Just curious, have any of your organizations ever tried holding an event focused on the latest products and technology in the locomotive building industry, including commuter rail?

PC

Last month, Norfolk Southern sent us their latest and greatest (BP4 #999 and a fresh out of the shop SD40E) when the Conrail Historical Society hosted Conrail Days at the RR Museum of PA.

I think it worked out ok, but obviously we would've preferred something blue with can openers on it.

http://thecrhs.org/Conrail+Days+2010+photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/ed.kapuscin ... lDays2010#

Ed, did NS do any demonstrations, teaching, or clinics relating to that unit during the events, or was it strictly there as a display? How was the level of interest in the unit on the part of the participants?

What I am trying to pin down here is whether there is adequate interest in the latest equipment to make it worthwhile for a museum or railroad club to sponsor an event that is focused on current equipment and technology. Thinking in the most general possible context here, such an event would not necessarily need to be related to railroad history (although it could be), it could be more of an informative or educational activity.

Thanks,

PC

Twice in the past we have hosted "Transit Progress Day" in connection with Metro and Ride-on, the county bus service. Metro brought two vintage buses and Ride-on brought their then new lng fuel bus. The MTA in Baltimore also sent a vintage bus and promoted light rail and MARC commuter rail. I'll see if I can find a photo.

Wesley
National Capital Trolley Museum

NS didn't really do much, but one of our guys works for them and served as the liason.

We did up some quickie fliers about the equipment, and people seemed to like it.

Sadly, we weren't sure what was arriving before it did, so we didn't have time to really advertise it, which is a shame, because if we could've, we probably would have gotten more railfans through the door (to see the 999, especially):

http://thecrhs.org/filetransfer/NS%20SD40E.pdf
http://thecrhs.org/filetransfer/NS%20999.pdf

And for our caboose: http://thecrhs.org/filetransfer/CRHS%2021165.pdf

We handed these out to anyone who came by.

I think that having modern stuff is absolutely useful. Now, granted, Conrail stuff is still relatively modern (compared to steam and first gen diesels), and in the past we had some still active CR stuff for the event:


http://thecrhs.org/events/Conrail-Days

I believe the value (and this ties in with the issue of attracting younger blood) is that it brings in current railfans. These are folks you can then impress with your organization, and the opportunities it affords (want to spend quality time with rare equipment? join today...).

Ed, Thanks for sharing those details with us. Events of this type bring the opportunity for close up access to equipment in a way that is often not available nowadays to railroad enthusiasts due to security and liability concerns. It also provides a teaching opportunity since a roadswitcher type locomotive provides one of the best platforms for an instructional session. And as you noted it all ties in with the issue of attracting current railroad enthusiasts to the preservation hobby which has been discussed often on this site.

In my area, a couple of railroad groups that do not have a stated "historical" mission and feature many modern topics seem to be doing very well at attracting audiences lately.

The word "historic" is subject to interpretation. To some people it implies steam, to some people it means first generation diesels or earlier, and to the people who build locomotives and railroad equipment it means what shipped to the customer yesterday.

Which gets us back to the subject of whether events that focus on modern technology in the railroad industry would be a worthwhile effort to organize ......

PC

Happy to finally be able to contribute something helpful!

I think that these types of events are useful, for all the reasons we've both enumerated.

I also think that the community kinda needs to wake up and update its definition of "historical".

BN, ATSF, CR, Rio Grande, SP, etc... all disappeared over 10 years ago, and NOW is the prime time to be saving and preserving the pieces we can.

It's a lot easier to get stuff while it's actually being scrapped as opposed to when it's been sitting on an abandoned spur for 40 years.

If railway preservationists think that historic is limited only to the steam era, then "railway preservation" is going to die out in the next 20 years... sure you have a few younger guys interested in steam, but the vast majority of the labor force for preservation ventures isn't going to put the time, effort and money into something that they've only EVER seen running at a tourist railroad.

Excellent observations. There are some parallel issues discussed in a recent article on the Railway Heritage Initiative published on Page 3 of R&LHS Railroad History Magazine, Spring-Summer 2010, which just arrived in the mail. It mentions the decline in interest that is an outcome when the people who experienced particular aspects of history first-hand have passed from the scene. Expanding the "scope" to include newer aspects of railroad history is one way to help maintain interest and participation.

PC