After reading the Chicago RR Club notice and the thread about it here on RYPN, John Ryan, a younger railfan sent me this email. Thank you John for letting me post it here. You have many positive things to say about the status of our hobby.

This isn't to particularly attack the Railroad Club of Chicago, but as a so-called younger person, I'm tired of hearing the same retread reasons for why the hobby is in "decline." Sometimes this comes in the form of an established organization saying that "Younger people just aren't interested in trains anymore," or "Railroads aren't relevant anymore," or via the "ETTS" abbreviation.

The hobby is not in decline. What is in decline is the way the hobby has operated for the last 60 years. It's easy to point to certain social factors, like the decline in long-distance train ridership and smaller railroad employment – factors that have put railroading at a greater distance from the public. But if railroading is in decline, why do some organizations continue to thrive? The Internet and the "digital craze" aren't shutting down the hobby. Rather, the hobby has migrated elsewhere, to a place where it isn't visible to those not involved with the Internet or the "digital craze."

As much as the railfans of my generation are self-centered and spend lots of time glued to electronic devices, they still find time for slideshows and museum volunteering. Between the Illinois Railway Museum and the Minnesota Transportation Museum, I do about 200 hours of volunteering per year. I attend several large formal slide shows in Michigan and at least a dozen smaller ones in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin per year. I consider myself involved in the hobby – I enjoy working on railroad equipment, laying track, or exploring someone's collection via slide show – but I'm not often involved with the mainstream organizations in Michigan.

In Michigan, there are two old-line organizations that are busy foundering. Both hold monthly meetings. They have membership dues, elections, and an established hierarchy. In both cases, the same participants have held most of the offices over the last two decades. Now, as one organization collapses, they are having trouble finding people to run for president. At the other organization, no one wants to run against the president because they don't want to "offend" him. Unfortunately, both organizations have shed hundreds of members through death and attrition, so that only the insular circles remain. Seeing 12 people sitting in a 250-seat auditorium is a stunning visual statement. Both organizations seem to be busy talking about ETTS and how younger people aren't as involved these days. Yet, the things they do aren't very interesting to most younger people.

Fundamentally, the "problem" with the hobby is not one of "decline." Part of it is a failure to adapt to a changing world by certain dictatorial dynasties, but the bigger problem is one of attitude.

Trains don't all look alike. Perhaps to someone who has been around for 70+ years, there is a lot less variety than in the days of yore. But for those of us under 25, the railroad scene of today is what we grew up with. There are some trends at work, like shortline consolidation and the looming threat of another round of mergers. But, not a single railfan I know became interested in trains because of how the locomotives were painted. Often, our interest started at an age when we were only peripherally aware that there were lots of different trains out there. Our fascination is rooted in something much deeper and more psychological. The thrill of riding a high-speed passenger train or standing trackside as a priority intermodal train blasts past isn't based on something as simple as paint.

To hear these people talk, railroading has always been in decline. In the 40s and 50s, it was the death of the steam locomotive. Then the mergers. Then second-generaltion diesels. The death of the passenger train. Towers and tower operators. The megamergers. It's all going downhill, and going downhill so fast that if you follow this logic to its natural conclusion, railroading is so much a shadow of its former self that there is no possible reason for anyone to be interested in trains today. It's so awful these days that a number of people have stopped taking photos, preferring to retreat into the bygone days. This does no good for someone in high school, freshly exposed to railfanning and the railroad scene. That person wants to share their interest with others just as much as those senior citizens down at the local railroad club, and if the local railroad club is too busy fussing over Robert's Rules of Order or fixing that jammed slide projector, that younger person is going to seek their own railfan social circle – on Facebook or at their friends' houses.

For most of these older organizations, the train has already left the station. It's pretty easy to see which groups are going to be around in 10 years and which aren't. I'm glad that I'm not the youngest person at the Durand, MI slide shows, and I think the inexpensive, equal-participation model of that group is going to serve it well into the future. But for those 12 lonely people in the 250-seat auditorium, I expect their group to go the way of the Chicago Railroad Club.

Young people are just as interested in working with equipment, riding trains, and attending or showing in slide shows as their older railfan peers. And young people are doing all these things, just not within the established mainstream channels. ETTS is a denial of the power of railroading. If ETTS is the best a group can come up with, it is long past the time to close down the doors and fold up the tent.

~ John Ryan

John makes some very good points. Having younger members produce digital souveniers, slide shows, power points, and the like might be one way to call upon their talents. Allowing them to get into equipment and getting good and dirty is another. I think we older guys tend to think of younger enthusiasts as incapable. If they can swing a paint brush, we call it good, but anything beyond that is a region from which we purposely hold them away. Learning how to glaze windows and cut glass is something kids should learn from an old hand, given all the safety equipment and strict rules. Learning to tear down wood work is one thing we let them do, but how about showing them how to miter corners and reassemble furniture using clamps? How about welding? It's time consuming to instruct, but it isn't rocket science, nor is using a grinder.

Kids look up to mentors, and they flock back to take part when somebody says, "Okay (Steve, James, Bobby, Allen, whatever), you know what to do, I'll be here if you have a question and don't be afraid to ask!" Kids love to be believed in. The job may go slowly at first, but I'd opt for that with continued attendance at work sessions.

Maybe the thing that has been overlooked is asking, "Okay, what do you want to learn to do?"

.

As a 15 year old, I am in the lower portion of the railfanning/preservation/railroading age group. I belong to a model railroad club and have a small group of railfanning friends around my age.

My observation of the aforementioned way the hobby is changing is pretty much correct. The Model Railroading club I belong to has me as the youngest member that has stayed for more than 6-ish months. the 2nd youngest person in the club is just out of college. We have had a few younger children show interest in our club but they never have stuck around for more than 6 months. The interest is still there alive and well. Our open house last year had about 500 people attend in the in the 2 days of it. (I don't know what you guys would consider as a good turnout but when you are a smaller club with about 10 active members and a medium-sized layout I would think of it as good).

The fact is tech does predominate a lot of what we do. I'm lucky enough to usually make it down 2 days out of the month to operate my stuff. My friends and I are armchair railfans for a lot of the time, but will get together every once in a while on a trip. We do our own railfanning constantly.

I think that the element of preservation is changing as well. The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is one example that I will use. They are a preservation society that does well. Their whole collection is stuffed and mounted there. Two major draws which make it successful even though nothing there operates is 1. There is an operating steam railroad right across the street. and 2. It is located right in the heart of amish country, a big tourist draw. These help it greatly.

Now take the Reading Technical and Historical Society museum. A good museum with a good goal. (I mean no offence to any member of it who may read this. I love how you guys are up to the task of preserving the equipment of one of my favorite roads) It has the R&N to run their equipment over. It, however, does not have any major tourist draws around it like the RRMoPA. Comparing the collections of the RTC&HS to the RRMoPA, It is smaller, and it has less appealing(cosmetically) equipment. The RTC&HS does have operating locomotives, though. Guess what one gets more visitors which translates into more $$ to spend on restorations?

Just my two cents. You can take it any way you would like.

Incorrect. They are an operation of the Pennsylvania Historic & Museum Commission, a branch of Commonwealth government, and was established there by the Commonwealth.

The Reading Co. T&H Society collection (and, arguably, many or most of the rail museum collections in the world) would benefit very nicely from a 40-year infrastructure program that builds it a building, then expands it and adds a restoration shop, with taxpayer (and admission) monies. Unfortunately for them, that's at Strasburg. The Strasburg museum DOES have the support of a non-profit membership arm, the Friends of the RR Museum of Pa., but to compare the efforts of a state-run museum with a private enthusiast group is comparing apples and oranges, as the saying goes.

John Ryan speaks for several generations of rail enthusiasts throughout the US in his treatise.

The "Wall of Indifference" to new and young members has always been problematic in the hobby. There are as many people (many of them families) exploring the hobby today as there was thirty years ago. The hierarchy of many museums and clubs don't want to understand that and adapt.

Which is why those groups die off and fold quietly.

I have said in posts on other topics, it is the responsibility of Museum, NRHS Chapters, and Club Boards to welcome all and adapt to the changing world around them.That is how you grow. Not all will be active, but you look for the one percent who will eventually be your next officers and trustees.

One of the things most museums desperately need to find- and encourage- are retiree volunteers who really enjoy working with younger volunteers. As well, the other volunteers should have this same quality- particularly if they're on site often and leading projects.

These are the guys who will ensure the teens and 20-somethings will find a welcoming and encouraging "home" in the volunteer ranks.

I'm 53 now, but I was only 16 when I started volunteering with the Bytown Railway Society. They had a great bunch of volunteers who were great with young (or not young, but new) members... it was a great time, scraping/ chipping paint, getting covered in grease from head to foot oiling the steam crane's cables, learning about boilers at a tender age... and this led me to a cherished time, working on CP Pacific 1201 and BRS's crane.

Largely because of this, I jumped right in at age 20 to help form what is now the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario, and I've never turned back. Without the acceptance and encouragement from these guys, many of whom have passed away or are now quite elderly, it's very likely I never would have become so active in preservation.

Ensure that you create a welcoming environment... give the young'uns challenges and lots of encouragement and keep it fun... and you'll have volunteers and supporters for life.

The busy world we have today can limit the time the non- retired members have available... while many don't understand this fact, there is much these guys can, and want to do from home- publicity, web site creation, looking after online photo albums, helping to raise funds, and lots of other great stuff.

These guys and gals are our future- and I have to say they represent a great future- let's not waste it by acting like a bunch of cranky, unfriendly, boring curmudgeons! OK, I'll admit, some curmudgeons are pretty fun, but you get my drift.

:-)

Steve Hunter

Museums need to prepare for changing landscape of 2012 economics. Many people who thought they were going to retire are choosing to keep on working. With interest rates at all-time lows, people who retire right now are likely to end up drawing from their investment principal rather than living off the interest from their retirement accounts. And that is not just bad news for the museums, it is really bad news for the recent graduates who are going to have to compete in the work force with experienced older people willing to take lower paying jobs just to keep the family expenses paid.

PC

What is ETTS??

Wesley

Employee Timetables?

[quote="wesp"
What is ETTS??

Wesley[/quote]

The first three words are "Everything Turns To ..."

Thanks.

Friends, Please let's keep this thread on track.

Tom Gears
Moderator

When I was 13 I was lucky enough to grow up in a town with a live steam club in it to volunteer at. I recall my first day they put me to work as a gofer and I had a blast! At the end of the day one member there who would become a mentor of mine took me aside and explained that "this wasn't a club for little children, and that when present there one had to act like a grownup". But he then told me so long as I acted like a grown up no one would ever give me a hard time. Sure there were things out of bounds like no using the backhoe but they put me to work and I quickly outgrew HO scale, started buying up machine tools, taught my self some real valuable skills in machining, built one working 1/8th scale steam locomotive, decided to pursue a mechanical career path. It was a place that I spent all my weekends at I learned so much from those guys and it played a huge part in shaping who I am today. It started a great life long hobby, got me interested in everything mechanical, helped provide great career guidance etc... In addition to getting me hooked into railroading it truly was one of the best things in the world that could have happened for a 13yr old kid!

Now fast forward 13yrs later and I have now moved away from my old town, I live in an area that has no live steam, but we do have the 1:1 scale stuff. My new museum that I volunteer at (who I will not name) in my opinion was real lucky to have had 2 young kids, I think one was 15, and the other 17 start showing up a lot this year. Granted I realize unlike me at age 13 these kids brought along a little more baggage especially since their parents don't live around the corner and couldn't always come and pick them up, but in all my experience they had always been a bunch of really good hard working kids when I was there.

I also realize they are working around slightly larger equipment but with that said in all of my encounters they both brought a lot of enthusiasm, maturity and the willingness to crawl into nasty and dirty spaces where I am much happier with it being them than I. None the less from what I now understand the museum just made what I see as an incredibly unfortunate decision of requiring our shop volunteers to be 18yrs old.

While I understand the discomfort with young kids working in the shop from a liability standpoint I really think this is a huge mistake to chase them off! Sure I hear the members there who argue an OSHA inspector would have a fit with underage kids, but in my opinion we do have other fish that we could fry in this department that don't risk running off our future members! One point one member made that I do sympathize with was what if one of the kids gets real hurt and has to go to the hospital, who would go what would we do? While I hear that I have a feeling if someone who was born 2yrs later or any other one of us for that matter go badly hurt I think we would be in the same real lousy position as if it were one of the kids.

In my opinion when a kid is between 14-18 that is the time to really inspire him if he is lucky he may like what he is doing enough to build a career around some portion of it. It is also an age where competition with girls is a little lower than it will be a few years later. I think that given my experiences the two most important things to do to build the future of the hobby are as follows;

#1. You have to take a kid when he is age 4-6 to a steam locomotive. At that age it is a fire breathing godzilla, the wheels are 3times higher than him, it is an experience at least burned in my memory forever.
#2. When they show up at age 13-18 interested in volunteering for your organization you have to take them in and find work that is meaningful to them and their interests. If the kid's is mechanically oriented like me, putting him into car service till he turns age 18 would make me walk away real fast. Everyone in this hobby has their place. Some can't stand getting dirty, others can't stand collecting tickets and sitting on the train.

So anyhow I guess the key question really is how do other museums handle underage kids when they show up and want to help in the shop? In my opinion I can't help but think that if you are concerned for the future you had best figure out a good way to bend the rules for the right kid and handle each one on a case by case basis.

As I said before althought I may not visit my local railway museum which is the Illinois Railway Museum almost every day like most people and spend more time at my part time job, in my blood, being only 20 years old, Im a true railfan but unlike most railfans that I see in many movies of Steam Excursions in the 70's, 80's, and even when I was only a little kid in the 90's as well seening them attending every steam fan trip excursion, chasing steam locomotives from crossing to crossing or even riding the Rails was my ultimite dream but sadly I had to grow up and Ive only ridden steam locomotive (not counting the ones at Disneyworld) about only 30 times in my life. WHY!!! Because I have to grow up first as an adult to get my own place to live, get a well supportive job, and maybe get married and start a family. I have to get all this stuff out of the way to finally find some good time and money to do all of the stuff that most of the Senior members of this forum have done long before I joined here and for a selective few that have done this before I was even born in the early 90's. Sure I am not a every day person at trackside but in my heart, thats where I wish I was instead of being home, watching train videos seeing people live the dream except me becuase my life is a bit to busy to attending and also travel just to be on 1 railfan steam excursion. Heck I was dissapointed that I did not have the money and time to attenened the ATSF 4-8-4 #3751's excursion back to the Grand Canyon since its first one during 2002. If had both of these, you would had bet your dollers on it that I would be right there in every photo run by in the group of phototagraphers. But that did not happen so all I can do is wait for the right momment to join in.