This is something that has been irking me for some time now and am looking forward to seeing other peoples views on these matters. Im not trying to write this in "my views" but as an overall as to what I see happening all around and not just an endless rant.

Let me start..I consider myself part of the current generation of railroad preservationists..I am 19. I have been involved at a certain group that shall rename nameless for about 5 or 6 years. I was a board member for several until a few months ago.

I have been noticing a trend with museums and groups as of late. In talking with a bunch of friends of mine and getting various views of whats going on at the group there with, It seems like it is not uncommon. Where I think the problem lies is with the board of directors. In most groups theres roughly 5 or 6, the usual President, VP, Treasurer, secretary, etc.. Some of these people may have been founders and still hold board positions while others may have wiggled there way in or been appointed. Here lies the problem in that, The board has the control of mostly everything that goes on in the group and alot of times said decision is not in the best interest of the membership. However, here lies the issue and its kind of one of those revolving circles.

General membership does not seem to care about what happens at there museum due to the above and is dropping by the year. What I see is that alot of boards get the "Its all ours, you cant touch it" syndrome, and it seems to be the making or breaking point of a museum.

Alot of groups are trying to attract the new group of volunteers, railfans, whatever you want to call them but it wont happen with attitudes like what seems to be transpiring. This also is what scares off the professionals. Heres an example: Museum A has a locomotive, rusty, does not run, looks like hell. Volunteer B comes along, knows all about the engine and how to do the work. People in charge at Museum A get scared, and along comes the "No, do not touch it!" that plagues groups. This goes for not just locomotives & cars, but exhibits, fundraisers, etc..

If you want to attract not only new members and guests, a group must focus on what the original mission is. Teaching, interpreting, restoring, etc.. And this brings me to my next subject..Original missions.

A coming trend at railroad museums that I visit are model layouts vs. exhibits. To me, there are two ways to view this. 1 is, a to scale, perfect reproduction of the area the museum occupies, owns, etc. The other is a jambalaya of randomness. If you are trying to run a museum, what do people want to see, How it was, or Thomas next to a BNSF Dash 9? Whatever became of the actual exhibit as well? Signal gardens come to mind, displays of locks and keys, stuff along the lines of that instead of just whatever is in the archives thrown into a case.

To me, and my fellow generation, there is no point in spending time somewhere only to see nothing accomplished towards "the big picture" .

I apologize in advance for this post lacking structure. Once somebody builds upon this I am sure it will fall into place.

As Ross would say, IMHO.

Paul S.

Paul, a few aspects of the points that you brought up have been discussed here from time to time. There was a discussion a while back relating to trying to recruit talented modelers for the production of dioramas. It seemed to me like a good idea because so many of the "fallen flag" single railroad historical societies are trending toward very detailed model railroading interests as the time grows since the demise of their favorite railroads. I have watched many skilled modelers in these groups (including a couple who did display models for EMD) produce beautiful work, only to have family members sell it on eBay and take a chain saw to the layout after their passing. It seems like an incredible waste of wonderful talent, but it did not seem to raise much concern on RYPN. The focus on this site is prototype, not models.

As far as professionals from the railroad industry and the equipment builders getting involved in preservation and railroad historical groups, the number is rather small and in recent years it has been declining. They can see that the primary focus in most of these groups considerably predates their scope of career experience, they can also see that in many cases there are a lot politics involved that they don't care to be a part of.

PC

Paul -

You're right, your post provides a lot of food for discussion.

As background, I'm the treasurer of a major railroad museum, and sort of "middle management" in the restoration side of the operation. Been involved for about 12+ years, so I'm not a long term member by our museum's standards.

I'll try to address one topic - why boards may seem very reluctant to allow a restoration to be started at their museum.

The short answer is that it is quite easy to start a restoration, but without a detailed plan, funding, and organizational commitment, it's very to hard to finish one.

Probably every museum in the country has several partial restorations littering the shop and/or grounds, where the person who started a project has died, lost interest, moved away, gone off to college, gotten married, or for some other reason could not continue the project. Not only do these aborted projects make the museum seem more like a junkyard, they also can damage the artifact -- parts get scattered, used for other things, stolen, damaged, etc. People can even forget how to reassemble things! Not to mention (if the project is in the shop) occupying shop space which is needed for other projects.

If a board has had this kind of experience with other projects, I can see why it might be skeptical of a proposal for another project. I would hope that it would be skepticism and not hostility. After all, a major restoration is a major business decision and the board has to act accordingly.

The board also has to look at how a project fits into the needs (both long- and short-term) of the museum. Any proposed restoration would probably fit the museum's stated objectives, but may not be as high a priority as other needs. For example, there might be a pressing need for more passenger cars rather than restoring a locomotive as the next project. Or, a new building might be the top priority at present, and other people may not be available to help on your project.

Finally, (IMHO) a museum should not start a major restoration without funding largely in hand. So, even if your project is accepted it might have to wait for a couple of years if funding is not currently available.

Just a few thoughts...

I think that Al Stangenberger makes some good points. Boards tend to be quite cautious lest they overreach their museum's capabilities. On the one hand, they must undertake projects that will inspire members and volunteers; on the other hand, funds are always limited. While it appears that your Board is very conservative, I must give both you and your organization great credit that you were elected to their Board. I suggest that you maintain your association with the Board, either as a member or an observer, and see if you can find either a champion of your idea or a variation of your idea that will win their support. Easier said than done I realize.

John

I sincerely wish that I could agree with Brothers Stangenberger and McNamara. Unfortunately, I can't.

What confronts the likes of Nova55 is not "That's an excellent idea, but we need to set X, Y, and Z in place first so that we can see the project to fruition."

What confronts them instead is "We have other priorities first. Start scraping the rust on the undersill of that car."

Or "You have to be a dues-paying member and work your way up to [position] before you can do that."

Or "But that's George's project." Or "But the By-Laws [last updated in 1962] say that..."

I have personally witnessed several promising younger (i.e. "under retirement age"!) rail enthusiasts "chased away" from museums and NRHS chapters because of exactly the kind of mindset that Nova55 is describing. Some of them even lurk here, or speak up now and then. And instead, some of us insist on blaming the Internet, or saying that young people aren't interested in railroads anymore............

Where will we get the next generation of Jerry Jacobsons, Kelly Lynchs, Bennett Levins, Steve Sandbergs, or Dick Yagers? Certainly not from that mindset........ too many dreams being rudely awakened........

Been there, done that.

About 20 years ago, at a less prestigious museum/operation, I volunteered to write a guide to the museum "exhibits". This seemed fairly simple and yet valuable. This museum was a typical outdoor scrapyard.

So, I started making phone calls to senior members to collect information. I think on the first or second call, the contact started chewing me out. "Who authorized you to do this?" "How come no one talked to me?" "What's going on?" etc., etc. Of course I dropped the project right there. I relayed my experience to other members, but no one stepped in to encourage me to continue or to rectify the situation.

The kind of management and emotional paralysis that Nova55 describes is a legacy behavior in the rail preservation field. In many, many cases, it derives from the "club" origins of many operations. Many operations are founded not on physical objectives, but on the social networks of 1950. Other organizations are motivated by a core belief that structure and administration, like government, are the enemy. The museum becomes a recreational escape from the working world.

Such organization structures are very rigid and unlikely to welcome growth or new members that disrupt the social network. They are in denial that they dissuade new members, but their club essentially requires that new members adapt to an existing social network in addition to whatever practical objectives the organization has. In a humorous way, even as these groups are drawn to the club structure as a way to escape administration and politics in their working world, they create their own layer of politics that in turn discourages others to join their club.

The most successful and productive organizations I have ever been affiliated with have highly developed and transparent administrative structures with clearly voiced, realistic objectives that are consistent over time. They encourage rotation of positions and welcome new members so long as those members can follow the documented long term objectives of the organization.

I'm not qualified to speak to the broader subject in museum terms as I've purposely avoided that segment of our industry at all costs. Stuffed&mounted never held appeal to me although I certainly acknowledge its importance in keeping the flame burning long term.

I can report that I was VERY pleased to witness the large numbers of young people ( 15-30 yrs.old) of both genders heavily involved in the care&feeding of the 8 live engines at TF2009. Also, the live steamers had a good percentage of youngsters in their ranks.

I came away confident that at least on the "live" side of the movement, the future is secure!!

Ross Rowland

I've got to say that the experiences shared here are extremely valuable to me, being an officer of a Historical Society with museum aspirations.

And I must echo was the wise Ross says, take a look here:
http://thecrhs.org/?q=aboutus/memberspotlights

Look at the ages, and the preponderance of guys under 40.

I think an important point may be that just because young folks (like myself, being 27) aren't involved in your preservation organization, doesn't mean they're not involved in some preservation organization.

And if anyone is interested in "doing stuff" and preserving Conrail (I know, still a sore spot for some of you), drop me a line, we're more than happy to have you!

It's not as simple as letting a new member just go nuts and have beautifully restored artifacts pop out the other end. On the one hand I agree, it's far, far too easy for the establishment members to say offhand things which would discourage.

But get it straight -- this is standard operating procedure for the majority of volunteers at the majority of museums: Step 1, they dive into a project on an interesting artifact. Step 2, they hit a surprise in the work which creates a larger challenge than the volunteers had previously psyched themselves up for. Step 3, volunteers lose hope, lose interest and leave the project in 1,000,000 pieces for somebody else to clean up, which never happens. This can happen to the very best, and frequently does.

So if the newbie arrives and thinks he's immune to this, I say that stands to be proven.

And unfinished projects take a LOT of space. Parts strewn everywhere take 2-10 times more space than the assembled machine. They occupy boxcars and containers, they occupy shop space, barn space and outdoor yard space, where parts never meant to be exposed to the elements (e.g. bull gears and pinions) rust to their ruin. I'm on the collection committee of a major museum where we decide what gets restored next. I've never heard "Hey, let's go back and complete that project someone took apart 20 years ago and abandoned" and I never will. Because they abandoned it for a REASON, and that reason still exists (worse now) and makes another project a better choice. Forget it - once the artifact is disassembled and abandoned, it's as good as scrapped. In fact the only reason the bits aren't scrapped is because nobody's sure they aren't the bits to something more important.

There is still hope for the new volunteer. Just not for the unrealistic, non-team-playing new volunteer. I don't see any problem with that. If you join an amateur football league and you say "I have this great plan for the team where I get to be quarterback" - and you make clear your voluntarism is conditional on that - you will get punted, as well you should. If you volunteer at the local political party office, and then insist on doing your own thing, you'll be gone. They know how to deal with people like that.

Now, about that institutional resistance... Consider, for a moment, the way Asian teachers recruit students. In America, the teacher posts flyers all over, and the students arrive and expect to have their work done for them and be forgiven for their disinterest. In Asia, the student arrives on the teacher's doorstep and the teacher tells him to go away! The student that stalks the teacher might be invited to do menial labor for the teacher for awhile. You get the idea. A recent movie that featured this is called "The Ramen Girl" with Brittany Murphy; see also "The Karate Kid" or "Fight Club". Or a book called The Ronin. Of course the whole idea is a test: to see if the student is serious. Asians have this crazy notion that the student should show commitment to the teacher, not the other way round. Most Americans are gobstruck by this treatment and storm off, griping about how the teacher wasn't serious. Heh!!!

So back to our prospective railway museum volunteer. A misguided volunteer can do a lot of damage. That's not the fault of the average volunteer, but he should be mindful that the museum does have an obligation to protect the collection, so it is reasonable for the organization to have a little bit of "Asian teacher" mentality. So my suggestion to the potential volunteer is be a team player. Ask what needs doing. If you're excited about something big, express interest and hear what's said. But not too closely :) Be persistent and insistent. But mostly, finish what you start and prove yourself reliable. Start small and move up. And whatever you do, don't be "that guy".

My guess would be that a large portion of prospective volunteers do not arrive with an agenda. They may very well want to pitch in and help out with current projects, but only the most dedicated and enthusiastic newbies are capable of overcoming the fact that there is almost never any kind of system of mentor-ship to direct and shape the labors of new members. Most of our amateur museums do not have the patience or capacity necessary to provide mentors, especially since the typical volunteer restoration team also serves as a social club for its self-directed participants. Joining cliques such as these is very difficult, and forcing unwelcome people into them can degrade morale.

A possible solution would be to appoint a socially out-going Volunteer Coordinator to provide orientation, "placement," and support to new members. New members could be paired with senior volunteers whom are willing to serve as mentors.

Any other successful ideas out there?

I should clarify that in the example I gave above the task had been approved at an organization business meeting.

I can point with pride to some other rail organizations I have been affiliated with that created written restoration plans before starting a project. Frequently these plans broke the project into smaller tasks which could then be delegated to volunteers according to their time availability. Dividing the project into small independent pieces is especially important if some volunteers have limited or intermittent availability.

By the way, this is fully in accord with professional business teachings. We teach courses in business school specifically on how to organize projects, delegate tasks, and monitor their progress. You can find these methods in any textbook in the subject "Project Management". These scheduling methods can help the manager visualize things such as how long a facility will be occupied, when to order raw materials, final project completion, etc.

I just heard an interesting take on our problem in WoWcast, a podcast about World of Warcraft. This is a computer game based on the Tolkien world, dungeons and dragons. A player chooses a class, Warrior, Mage, Paladin which defines how he fights. Much of the game requires 5,10 or 25 people to fight as a team. The best content requires they fight very well as a team.

On the podcast, Alachia laments that new players come up and don't know how to play their class. And there's no good place to learn. There are lots of places that discuss bleeding edge tactics for the top 1% of players but very few general "here's how you play a warrior" sites. I didn't even know warriors could taunt monsters off other more fragile players until the middle of the Mar'li fight in ZG, a late endgame dungeon. Not good.

Anyway I think that's our problem in railway preservation, especially in the shop. How do you do x? How do you do y? This problem is most severe in the "new volunteer" area. Here's a beadblaster, what are the tricks and traps? How do you brush paint? Etc.

I want to address the board part of the intital view. Our board is in place and has the same board members pretty much as it has been for years, not because they want to be there, but rather because no one else puts their name in for the position. But along with the board, we have trustees and members. We have two meetings a month. One is private for the board and the trustees and the other is public and is for all members and the general public should they want to sit in. So if we had more members, more voices would get heard.

Now let me present the other side of the coin. I recently left my position as treasurer of a car club. It was a nice little club with about 12 members who did everything and we all thought alike. Then the president wanted to grow the club (like so many car club presidents want to do) so we could get larger crowds at our cruises and shows. So we invited more members in and the ranks swelled to about 35. But it was still the originl 12 that did everything. At our last meeting, someone decided that one of their friends wanted to join our club but since we were '76 and older to join, he couldn't since he owned an '86 Grand National. So since we were a democracy, we put it up to a vote to open the club up to '86 and older. It carried with two no votes (yea, I was one of the nos) and I left the club that night. Why? It didn't fill me desire for a club any longer.

So here we are in a museum or tourist railroad and wondering why we cannot grow our ranks. And all of the above comments are true and right on the money. But I feel that many of the tourist railroads and mueseums are headed the same way many of the antique car clubs are going and that is into the past. Why? In the case of the cars, as the baby boomers die off, their classic cars are passed on to another family member or sold. But many of the younger car enthusiasts out there are in Japanese cars so the older American iron is going away.

There are many younger people out there that will work the operating locomotive as Mr. Rowland stated, but how many will help to restore a static piece? How may will give up a Saturday to scrape paint and sand rust? For that matter, how many older folks will do this? And for these reasons, the tourist railroad and museums are experiencing a sharp decline in membership and volunteers. I see these operations going the way that so many of the older cars are going.

And just for the heck of it, how may of the posters on this site are actively involved with a tourist railroad or museum? I am betting that the number is less than 20%!

Later!
Mr. Ed

A primary reason volunteers give up and leave is that somebody in the organization arrogantly threw their authority around too many times.

Close to three decades ago I got a call about a piece of equipment built many years earlier by my employer. It was owned by a tourist road and a railfan group wanted to work with them to resurrect it. Nobody left at the company had any technical information to offer, and I wasn't involved with this type of equipment at the time, but being a railfan my "name came up". So I tried to help them.

It became apparent the folks did not have a very good idea what condition the equipment was in, so I decided to drive over there (about 1/4 way across the United States) on my vacation and survey it for them. On arrival, the general foreman of the railroad was very cordial and cooperative.

One of the railfans was not so cordial. He let me know in no uncertain terms how disappointed he was at how long it took me to get there and wanted to complain that my employer had not taken more interest in his project. Thirteen thousand other people at the company could not help his cause but and he wanted to take it out on the one person that was trying to. He thought that everything he needed should be instantly available, and preferably for free. I don't think he had tried taking a fifty year old automobile to its builder's dealership to be worked on lately.

I inspected the equipment and provided a report. What I told them about the equipment was not what they wanted to hear, and that became the basis for more complaints. They decided to proceed the way they wanted to go, that was fine with me, see you later. But then they wanted me to go and solicit funding from my employer. I told them no, since I did not consider their plans to be feasible. I later heard that the railfan loudly complained about me all over the area on the basis that I had not been supportive enough of their proposed project.

Ultimately they spent time and effort going in the wrong direction. I ran into the same guy sometime later at an event and he chewed me out again, this time for not doing enough to DISCOURAGE them from pursuing their own agenda. With some folks you just cannot win, but fortunately you do not have to argue with them, if you are not obligated to be there you can just walk away.


PC

I am glad to see this thread running its course as intended. Let me address a few views from some of you. Alexander and Steven hit what I was trying to get right on the nose.

I want to touch on two major issues as outlined by Robert Macdowell and Randolph R. Ruiz mention. Money and agenda's. I could not agree more with these points as you are 100% correct. Many times a group will come in start something and leave.

New volunteers most defiantly should have to "prove themself" before diving into something, no doubt. There is nothing wrong with protecting the collection for the average railfan or the like that thinks they know it all until they crack the rustolium open the first time. However, It is not as easy as this. I revert back to my original posting in the cases where a times you do get the one person that oversteps there boundary and acts as the sole provider for "their" equipment. This is what is fighting the new generation off. Should it be as simple of a thing as repainting a fence or pulling a liner. It wont get done unless somebody does it. Stevens post makes a great point about dividing the project up into several smaller ones. This is what should be done by far. To prevent both people overstepping there reach or the ones that get the mentality that they can do it all. If only other organizations felt this way.

Ed, you also make a very valid point about the boards. Lack of people and there voices. This has been the case at almost every group I have been apart of and is a major issue. But in alot of cases this is due to the same reasoning as above, the people that take care of the everyday ranks and most often either said members don't agree and say to hell with it, just keep paying and let them deal with it or just don't care at all. Your last 2 paragraphs sum the entire thing up very well with the lack of people wanting to join up and lend a hand..

Preston, Your post also sums the situation up with the lone people throwing around there authority.

Mike, This post is by no means whatsoever pointed at any one group or organization. As Ed put it this is not just about railroads but numerous other organizations.

Paul S.