety inspector or who knows whom. Just like in a publication -- you should be careful and circumspect in what is said.

It seems that in the last five or six years I've had someone come up to me and ask about the line down the canyon to the "beer garden." My response was something like that was some wishful thinking that it is not in our current plans.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net

It isn't unreasonable to have this sort
of policy.

Without being at all specific, I can think
of examples at several different railway
museums where volunteers/docents/operators
gave out seemingly innocent information that
came back to bite the organization in the butt.

Also, in my experience, the majority of
railway museums do NOT have a gag order type
of policy, other than the boilerplate "in
the event of an accident..." language in the
operating rulebook.

webmaster@bera.org

> I recall a family of a
> former shop worker offended by their
> ancestor being mentioned as a ghost haunting
> the building in question, said ghost having
> been seen and identified by living people
> who knew him in life. Go figure......

Such people are looking to be offended. The best tack to take with them is "I'm sorry you feel that way" and walk away. You can't worry about the cranks in your audience. Such things are THEIR hangup, not yours.

mconrad@msmgmt.com

> I am tempted to reply with a quote from the
> TV show M*A*S*H where Col. Potter asks the
> "indigenous personel" if he can
> identify himself and the elderly Korean
> gentleman says,

> "This is me."

> Semper Vaporo,
> Charles T. McCullough
> CMBY RY

Okay, since you took my mistyped query literally, and somehow I found that my password to change/delete the message got stripped in the latest hard-drive cleanup:

What is the CMBY RY?


LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> Okay, since you took my mistyped query
> literally, and somehow I found that my
> password to change/delete the message got
> stripped in the latest hard-drive cleanup:

> What is the CMBY RY?

Would you believe the "Chicago, Milwaukee, Burlington and Yukon"?

No?

How about the "Colorado, Montana, Manatoba and Ypsilanti"?

No?

How about a clue?...

A private elevated railway behind my house with one steam locomotive (soon to be two!) that is not big enough for me to get into the cab of (and, sadly, neither will the next one).

-----

You'd be surprized how long I have been including that line in my "sig." and either nobody has noticed or just never bothered to question it.

But after using it a few times, it really does seem like "my words" have more "weight" sometimes. I feel like I have been accorded more "respect" on this and other boards.

Which actually helps to prove my point in the previous posts that you can't tell just who a person is by what they "claim".

Semper Vaporo,
Charles T. McCullough
CMBY RY

In case the clue wasn't enough...

Charlie McCullough's Back Yard Railway.

There, now I've ruined my "weighty reputation".

I hope you're happy now... congratulations! :-)

I wish I had offered a prize to the first person to question it. Sorry!

> Which actually helps to prove my point in
> the previous posts that you can't tell just
> who a person is by what they "claim".

> Semper Vaporo,
> Charles T. McCullough
> CMBY RY

> In case the clue wasn't enough...

> Charlie McCullough's Back Yard Railway.

> There, now I've ruined my "weighty
> reputation".

> I hope you're happy now... congratulations!
> :-)

> I wish I had offered a prize to the first
> person to question it. Sorry!

I've changed my mind!

I am offering a prize... I will attempt to contact you off line to get your home address to mail you a CD of videos of operations on the CMBY RY, (They's much too big to e-mail) including the famous "Wreck of the CMBY #505" (subtitle, "Running Light, Just Not Light Enough to Fly.")

Semper Vaporo, Maxima
Charles T. McCullough
CMBY RY

> I've changed my mind!

Does the new one work better?

> I am offering a prize... I will attempt to
> contact you off line to get your home
> address to mail you a CD of videos of
> operations on the CMBY RY, (They's much too
> big to e-mail) including the famous
> "Wreck of the CMBY #505"
> (subtitle, "Running Light, Just Not
> Light Enough to Fly.")

> Semper Vaporo, Maxima
> Charles T. McCullough
> CMBY RY

Simple--go to the e-mail address attached to my posts, and delete the two hyphens and the word "NOSPAM".


LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> Does the new one work better?

Not really.

But it keeps other people agile when I change it often.

Your CD will go in the mail on my way home from work today.

Enjoy!

Semper Vaporo,
Charles T. McCullough, Founder, President, CEO, CMO, CFO, Engineer, Fireman, Head Brakeman, Rear Brakeman, Foreman of Right-of-way Construction, Flunkee of Track Maintenance, Hostler, Roundhouse crew, Blacksmith, Head of Public Relations, Yardmaster, Switch tender, Sole Stockholder, Disaster Inspector, Dispatcher and Proprietor;
CMBY RY

Speaking as a ticket-buying member of the public:

I understand the desire to manage information going out of the museum, but the problem is that this management carries its own message. If it is too litigation-sensitive, it carries the subtext that you've done something that invites litigation-- or is at least embarrassing.

To me, as a member of the public, asking when some item is going to be displayed is a reasonable and a "need-to-know" question. I'd like to see it when it is on display, so I need to know when to come back to see it. And if I go to the East Kumquat Trolley Museum, where everybody except maybe the kid at the cash register is obviously someone who is intimately involved with the operation, having them say "you'll have to speak to [put title here]" puts a bad taste in my mouth. I know they know the answer, so it is reasonable to assume that there's some embarrassing reason why they won't tell me.

Making information valuable by keeping it secret almost always backfires. Rumormongers are just as capable of creating misinformation out of what you won't say as from what you do say, and leaks happen. It doesn't work for the feds, after all. Also, I have to suspect that if the railroads themselves haven't managed to drive off the foamers with their hostility, you won't be able to either.

And in this wise perhaps "PR director" is a bad title. In the rest of the world, after all, it means "spinmeister".

Obviously gossip has to be kept in check. But funneling everything through a mouthpiece is too extreme. At least when someone has to say, "you need to speak to X", it should be done in a way that suggests that "X" is a person with a name who would actually welcome your phone call (even if he wouldn't). I haven't tried asking at the Smithsonian recently, but I expect that they might make an attempt to connect me up with a real person who can tell me something. That's what "dissemination of knowledge" is about, after all.


whitby@SPAMLESSerols.com

It all comes down to professionalism. A good organization controls information, but also empowers membership to know where to draw the line.

You found and extreme case, ADM. I have found them, too.

The lack of organizational prowess, PR savvy and media control in our piece of the world is a major problem. It's a little known skill set, but you -- yes, you -- can use the a combination of information control and contact with the media to great advantage.

If your museum takes control of its information in the right way, you can use it to great, great advantage. The trick is keeping all parties empowered, and NOT instituting policies that harm the on-site experience OR alienate workers and volunteers. It can be done.

These are new concepts in rail preservation, but they work wonders in other disciplines.

More on this to follow...

Rob

rdavis@rypn.org

> If your museum takes control of its
> information in the right way, you can use it
> to great, great advantage. The trick is
> keeping all parties empowered, and NOT
> instituting policies that harm the on-site
> experience OR alienate workers and
> volunteers. It can be done.

You (and others above) have hit on what I think is the major dilemma involved here--the delicate balance between information control versus information dissemination.

I discussed the issues I raised from my museum/excursion line visit with some non-railroad-preservationists in other fields, as well as some of the issues discussed above. In almost every case, the general lines of the responses followed the paragraph below:

"Why in the world would someone empower a volunteer or employee of an operation to interface with the public, but not give him the right to truly represent the operation in question? A volunteer [they assumed such] who is only allowed to spit out a specific set of information is not much better than the person at Wal-Mart who stands at the door and repeats 5,000 times a shift 'Welcome to Wal-Mart'--and before long that's exactly how that volunteer will feel, and he or she will find better things to do, and elsewhere to boot."

Personally, I know darn well (and having IDed myself as a varied, active volunteer with similar places to them, I hope the person I'm asking understands as well) that any organization with a large membership and following--any of these nonprofit museums, for example--will have as many viewpoints and opinions as it has members. Much as we may see the hired director of a museum as the Supreme Word of Law, he isn't. He or she has a job to do, true, and some of that may entail decisions that may be unpopular with the support staff and/or "membership"--but that does NOT render the opinions of the underlings irrelevant by any stretch of the imagination. Having said that, it is also imperative that any staffer or docent answering questions: 1) explain to the "general public" what is specifically rock-solid fact and what is merely opinion, subject to change, or subject to clarification; and 2) defer immediately to higher-ups when the question is over their heads in any form AND do so in a manner that only shows lack of knowledge, not a sense of "hiding" information.

Now, having said that, there ARE indeed some cases where it actually would be OK to tell the public to "bugger off". The Strasburg RR, for want of a random example, is literally owned by a few individuals and is a for-profit enterprise. Legally speaking, save for public information like health-inspector reports or the like, I cannot realistically expect them to be forthcoming with "sensitive" information about their operation. However, I believe Linn, Kelly, etc. know that they will attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, and I can't see how, for example, questions about a rebuild of #90 can be considered sensitive information.

Lastly, let me point out: I was literally raised in a newspaper office, and I have a degree in journalism, with many class credits in communications and even libel law. I confess that I can smell defensive doubletalk a mile away, and that I can probably "spin" a story any way I want to without even thinking about it. I've had it pointed out to me (in the other conversations mentioned above) that questioning I take for innocent queries can make others feel like they're going through the Spanish Inquisition, and not everyone is as adept in handling themselves in spontaneous in-depth discussions as I may be. In the case of the specific operation in question, it's possible that the staff involved may well be a cut below the average "sophisticated" level of discourse I'm used to, in part because of RyPN! (^_^)



LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> You (and others above) have hit on what I
> think is the major dilemma involved
> here--the delicate balance between
> information control versus information
> dissemination.

> I discussed the issues I raised from my
> museum/excursion line visit with some
> non-railroad-preservationists in other
> fields, as well as some of the issues
> discussed above. In almost every case, the
> general lines of the responses followed the
> paragraph below:

> "Why in the world would someone empower
> a volunteer or employee of an operation to
> interface with the public, but not give him
> the right to truly represent the operation
> in question? A volunteer [they assumed such]
> who is only allowed to spit out a specific
> set of information is not much better than
> the person at Wal-Mart who stands at the
> door and repeats 5,000 times a shift
> 'Welcome to Wal-Mart'--and before long
> that's exactly how that volunteer will feel,
> and he or she will find better things to do,
> and elsewhere to boot."

> Personally, I know darn well (and having
> IDed myself as a varied, active volunteer
> with similar places to them, I hope the
> person I'm asking understands as well) that
> any organization with a large membership and
> following--any of these nonprofit museums,
> for example--will have as many viewpoints
> and opinions as it has members. Much as we
> may see the hired director of a museum as
> the Supreme Word of Law, he isn't. He or she
> has a job to do, true, and some of that may
> entail decisions that may be unpopular with
> the support staff and/or
> "membership"--but that does NOT
> render the opinions of the underlings
> irrelevant by any stretch of the
> imagination. Having said that, it is also
> imperative that any staffer or docent
> answering questions: 1) explain to the
> "general public" what is
> specifically rock-solid fact and what is
> merely opinion, subject to change, or
> subject to clarification; and 2) defer
> immediately to higher-ups when the question
> is over their heads in any form AND do so in
> a manner that only shows lack of knowledge,
> not a sense of "hiding"
> information.

Neither railroads nor museums are democracies.
If they choose to share information that is really no one's business but others find interesting, that's all well and good. If they don't; too bad. Don't visit them any more.

> Now, having said that, there ARE indeed some
> cases where it actually would be OK to tell
> the public to "bugger off". The
> Strasburg RR, for want of a random example,
> is literally owned by a few individuals and
> is a for-profit enterprise. Legally
> speaking, save for public information like
> health-inspector reports or the like, I
> cannot realistically expect them to be
> forthcoming with "sensitive"
> information about their operation. However,
> I believe Linn, Kelly, etc. know that they
> will attract more flies with honey than with
> vinegar, and I can't see how, for example,
> questions about a rebuild of #90 can be
> considered sensitive information.

Sure it can. Information about costs of the rebuild, for example, are not something that any private company has to share with anyone.

> Lastly, let me point out: I was literally
> raised in a newspaper office, and I have a
> degree in journalism, with many class
> credits in communications and even libel
> law. I confess that I can smell defensive
> doubletalk a mile away, and that I can
> probably "spin" a story any way I
> want to without even thinking about it. I've
> had it pointed out to me (in the other
> conversations mentioned above) that
> questioning I take for innocent queries can
> make others feel like they're going through
> the Spanish Inquisition, and not everyone is
> as adept in handling themselves in
> spontaneous in-depth discussions as I may
> be. In the case of the specific operation in
> question, it's possible that the staff
> involved may well be a cut below the average
> "sophisticated" level of discourse
> I'm used to, in part because of RyPN! (^_^)