Re: NRHS

Just wanted to expand on a previous thread with regard to the tardiness of the NRHS and their publications, plus the lack of info about convention trips. I received my 2004 membership directory the other day. However I did earlier receive the "Special edition, Winter 2006" NRHS news bulletin a few weeks earlier, the lead article by President Greg Molloy addressing the delays in publications and "shortages".

Molloy's response I found to be pretty straight-forward. The Society's biggest problem is shortage of volunteers. He notes that the volunteer effort has been steadily declining, while tasks on the other hand have been increasing.

He goes onto say that recent appeals to chapters for assistance in news items have elicited little if any response.

The current staff of volunteers is steadily decreasing though age and health and attrition, and no replacements are in sight. The current worry is that current volunteers "will simply burn-out from trying to spend too much time and energy on too much work".

Continuing, it is mentioned that many 2007 convention posts still remain to be filled. There are several projects that are inactive for lack of any staffing.

He laments that " even if a bus-load of volunteers pulled up to the national office tomorrow, we couldn't put them to work immediately".

He identifies the type of workers needed as those " who can take initiative, and work effectively by e-mail and phone without constant supervision".

Several services have been contracted-out such as payroll and mailing services, dues billing, and membership cards production. He laments that there is only so much out-sourcing that can be done, noting that this costs additonally as well.

Despite a recent dues increase, and defending the current dues rate, he states that the Society currently operates at it's "financial limits".

The article also notes how recent by-law changes have caused some strife within, and that "there has been a continual erosion of support" for the Society in many of the chapters.

He mentions that in a recent edition of the "News Extra" that is sent to up to four people in the leadership of each NRHS chapter, and appeal was made for help in staffing several vacant positions. This generated a zero-response.

At the end he notes that for almost 70 years the national convention had been sponsored by one or more host chapters, and mentioning the success of recent concentions in Minneapolis and Portland, no chapter was willing to host the 2006 convention. For this reason he notes they are now starting to organize a nationally sponsored convention for 2007. All the current support for the convention he states, is coming from individual volunteering without chapter support.

In closing he notes that the NRHS is currently facing some difficult decisions and that objectives cannot be met without more volunteer and financial support. He admits that there are some things that the leadership could do better, but that without any human and financial resources it is difficult, at best.

He closes his article by stating that " The key factor in what we do next will be how many additional people are willing and able to take on more volunteer work for the society. After that, it may come down to some hard choices involving either higher dues and possibly curtailing services as well."

There is a registration form included for the 2006 "Buckeye Rails" convention July 18th-23rd, 2006. It mentions " Events may include" several trips on the OC, Cuyahoga Valley, but nothing carved in stone on the flyer.

Hope this explains some of the goings-on at the NRHS.


RBO

Thanks for the NRHS update. Seems to me that the fundamental problem is an aging membership base resulting in a steady decline in interest/energy etc. As others have frequently mentioned on this forum in a variety of ways there are not enough younsters coming aboard to make up for the unavoidable loss of our seniors.
As I've previously posted, I'll be pleasently surprised if they get sufficient numbers to be able to operate the trips scheduled for this years Ohio convention. I say that based partly on where its being held and a lot on the fares they're charging. Nearly $200 to ride a coach behind a dismal through rather average scenery is gonna be a tough sell me thinks?? As you mention the trips are being advertised with very "iffy" remarks regarding motive power which is another downer.
Most sadly I don't think there's any silver bullet cure here. It's unfortunatly a reflection of declining interest( maybe because diesels aren't as charasmatic as was steam???) and I can only see it accellerating.
Ross Rowland....no s please............

$200 for a ride? Does anyone know just how long these rides are to be? Seems awful expensive to me, But I don't have all the info.

Dave

It is interesting to note that many of the first class accomodations on the trips have already been sold out. I checked the NRHS site last night and they provide a list on which trips have tickets available. When I was younger, I always rode in coach or worked as a volunteer. I thought that first class was for the "snobs." A friend talked me into going first class in 1994 behind N&W 611 from Cincinnati to Portsmouth, Ohio. It was one of the best trips I had ever attended. We were served three meals that day aboard our car and met some great people. That changed my outlook, but the NS steam program ended a few weeks later. Take advantage of whatever you can, when you can!!

Dave-If you'll look about half way down on pg.2 under the "NRHS" thread, you'll find one of the posts there lists the trips with prices.
As I understand it there is only "mentions" of possible motive power choices as of this time-no firm listings??
Ross Rowland....no s please..............

We have NRHS chapters in my area as well as a pair of independent railroad historical societies. The contrasts are quite striking. The NRHS chapters fill their publications with stale news (almost entirely about Amtrak) and hide their monthly meeting information and program descriptions so you have to search through the entire publication to find them. When they get a good program or speaker, or schedule an event that might have a potential to attract some more members, they publish lazy one sentence event descriptions or miss the boat entirely on getting the word out.

The two independent groups keep their meeting notices up to date, publish detailed descriptions of their monthly meeting programs and group activities, and maintain neatly arranged and informative websites with all the important information prominently posted where you can find it easily.

The monthly meeting attendance comparison is quite graphic too, usually 30 to 40 show up for the meetings at the local NRHS chapters, which are located in large metro areas, 50 to 70 usually attend at one of the independent groups that is located in a small city, and 75 to 100 (and occasionally many more) show up at meetings of one particularly well run independent group located in a relatively small town that requires a long drive for most members and guests.

The two independent groups have no paid staff, everything is done by members.

There ARE people out there who are interested, a lot of them judging by the attendance at the independent groups, but you have to let people know what is going on.

I am frankly amazed that the NRHS is still around, considering that they do not seem up to the task of keeping their own members informed of what they are doing, much less letting the general public know that they exist. NRHS needs to "reinvent government", they have become an aging bureaucracy that no longer communicates effectively with their constituents.

m.x.data

The biggest problem the NRHS has now is that its largest Chapters - which have been the backbone of the organization for the past 25 years - are rapidly fading away due to the loss of the mainline steam excursion over the past 10 years. The big steam trips - and the Chapters that got into the business of running these trips, restoring equipment for them, etc. - were the major engine for growth for the organization for a long time. Unless we see mainline steam trips return, the NRHS won't generate the interest among its members and the general public to keep the Chapters growing and healthy.

What (if anything) can be done about this problem is a separate issue, but this is the problem the NRHS faces right now.

Chris.

While the local NRHS chapters are slowly dying, an area hobby shop recently sold out a diesel excursion simply by doing a good job promoting it among their customers. There are lots of diesel fans out there. It is unfortunate that the NRHS hasn't more actively pursued the potential that exists in that market.

The most successful independent railroad historical society in our area has seldom gotten involved in steam excursions, nearly all of their events (and most of their meeting programs) are diesel oriented. They have had over 150 people show up at several recent showings of diesel programs. The city where they are located has a population of 37,500. That is four to five times the attendance the local NRHS chapter usually gets for its meetings. The metro area where the NRHS holds their meetings has a population over 10 million.

But the independent group does an excellent job of telling their members and the public what events they are organizing. The NRHS chapters in this area have forgotten how to do that.

m.x.data

Besides the fact that today's railroads are somewhat sterile and uninteresting, I think the internet may have cut into NRHS membership and meeting attendance. Why drive 30 miles in bad weather to see someone's vacation slides when there are thousands just as good or better on the internet you can see anytime you want? Since I've been connected, I've found photos and information that I tried for years to get before going online, and I can see them anytime, good for my crazy railroad schedule.

I think Bobyar2001 makes a very important point. With todays world wide access at everyones finger tips why pay dues to go see someones dated slides especially on a bad weather day, and this is exaserbated by the fact that todays diesel only world of a half dozen major players is certainly boring compared to the steam world of 50 players.
Then when you add the aging demographic of the current NRHS membership(take a look at the picture of the organizing committee on the convention site), it's readily understandable why the organization is struggling. Being on the East coast they may be able to attract enough players to pull this years convention off, even at the prices they're charging,but it's apparent that the future of these gatherings is not good and as others have stated,unless mainline steam makes a miraculous comeback(very unlikely) there most likely won't be many more.
For the good of the order I wish there was a solution-but I don't see one.
Ross Rowland

In addition, I think that the decline has something to do with the proliferation in the past couple of decades of Historical & Technical societies devoted exclusively to the study of specific railroads. Once was the time when the NRHS and R&LHS were the only organizations devoted to railroads, and were national in scope. In that time, if one wanted information about a specific railroad, chances are it was not to be had through either of the national organizations. The rise of the railroad specific organizations has provided "one stop shopping" to fans of specific roads, covering not only motive power, but history, equipment, and operations of the road they focus on. This seems to have diminished the scope and utility of the older national organizations, and undoubtedly their potential membership also.

Some of our are not looking at the entire picture when you look at the cost of attending an NRHS convention --

you really have to include and consider:

the cost of getting to the convention
the cost of your meals
the cost of your hotel / motel room
the cost of your film / camera equipment.
etc.

I've found that over the years NRHS conventions have been a bargain for both my time and money and this year's convention will be no exception.

Whether or not the tickets are expensive depends on what you use as your baseline -- if it's the trip you took 20 or 25 years years ago, you're using the wrong baseline and it leads you to the wrong answer -- If it's a Big 10 college football game ($60?), or the Superbowl ($500?) or decent seats for a broadway musical ($100), you get an answer that's very different

As to those who stay home and skip meeting because they can get the same information over the net -- 30 years ago people were also anti-social and were also staying home and doing what some call "arm chair" railfanning -- and getting their information from things called, newsletters, books and magazines (remember them ?)

Bob H

> Whether or not the tickets are expensive depends on what you use as > your baseline

Bob, the reason people are complaining about the cost of this years' trips is that they cost 50% to 100% more than the exact same trips did just 2-3 years ago, not 20 or 25 years ago. And that's on a railroad that won't have big expenses to deadhead in equipment.

Chris J.

And just how is the NRHS going to effect lower prices for this unique product we call a rail excursion? Every year there are less passenger cars, working locomotives (steam or diesel) and places to run. In addition, the product (the classic mainline excursion) just might be having a hard time competing with other activities out there.

When the SP&S 700 and SP 4449 trips ran on Montana Rail Link, the through ticket price (three days on train with hotel/transfers etc) started at $1800 one way. Day trip tickets (air conditioned coach only) started at $200 (for a approx 200 mile run). It ain't cheap and the market might not support this in the future.

It might be time to consider thinking outside of the box about how we want to display classic railroading. It might be photo freights, living history or some sort of theater (the outfit in Florida that had a WWII enactment of Allies taking over a train from German troops. The mere presence of a train is not going to ignite the passions of this generation the way it might have years ago--we have to find a reason for that to happen.

Mike makes a good point. By all thats holy you'd have thought that those mainline trips over MRL with the 4449 and the 700 should have been instant to the roof sell-outs(even with a diesel in the consist), but they weren't. Last years NRHS convention attracted barely 500 people despite a world class mainline steam trip(albeit announced extremely late) and this years convention has no mainline running at all,steam or diesel!
I think what most people are griping about is the sticker shock of nearly $200 for a coach ticket, in most cases behind a diesel, over 30mph rr thru rather ordinary scenery! Seems to me if it were mainline steam at mainline speeds(without a diesel in the consist) then folks would swallow the price.
But again, the basic problem is an ever smaller constituancey magnified by the fact that those still active are getting older&older.What's needed is a strong influx of youngsters-the question is how to attract them.
Ross Rowland.....no s please......