When I was in my preschool years in the mid 80's, Thomas the Tank Engine had just started airing on PBS. Ringo Starr was still Mr. Conductor, and the stories were all illustrated using a model railroad. The credits showed the UP 844 running across the farmland. However at this same time Norfolk Southern was still running steam and I was privileged to have a father and tolerating mother who took the family to Tennessee and Colorado to see steam. That being said, my interest in steam railroading was not nurtured by the tv show, but supplemental. A yearly weekend trip to TVRM or the NS excursions we saw once or twice a year was the stronghold, and being my dad worked for the television broadcast industry, he produced some excellent family/train trip videos that I would love to watch growing up.

After the NS program quit in 94, the only engine I saw was the 610 at TVRM for several years. This kept a quaint interest, but high school and girls took more of my attention as well as other interests like music. It was not until I happened to go to Disney one evening with a friend in the late 90's (he had just been hired and wanted to use a free ticket) that I rode the train around the park a time or two and rekindled the interest and wanted to actively be involved. My family did not live near an active railroad museum much less steam operation due to the fact we were in Florida, but a few years later and asking questions and reading boards such as this and the NGDF that I was fortunate to be hired by the Durango & Silverton.

That being said, and being among some of the younger people in the industry, I'd like to know just how much we as a group are benefiting from Thomas or BRIO or whatever other childrens rail themed musings are available today. This is all post mainline steam. A five year old today is so unlikely to get that amazing show of watching an engine get the **** beat out of it that we had only 20 years ago. Aside from the immediate financial benefits of a 'Day out with Thomas' event, are there any younger people in steam or rail preservation in general that grew up distant from a steam museum and only had something like Thomas or the like to develop the interest?

I was recently reading some of the old posts in the archives from about 10 years ago. Members spoke then of how great Thomas would be for the industry, yet by now we should have some who are old enough now to be proof. Maybe this query could be a couple years premature, but it seems to me a lot of weight is riding on the franchise in terms of cultivating new interest...

To start off, I'm 25. I grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine but that is not where my love of trains comes from. I think it helped, but I always thought that the faces and story lines were quite corny even at a young age. It was the exposure I got at Strasburg and the many many many trips I took on ex-Reading and Pennsy Silverliners that rooted my interest in trains.

I do however find it hard to get involved with any preservation groups. I don't know if it's the water around here, but most of the railfans that I've associated with seem to be pretty unhinged thus leaving me at home instead of getting my hands dirty. I've also met a lot of unwillingness to be taught. Most times when I inquired to volunteer I was asked, do you know how to (insert skilled trade here). When I replied "no but I'd love to learn and I do learn fast" I was told thanks but no thanks which has left a sour taste in my mouth. I understand you have to weed out people that embellish their talent and cause more problems than solutions, but has that mentality helped out at all?

J.T.

I, too, got bitten by the train bug after my parents got me a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine videos. Combined with frequent visits to Strasburg and Steamtown solidified by interest in railroads. I am 20 now, and have volunteered with the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum off and on over the years. I hired with Norfolk Southern back in March as a conductor, which completed the circle and desire of pursuing a career in railroading.

Another goal of mine is to become active on a crew of a mainline steam locomotive, and with learning the tools of the trade with my job at NS, I hope to become involved with the Fort Wayne RHS and the NKP 765 crew within the next year or so.

Though not always the case in preservation groups, in actual operations groups, I think the biggest problems for new people entering the process, is the lack of wanting to start from the very, very VERY bottom and work up. Shop work is not something you just walk into anymore (as maybe you could in the 70's, 80's and even the 90's) and what you may think is the bottom, is not, when there are only 3-4 people out of 50 or more that are actually doing the nitty gritty work in the Shop due to limitations.

With so little resources out there (money and parts), even the smallest mistakes of one person can cost big money and time to the entire organization. If you are willing to walk in, wear a trainman's suite for a year and punch tickets or whatever, learn the ropes of the operation first, you have better chances of them feeling you out and then working your way into where you want to be within that same time frame and learn as you go.

Like any job, you have to prove yourself worthy. Too many people come in gun hoe and leave as fast as they entered and basically have wasted valuable time of the staff for naught.

It's not so much they don't want you, they do, they want to train you, but they also want to see what you're willing to do to get to that point of training. It sucks in many ways for the individual, but makes more sense when you think about it for the organization.

For our area (Philly) there are plenty of places to get your feet wet...I don't know of any that are closed door when it comes to the operations that we have in the tri-state area...you just have to be patient....and that seems to be a lost art anymore.

W&W, WK&S, BR&W, BEL-DEL, WS (Walkersville Southern), STRR, Pine Creek, NH&I etc all have open door policies to new members or employees..but you have to go by their rules.


As for Thomas, it came out long after my blood was tainted.

I watched Shining Time Station when it was on PBS, but I didn't really care for the European styling on the locomotives, nor the other bits that happened during that show. I was more into the random trains that were on TV, such as Silver Spoons, the Price is Right train showcase display and the USA Cartoon Express. I found the PBS shows Tracks Ahead and All About Trains more informative, even for a kid.

The exposure I received when I was a kid was mostly the Cedar Point & Lake Erie railroad. I was really into the really complicated pedestrian crossing gates that separated the crowd from the train. I really found it neat that there was a random caboose on an old siding so I could get close to it. I thought one day the train would bust through the bushes and pick up the caboose. There used to be a huge model train show at the Dearborn Civic Center. It filled up not only the roller rink, but all the activity rooms. Not only did it have tables of merchandise and modular layouts with flashing signals and fake water, but I loved watching people's railfanning slide shows. If I was lucky, I could watch a train at the Amtrak Station across the parking lot.

I've noticed that little kids are really impressed with model and toy train displays, especially around winter holiday times. I know I had fun playing the huge Brio train display in the basement of Jacobson's. I loved winding that drawbridge up and down.

I think the biggest thing for me was simply getting passed from my dads blood down to me. He likes trains even more than I do. I never really cared for the thomas the train thing. The thing I remember the most when I was young was my dad taking me to places like strasburg, steamtown, NH&I, and BR&W. These places really got me hooked on steam and I couldn't get enough of it. My dad also helped turn me into a railfan when after church he used to take me down to Morrisville yard and we would watch them kick and shift cars

First, don't let the behavior of railfans influence whether or not you want to get involved with preservation groups; most of those folks aren't necessarily going to be interested in "getting their hands dirty" themselves, and it's not too likely that a really serious organization would want somebody like that in the first place.

Second, don't try to appear too eager, as you may look too much like a "foamer" type to some; do emphasize what you have to offer and your willingness to learn but don't add qualifiers like "I do learn fast", as there are some jobs which cannot be learned quickly and, again, you could end up looking too much like a foamer.

Third, try to speak directly with whoever is responsible for accepting new members or, better yet, send a letter or email to those persons if possible; like it or not, some organizations (and not just preservation groups, I might add!) have members who don't like to train the "new guys" but get the job because of their knowledge and experience (or just don't care for "new guys" at all) and will do what they can to dissuade those "new guys" from joining. Sometimes finding the right person to talk to is more important than just knowing what to say and how.

Pay attention to what junior says, as well; while he may have misunderstood your experiences, what he says is still quite valid. Above all, don't give up! It may take a while, but if you're persistent and present yourself as someone who's serious about getting involved instead of looking like "just another foamer who wants to play trains", you'll have a better chance of joining a preservation group.

And no, Thomas had nothing to do with my particular obsession; my father (who grew up in southwest Colorado in the late '40s and the '50s and both saw and rode on a good portion of the "Narrow Gauge Circle" when it was still intact) is responsible for that (he wasn't really a railfan, but he had fond memories of the narrow gauge lines in SW Colorado and dabbled a bit with model railroading, which is another obsession of mine).

Interesting thread... as one approaching curmudgeon-hood (I'm 62), I DID grow up on Thomas the Tank Engine, starting in England. We often rode behind steam as I grew up in England, but it seemed to be gone in the USA when we moved here in 1957. I have every small book through the years - some now in pretty bad shape - well used! My first train set (well - Dad SAID it was mine, but I couldn't play with it until years later!) was at 3 years old. Since then I went on to learn track work at the EBT, helped crew EBT Spectaculars for years, and helped to rebuild the ET&WNC in the Doe River Gorge, while owning my own ex-EBT speeder. I'll be helping operate the trains/speeders in the DRG for this years Narrow Gauge Convention. Thomas has that effect on people!
Phil

One thought that comes out of the above discussion, somewhat off-topic for the original topic:

One thing that we may not necessarily want to preserve in rail preservation is the old RR style of seniority, apprenticeships, and the mentality of having to start at the very bottom no matter what.

I'm well aware of the fact that the vast majority of young folks a) think they know everything, and b) have probably not done anything more mechanically inclined than sharpen a pencil, if even that, let alone properly mastered tool techniques, basic painting chemistry, electrical theory, etc. But starting every last person at "rock bottom" potentially costs many of these groups many potential volunteers as it gains them actual needed labor. It's one thing to make the "grunts" work as part of a team tacking a long-delayed job; but too often some new person is left alone scrubbing rust or rot off of seat after seat or window frame after window frame, and it feels much more like the proverbial "snipe hunt" or a hazing ritual than it does an exercise in preservation.

The groups that managed to get my volunteer labors over the decades (not just rail groups, but other groups as well) took the trouble to hear what I had to offer to the group (be it extensive technical knowledge, the willingness to drive thing all over the place, expertise in the subject at hand or the local streets or businesses, or even the willingness to load kegs and stop thieves) and apply me effectively to suit the needs of the group. The ones who say "pay for a membership, attend three meetings, get voted in to a committee by the board, then do what the committee says" don't hear back from me, and I gather not from many others, either, judging from their declining memberships.

One thing I've discovered over time is that the folks who are interested in transportation tend to gravitate to automobiles, boats, and airplanes primarily because an individual can own one and operate it just about any way he or she pleases (within certain limitations, of course). Model railroaders outnumber hands-on railfans primarily because that's the only way he or she can actually own and run a train. The last thing rail preservation needs is to make it even harder for someone to get directly involved, if you think about it.

Yes, I can say i got a start from thomas, with my first up-close encounter of the train kind was a MBTA train into Boston from Worcester, pulled by MBTA 1029. What has impressed me with my recent research in Rev. Awdry and his blue creation is the reason he first did the stories, which was to keep his son (who now writes the books) entertained while he was sick. Rev. Awdry went so far as to base have the characters off of real examples of railroad equipment for the illustrations in the books, like SR corridor coaches, LNER A1s, Stroudly A1Xs, LMS Stainer 5MTs, etc.