What comes around goes around, to be sure.

> Not the Board, but a small, entrenched
> clique thereof. Most of the rest were duped,
> parhaps unwittingly in most cases. And the
> membership was left out because it couldn't
> be counted on to go along with the program
> -- and there were ample signs that it
> wouldn't.

> Who receive their infomation from a
> seriously biased WRM media. Keep in mind the
> Goebbles maxim: tell a lie enough times and
> it becomes the truth.

> At the same time, there were also abuses of
> the election processes by several
> individuals of the in-crowd. For example,
> one had some 8 or 10 members of his family
> registered as voting members, another around
> 6.

> Today, everything is "under
> control". Just like the old Soviet
> Union, in annual WRM elections there is a
> slate of only 5 candidates to fill 5
> vacancies.

> Disinformation. They garnered $75K annually.
> In financial statements to the membership,
> WRM made it a normal practise to report net
> for the Wildflower trains and gross for the
> trolleys, but the Wildflower trains still
> had the larger figure by quite a margin. The
> names "Enron" and "Arthur
> Anderson" come to mind here.

> There was also an effort to run small diesel
> trains to complement the trolleys during the
> summer weekday operations. When it became
> apparent that both the public and the
> trolley operators were more interested in
> the *train* than the trolleys, this was
> killed immediately.

> More disinformation. This would be more
> accurate if stated: "There was money,
> but the diesel/Wildflower train department
> was actively discouraged, even *prevented*,
> from doing track maintenance to this part of
> the line."

> --snip--

> Huh?? Other than adversely affect the
> availablity of ISTEA grants, which WRM has
> never received anyway, how does this fit the
> current discussion?

> --snip--

> The volunteers who worked on steam and
> diesel played the major role in building the
> shop and the Museum itself from the late
> 1970s through 1992. They expended a
> tremendous amount of sweat equity working
> for the good of the order (among other
> things, they built carbarn #2 -- carbarn #3
> is being given away in this trade). They
> were encouraged and supported by this same
> clique in their efforts, both when those
> efforts were for the good of the order and
> when they were directed to steam and diesel.
> Then, once the shop etc. were
> "done", the clique jerked the rug
> out, stabbed them in the back, and drove
> them off, all under the smoke screen of
> "change of mission statement".

> Giving away these diesels is the final stage
> of a carefully orchestrated program of
> making WRM safe for the entrenched clique.
> In order to stay in power at "their
> museum", they had to drive off the
> competition.

> This sort of behavior has ominous
> implications for all volunteer
> orgainziations, not just Rio Vista and other
> rr museums.

> For Mr. Hicks: the comment about asking IRM
> is a reference to a comment by long-time IRM
> GM Nick Kallas that "steam [at IRM]
> doesn't pay for itself, but it draws the
> people who ride the electrics and pay the
> bills." A statement I have heard
> personally from him more than once over the
> last several decades.