The current thread, "Lack of Respect for History in PA," has been an amazingly satisfying read. Taking a cue from the trend of posts in that discussion, I've begun this one.

I've often asked myself: "What is it about history, about railroading, about steam locomotives, that captures us? Why do we do it? Why do so many of us volunteer our time to preserve, maintain, and operate these pieces of the past?"

More specifically, why do I consider spending an entire summer day inside a 2-8-0's tender*, eating scale, rust, paint, and water in an effort to prepare it for operation to be "enjoyable?"

Why do we do it?

I came up with an answer once, standing in an empty field that use to be the Nickel Plate Road's West Wayne Yards in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We can look around us today and see used car lots and casinos and perpetual suburbs and we call it the present. Nevertheless, it is our fascination with past, what came before the suburbs and casinos, and how it got to be how it is now, that so enthralls us.

A videographer, after watching me emerge from 765's boiler covered in scale deposits and dabs of protective paint lining for the engine, "Man, that can't be any fun. Why are you doin that?"

I replied, "This is how it use to be. I picture myself in the Lima erecting shops in 1944 and it's all right, because that's how it was."

You see, with the thousands of people like us who work to preserve history, we know there is little danger of it ever falling off the face of the earth. It is the appreciation, the passion for history (and it's preservation) that is dwindling. That is what needs to be cultivated.

Mr. Hefner's point about being able to chase our steam engines and work on them and retire to our comfy beds and air conditioning is extremely valid. For a while, we can step "back in time," walk around a little bit, and come back to the future. But I must disagree with the notion that the many who lived in "the golden age" that we so eagerly romanticize are quick to dispel any notions of grandeur. While I know a great many railroader welcomed the clean and efficient first generation diesels in exchange for the steamer, a great many truly found it the end of an era and perhaps, the genesis of a decline. My grandfather, a master mechanic of steam and roundhouse foreman on the New York Central became effectively displaced once the Central put steam out to pasture. He was moved around the division and soon retired. Before his death on an aimless drive (a habit formed after leaving the railroad), he would often comment that things were changing, and not often for the best.

In an essay I wrote for school, I commented that there is little to be romanticized with internal combustion engines. Diesels can be run by remote control now, at the push of a button. Imagine what kind of folk song we'd have about Casey Jones if they'd found him in the wreck of his train with his hand on....a button. It is these old machines, these friends in iron, these old diners and theaters and buildings, and whatever else that symbolize something. We mourn the loss of these outdated pieces of history because they mean something, either collectively or respectively.

If I had been one of Mr. Ledbetter's students in his US History class, I would have said that the heralded "decline of America" began at the end of the 1950s. And no, it wasn't because choo-choo's became coat hangers and paperclips; this, however, can be seen as part of it. It can be said that back then, there was a special value attributed to physical work. It was those engineers that were idolized by the boys through the school window and the men behind the desk. I've often commented how half the kids I grew up with never mowed their own lawns; can you imagine these same people growing up and grabbing orders on the fly or shoveling coal into a firebox?

Anyway, I realize this post has taken on a lengthy life of it's own and I'll euthanize my writing before you realize you've spent ten minutes of valuable time reading it. Thank you, however, for reading. I look forward to hearing others perspectives, contrary or not. I pose the question:
What drives you to preserve?

-Kelly Lynch

*probably the single most interesting and unforgetable (albiet, not exactly fun) experience thus far in working on steam. The 2-8-0 in question is LS&I #33 and it was the effort of Jerry Ballard, the engine's previous owner, that inspired me to keep working away inside that dark, damp tender...plus, I knew it was no good to have all that crap injected into the engine's boiler when it got running.

Kelly, perhaps you could share the essay with the forum, I remember reading it a while back when you first wrote it and it was very good. I'm willing to bet the forum members would enjoy it as well.

fellow railcamper (02)
Mike

I love trains, but to be honest, I haven't worked on too many of them. It was just lack of opportunities, as I grew up in a aprt of Florida where there was nothing to work on anywhere nearby. The local NRHS chapter had their own RR station and I helped out where I could.
Where my preservation efforts are now focused is mostly in my other loves. I own a 1944 Willys Army Jeep, and have skinned many knuckles, gone without many evenings out, and ticked off the wife far too many times keeping it running (and often faling at doing even that). I love to see expressions as I take it to parades and airshows. I love to see the vets walk up, touch is ever so gently and remember when they saw hundreds like it thundering across Europe or over Pacific mountain passes.
To me, it's all the same thing. The love for the tangible traces of where we think or world has already been.
The only reason I don't work on the local tourist operation is that they have far more than enough people who know much more than I about the workings of steam engines. I know how to operate one, just not how to work on one.
I love steam. I've given up trying to understand the appeal, I think maybe it's the idea of a technology that was peaked long before my parents ever met. Maybe it's the fire and brimstone that comes from an engine under load, like the fires of Hell have been contained by man and put to his service. Or that they're big, dirty and loud.
But it isn't just the steam locomotive that brings this awe to the surface, trust me.
I have volunteered to work on WW2 warplanes. I've busted knuckles, strained muscles and inhaled ungodly fumes while working on them, but seeing them fly, or even just sit on a runway LOOKING like they MIGHT fly, is worth it all. I disagree that there is no romanticism over internal combustion engines. Just tell that to a group of people watching a B-24's engines turn over in a cloud of white smoke. I agree that a steam locomotive has more character than just about anything ever put into motion. But an airplane has more grace than ANY steam engine ever could, as it drifts overhead, or roars by a full throttle. I've ridden the cab of a steam locomotive at speed and in a P-51 WW2 fighter plane, each doing runbys. They were each almost more than the human mind can take.
But airplanes are fragile by nature. A good storm won't do much to a steam engine, but can rip even the largest of airplanes to pieces. So to know that an airplane will never take to the air again, with it's thin skin and fragile wings, it doesn't take much to realize that it has been overstressed to beyond repair. But a steam engine, with it's massive cast wheels, cylinders, and frame, it almost as sturdy as a boulder. And even though steam engines are actually quite fragile themselves in many ways (just let that water level go down over the crown sheet and you FIND OUT how fragile they are), it's almost too much to accept that this solid piece of technology will never turn a wheel again. That is what makes a rusting locomotive so sad, I think. What the most sad of all is seeing an engine you knew to be alive, and now knowing it will never move under it's own power again. I saw N&W 1218 at Roanoke when it was an imobile hunk of steel. I never thought I'd see it running. Ever. Then, the unthinkable happened, and a few years later, I was on a train, pulled at mainline speeds, by that very engine. It looked and sounded brand new. And now, it sits back when I first saw it, again fixed to the spot. There are days that it's just too much to bear to think about it.
But I don't believe I was born too late. Frankly, I like TV, the internet, simple medications for ailments that would kill people in earlier times, etc. My only deep regret was that certain things weren't saved, but I think we dwell on the things that are no longer with us. I know people around me in the Pac NW who have hiked and walked every inch of the old Milwaukee Road's Pacific extension but have never ridden Amtrak or any of the local tourist operations. People find it too easy to focus on what WAS and lack the sight to see what IS.
But we can't see where we're going, and we don't know what will no longer be with us. We can, however, look back to what was and hold on to what's left.
And sometimes cry a little when we see those vestiges leave our world forever when we cannot stop the change.
But we do what we can, and remember the rest.