Everyone on this forum seems to be concerned about the future of steam preservation when it comes to young people. I would like to address a growing concern I've been having, in our ever increasing diverse world, why is it when I visit tourist railroads, museums, tractor shows, and model train shows for the most part I only see Caucasian faces. From engine crews, to train crews, to shop forces, I’ve rarely seen any kind of diversity among them when it comes to race.

Over the summer my grandson and I took a trip to Lancaster, Pa to visit The Strasburg Railroad, The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and Rough and Tumble. We stopped off at Rough and Tumble to my surprise among the older Caucasian men I spotted a young African American man, firing up a traction engine. My grandson remained glued to him for the rest of the afternoon; he was even nice enough to give us both around the grounds on the engine. It was nice to see a minority working on steam even if it was only a traction engine.

The next morning we took a trip to The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Just like I’ve experienced in the past all the visible staff was Caucasian from the ticket agent to the kind volunteers we met in the cabs of different locomotives. The Strasburg Railroad was no different. Don’t take me wrong my grandson and I both had a great time in Lancaster.

I’m not trying to be a racist here. I’m just saying I would like to see more minorities in the steam preservation industry. It would be a nice for my grandson to have a positive role model that looks like him so maybe he and other young minorities can feel welcome joining the ranks of present day steam professionals.

Mr Slack, I have spent many happy hours at the Rochelle railfan park, even before it was a park, and the lack of minorities was something I noticed. Perhaps the majority of railfans are middle aged, white folks like myself. Society does have a tendency to lump railfans into the "slightly goofy" catagory, and for whatever reason, blacks had more sense than to be included in that catagory. :) Seriously speaking, remember the word "Volunteer" applies in most cases wuth the examples you cited. Again, maybe trains are not something that minority individuals have taken an interest in. I am very glad to hear that you and your family have.
I am married to a minority, and would really like to see the day and age come when the color of one's skin, or the slant of one's eyes will be the LAST thing that others will take note of when being introduced.
Perhaps that famous little blue "really useful" engine can change that.

Dunno, but two really good steam locomotive engineers here in Texas are African American, though I am quite sure that being just a plain, old American would be the way both men would prefer to be identified. Also, Six Flags Over Texas has some young men of color running their little plantation engines. I need not mention the Hispanic presence on the old narrow gauge in Colorado-New Mexico.

I think that while it may be an interesting academic discussion, I think making railway preservation relevant to ALL AMERICANS of the later generation would attract about as many "minorities" as any targeted efforts. Now I do understand why there might be some hostility to the "good old days", as the glory jobs were not primarily held by black folks but by Anglo Europeans...its hard to get all warm and fuzzy over toting baggage or spreading ballast.

I also am quite involved in antique ag machinery, and when you go to the old threshing shows, most of the faces seen are white...the African experience in American agriculture is by in large percieved as an unpleasant extension of slavery and sharecropping, and, East Texas black farmers and large landowners notwithstanding, it seems there is no big desire to recall the happy days on the farm. Interestingly enough, it was mostly the railroad that provided the opportunities the farms did not. And, it was the railroads in general, and the steam locomotive in particular, that provided endless inspiration to countless musical artists, of all races.

Trains aren't sexy to the younger generation of any race, and they all seem consumed by the idea of quick money, and history is unimportant. Who wants to get all greasy just to hear a whistle blow, when the main media message is easy money, easy women, and "killa rhymes". Just sayin'....besides, there are some that would say the whole American railroad experience was a vast conspiracy by the Irish.

Most railroad muesums depend on people who volunteer. If people other than whites show up, I see no reason they would not be welcomed. The muesum I am involved with is 100% volunteer. Come on out!

Dave Huffman

We're here. I don't think race enters into it really. It comes down to exposure and desire. I come from a very undiverse state in the middle of nowhere. But I had exposure and desire from the time I was born. Nature vs. Nurture if you will. A larger concern is getting the interest up for all and allowing those who have a desire to follow it.

I find this whole thing very racist. Personally I would like to see more good looking women volunteering. What can we do to change this? If we had more good looking women we would have more youth and men of all colors volunteering more. Maybe we should be asking how can we make spending lots of money on food, gas and lodging, getting filthy dirty, working long hours for no pay more appealing to anybody.

Sorry for trying to make jokes, just color me cynical. I just keep thinking about some rail yards I have been in around the country. The diverse people one see's is indeed an education and I too never took my eyes off of some of those people. But maybe the real world isn't meant to be seen or experienced. Happy Thanksgiving, John.

This isn't directly connected to the topic at hand, but when Thomas the Tank Engine visited our museum earlier this month, his young friends (and the adults who brought them) were a cross-section of Southern California's ethnic diversity. I have commented that out of the thousands of visitors who come to see Thomas at a museum, even a single-digit percentage getting "bit by the railway preservation bug" is a step in the right direction.

Very racist? I'd like to hear how you come to that conclusion. It's a valid point and one that should be explored. If we said that xxx railroad booted some one because they were white or someone said Asian volunteers were lazy, that would be racist. But discussing the status of minorities in a field as small as steam traction, or make it smaller still with steam railroading it's not racists in the least. It's discussion.

We have a mix of people doing things at our Museum. Probably not as many as we should have. But, the small mix may bring more people in. The change will happen as the museum volunteering is not seen as a white-person, old-man kind of thing.

When you have a woman brakeman who also gets gungy working on the steam locomotive along with her husband and son. When you have black men running the streetcars and diesel locomotives. When you have a young adult of obvious Mexican heritage running the cars and training for the other positions, and enjoying working DOWT; and whose grandmother will volunteer in the museum store and help interact with visitors more comfortable with speaking Spanish as opposed to English. These kind of things will help bring about the changes needed.

We need to make the history of (and interest in) the railroads relevant to the visitors whether they are of a Northern European heritage, African heritage, Asian (in both the English and the American sense) heritage, Latin American heritage or whatever.

While I don't have a formula to attract more minorities into our industry, or good looking women of whatever ethnic heritage for that matter, it certainly is true that one of the most important chapters in the story of American railroading from the mid 1800's to the 1950's was the huge numbers of black men who found good paying jobs as sleeping car porters as their ticket out of rural subsistence ( largely in the South) and their way of supporting their families.

On balance IMHO it is a positive story and one worthy of being told more often.

Ross Rowland

Ross is correct. While the story of the largely black Pullman porters is filled with incredible racism and discrimination (mirroring society as a whole at the time) it's also true that these jobs were a major step forward from what else was available and is largely credited with the beginnings of the black middle class in this country.

The hobby & leisure interest will benefit from more participants of all stripes and colors. Get the word out about excursions in your area (even if just as an interesting photo op), Thomas events, Train Festival, etc., show people your photos, post photos or videos (whether taken by you or just something you found of interest) on your Facebook page, invite people along on trips to the nearest museum or tourist road, make this interest seem less strange, and you may put the bug in a few of them and that helps us all.

Steve

Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, because I haven't been able to do much physical volunteer work. I'd love to, and if I had a better back and car I'd be in somebody's shop.

When Gabe was little, we liked to take him railfanning with us because he fell in love with trains early. When you have a small child in tow, factors come into play that the stereotypical middle-aged white male railfan never thinks about*. This sometimes got us sneered at, and more than once people asked my husband why he didn't just go by himself instead of "dragging us along".
Knowing that attitude was out there, I had to think about whether we'd be welcome at an attraction, a museum or an event. Rightly or wrongly, I judged by what their brochures, and later their websites, looked like. First of all, was there a way to have a small child around the whatever safely? Next, if I saw people in several shades of beige, both genders and all ages, I figured we might be welcome. If we went to a place, and the staff welcomed my husband but acted as if son and I were aliens, that wasn't the place for us. Most of the time, the disdain was simply because we were a woman and a child. Only once was there a remark because husband is blue-eyed and blond and we're both olive-skinned with dark spiky hair. (Yeah, yeah, mine is actually gray now, but that's what dye is for.)
I wouldn't suggest that museums throw out any materials they have right now, but as you're setting up for new things, look around your staff. Do the pictures in your older brochures reflect the people who work there now? I dislike bean-counting gotta-have-the-perfect-balance thinking, but be honest about who's there. If you want families to come to your place, show families enjoying it. If you really have a great mix of ethnicities, see if you have a picture of that. Ask yourself whether your wife, mother, sister, daughter, disabled friend, or co-worker of another race would feel comfortable there based on what your promo stuff shows.

Over the last 10 years I've seen quite a difference in the number of females involved on all fronts - from behind the coal scoop to leading the organization. And at least from my viewpoint, it's been well accepted after some initial surprises. Those of us that work hands on with many organizations quickly learn who's actually doing what, and how things get done, and who is making things happen. 'Getting things done' tends to transcend gender, and race, at least more so than in the past. And volunteer organizations seem to break through quicker than paid, as well, the pay and promotion issues really don't exist as the same barriers.

Railroading in general seems to mirror the concerns, not just steam. There's still a handful of minorities in leadership positions at shortlines and regionals, its slow to change. It's not going to come from the industry down to the preservation groups, it's going to require deliberate action by the volunteer organizations moving up, and it tends to mirror the ethnic diversity of the populations in the areas around them.

Culturally it's changing. Anybody notice the lead hero of 'unstoppable' (the 'whiskers' in our lingo) is cast as African American? And the dispatcher female and hispanic? That's the kind of subtle social message that's positive in a rather muddled-message action movie. Of all the things in that movie that are unbelievable, well, at least that isn't one of them. If that didn't strike you until this minute, that's what I mean. Things are changing, just darn slow. And tell you the truth, if suddenly UP promoted somebody into the steam program what was qualified and a minority, I don't think it would be an issue at all, just as long as things kept going.

But the preservation community is in a better position to be proactive, just extend the welcome conciously, we need all the help we can get.

Thanks, slack_action, for your post. It is causing people to think about your question, and look at their organizations to see what can be done to attract more people from various races, both sexes, and even various language groups. It may even help to uncover some reasons these people may not be volunteering despite a strong interest in doing so.

Our organization is very "white English speaking male" at first glance- not because of any wish to keep it that way, but because we're not seeing the interest from other people. The local community has few people of other ethnic groups, but the larger cities nearby have a great variety of people.

We receive an excellent cross section of society in our visitors, and hopefully over time our membership will become more diverse as some of these visitors decide to join as members, volunteers, and board members. Becky's thoughts are a great suggestion, and I'd like to put them into action at RMEO.

My suggestion is perhaps a bit simplistic, coming from a white guy who has never faced the hurt of bigotry. However, if you don't see people of your race, sex, language or religious group, come out anyway- somebody needs to be first. You'll most likely be accepted as "one of the family" in short order, and as others see you volunteering, they will be encouraged to join as well. All are welcome!

Steve Hunter
RMEO

For several years, I've been pushing through educational organizations to get some African-American high school kids to apply for Railcamp in Scranton. Maybe in 2011, the effort will strike a chord.

Sloan