Sorry for a 3rd OT subject, but as with the previous two, I think there's food for thought for the rail preservation movement. I picked up the March/April 2011 issue of "Warbirds International", and page 48 has an article called "Yankee Air Museum Polishing Party". The gist of the article is about an aviation museum in Willow Run, Michigan, which has an open house one day per year. During this open house, members and visitors are "invited to climb over, under, around, and through these beautiful Warbirds for a spring cleaning". The article goes on to say that individuals from ages 2 to 90 have been seen polishing aircraft aluminum.

No doubt, any attorneys out there (or those of you who have played one on TV) are cringing at this, thinking about risk, potential litigation, etc...and to some extent, probably with good cause.

And yet-how many of us have unwashed displays in our rail yards, i.e. the proverbial "Sanford and Son" look-but don't have enough resources to clean things up? The challenge for us is to manage that risk. The potential result: better-looking displays, future preservationists, and outreach to the communities that support us.

Similarly-how many of us have something like a "vendor appreciation day", where we do something-like free admission for a day or something similar-to thank those local merchants who supply us with consumable supplies, food, etc? I'll go out on a limb with the "glass half full" mindset and think of this as maintaining a mutually-beneficial relationship.