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| Sticky, folder, etc for interpretation ideas? https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30703 |
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| Author: | John D [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:16 am ] |
| Post subject: | Sticky, folder, etc for interpretation ideas? |
One topic I read here with great interest is the subject of interpretation. How do we make the 90+% of our visitors, non-railfans, care about what we have and what we do? Why is it relevant and/or of interest to them? I am the first to admit that I seize upon these articles because I have a deficit of creative/interpretive genes. So...in the interests of rail preservation, I'll ask whether this topic should get a sticky, get its own folder, or some other way to gather and archive interpretation ideas. Minor example-I was looking at some waybills from 1905 a few evenings ago. When I looked at the origin/destination points, the rate charged, and the material being shipped, I realized that this LCL freight was the UPS/Fedex of its day. Imagine, you want to ship a barrel of molasses from A to B, so the local railroad puts it on a boxcar to get it to you. Even I can think of some interpretive signage, etc to illustrate this point. Startlingly interesting? Maybe not...but it's a small idea about interpretation. |
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| Author: | PCook [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:52 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Sticky, folder, etc for interpretation ideas? |
Everyone please feel free to differ with my opinions (as many do) but in my experience the public comes to railroad museums to get a close up look at the impressive railroad equipment that would otherwise be "off limits" to them in its daily use. They like to see locomotives and cars "up close", and learn what they can about how they operate and how they are used. You can pretty much visualize the list of starting topics this generates: What are the different types of locomotives and freight cars? How does a locomotive (steam or diesel) operate? How are locomotives and rolling stock maintained? (an often overlooked topic) How does the railroad properly route cars? How do signals and cab signals function? And onwards.......... Unfortunately in some museums the learning process seems to rely on osmosis. Sometimes the most basic questions that visitors might ask are not addressed anywhere in the displays. There seems to be an assumption that simply standing in front of a nicely restored piece of equipment and looking at it will teach the visitor about it. I used to think that RYPN could provide a valuable forum for the exchange of ideas on displays and interpretation. Unfortunately it seems to be a very distant back burner topic here. I would like to see articles on displays and interpretation in published form, so they will be available out into the future, but trying to get this kind of information into magazines is very difficult. As far as putting it on the internet is concerned, electrons are temporary (as we have found out in a series of crashes in the RYPN articles over the years) and continually rebuilding lost webpages to restore old articles is a poor use of time and effort compared with writing new material. There needs to be a magazine or newsletter more specifically directed towards restoration and interpretation topics. Maybe I should be doing something about that, now that I have the time and the desktop publishing capability. But in the meantime, if you have Adobe Acrobat on your computer, it is very useful for making PDF documents of worthwhile discussions on this and other websites for future reference. PC |
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