http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3SrjLlcUY&sns=em

Great documentary/oral/living history here! Could we do this with railroaders?

Howard P.

In my experience, people don't seem to care what the people who ran trains think about anything. I once saw a well-known engineer of a steam locomotive talking to a veteran engineer who ran engines just like it in the 40s and 50s. Several people came around and only wanted to talk to the man who'd ran the engine they were seeing, they couldn't have cared less what the man who'd made a career of doing so had to say about anything. I had a former SAL hogger for a neighbor years ago and I used to ask him questions on running named trains into Florida. He once said in all the years he's bene in retirement, nobody ever asked him anything about it.
A photographer at the NRHS convention in Tacoma yelled at a men to get out of the way of a steam engine he was standing in front of so the first guy could get a shot. When i explained to the photog that the man he was yelling at was not only the hogger but had a close personal history with the very same engine in it's original service, I was met with a shurg and a gruff, "yeah, so what?"
It's in vogue to take the stories of military vets but few even within RR history circles are doing the same for the men and women who worked on and operated steam in it's glory.

Many years ago at Cass, I was watching the morning run come to the station. An older gentleman had also come up to watch, but I noticed he wasn't gawking at trains the way I do; he was nodding almost imperceptibly to the beat, watching the running gear. When the engine stopped, I turned to him. "You know these engines, don't you?"
He was a retired mechanic who had worked on a whole lot of steam engines, including the aborted rebuild of 1218. Husband and son wandered off to another part of the car, but I sat with him all the way up the mountain and tried to stuff all his stories into my head.
When I see one of the dwindling supply of people who worked with these beasts in their salad days, I'm not about to shoo them out of a picture. They may get sick of being asked for stories, but they won't be ignored.

This is absolutely relevant to preservation and the study of history. Books and artifacts are one side of the story, but people are the bridge to that history. Some years ago, I met the last depot agent from my hometown in CT. I was able to bring him back to that depot (now a restaurant) and interview him at a table in said depot/restaurant, and captured it on film (now DVD). What I learned-you won't find in a book.

Two years ago, I reached out to an old WW2 flying partner of my late grandfather. This gentleman-still alive at the age of 90-told us about meeting Amelia Earhart...and my son was present to hear this.

Never pass up an opportunity to hear history first-hand.

Agreed, but I think people like you and I, even among train enthusiasts, are in a serious minority. I won't name the event, but I was at a large train event a few years back where they had a panel discussion which had retired engineers and firemen from various RRs, some of whom ran truly epic passenger trains. Hardly anyone attended among the train fans, and I felt horrible for these gentlemen. I heard one of them tell another when it was over, "Well, I guess these folks just want to talk about the hardware, not the people who made it work."
I don't recall ever seeing video at any RR museum of interviews with retired RR crew members, other than I think the RR museum of CA had something in their RPO display (but I could be wrong about that).
Search online and you'll find multiple efforts to gather the stories of WW2 vets while they're still around (a big one is being done by my Alma Mater, Florida State University). Are there any museums or preservation groups doing similar documentation for former steam crew people?

What a great video!



RMEO recorded many hours of retiree's memories last year as part of the Smiths Falls Railway History Project:

http://rmeo.org/hist_proj/

Short sections of these interviews can be seen here:

http://rmeo.org/hist_proj/?page_id=69

Many others were interviewed, and there is a huge volume of video other than what could reasonably be placed online. This project also produced museum displays, portable display material, helped to document our collection, and brought a tremendous amount of support from community members. A big component was help from the local school board, and over 100 grade 7 and 8 students participated.

The project is officially closed, but the oral history collection will continue.

Steve Hunter

We have had some success with oral history at National Capital Trolley Museum. for many years our orientation slide show (later converted to power point) included some stories from Al Savage, retired VP of DC Transit. We also have a professionally filmed video "Street Car Snapshots" that includes oral history of DC Transit days as well as some more recent Museum stories. The orientation slide show is now very dated and no longer used. We have taken clips from "Snapshots" for other promotional pieces. There is much more footage on hand that only needs the proverbial 'roundtuit to see the light of day.

Having produced an oral history video for the 50th anniversary at my church, I learned the key to success was having the right mix of stories and most important - having good storytellers. Sometimes I recorded an hour of interviews and used only two minutes or less.

Wesley

ARMM has a kiosk with interviews of workers from different crafts, including women who worked in several areas during and after WWII.

The Wheeling-Ohio County Public Library takes video of all of their Lunch with Books events now and thus captured Jack Syphers (here's a newspaper article):
http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/co ... ml?nav=515

I'd remind all of you who are currently working on preservation or restoration projects that you, too, are part of history. It wouldn't hurt a thing if someone took video of common tasks around the shop or during a run. In my experience, there are plenty of pictures of Big Occasions and hardly any of ordinary, everyday jobs. Every once in a while, when you're taking pictures of something else, walk around your museum's gift shop, the ticket office, even the parking lot; someday you may be asking "When did we have those shirts?" or "Did we move the caboose from the parking lot in 2004 or 2005?" If you do a walk-around every year or so, you may answer your own questions as well as those of anyone who needs to know later.

Years ago when I started doing research on the EL&WB a close family friend put me in touch with a wonderful gentleman who turned out to be the last surviving person who had worked on the railroad. As a boy of 12 He had lived at Tramway and Ellis Brook during construction of the line in 1926. He returned every summer and finally went on the payroll.

Over the ensuing months we exchanged numerous letters. He sent me photographs, maps and related wonderful stories that added personality to a history which until that time was nothing more than dates and dry facts - a number of which proved to be nothing more than misleading assumptions.

We never had the chance to meet in person and he shortly passed away. Today my research continues and though a ton of information has surfaced since those days of writing and waiting for letter's I find myself everyday wishing that Edwin were still among us so I could ask him more questions. The lose to me - as a historian - is profound.


While the general public my not be bothered with the history and technology we strive to preserve and interput we need to take every opertunity to listen to the stories and look through the well worn and faded photos that may be ensconced in an old man's wallet. Photos and facts can only tell a small fraction of the story.

I think it is extremely important that we record as much information as possible from sources that actually maintained and operated the vintage railroad equipment we strive to preserve. It may not be of interest to many people today, but it will be there when people start to look for it.

Case in point- Mystic Seaport's very own, Charles W. Morgan. It is the last wooden sail-powered whaleship left on the planet. It was built in 1841 and actively hunted whales until 1921. It became a museum piece in the 20's and has been on display in Mystic since 1941. A massive restoration began in 2008 and will complete in 2014. Upon completion, they (I'm gunning for a crew position as well, as I am an employee.) will sail, that's right, sail the ship up the east coast as far as Boston and back.

How does this relate? Over the years, much information has been collected and saved. That information includes personal accounts, log books, journals, and photographs. We are going to sail a vessel that no living human being has before. The ship has her very own personality and without the saved information, we wouldn't have such good insight on how that particular ship was handled and how she responded. This information will make the task much easier and in some respects, safer.

The Morgan's going to sea next year?
I've never been to the coast in my life, but this would seem like a really good time to start.

Cool info on the Morgan.
I've posted elsewhere here that I own a WW2 Jeep. I've gotten a lot of info in how to maintain and drive one from WW2 vets, but that's becoming less and less a option with each passing year.
One day at a car show, this guy who was way too young to be a WW2 vet walked up and started tearing up, clearly trying to choke back something. He had that "1000 yard stare" that many combat vets have. I asked if he was okay and he told me the greatest story about him starving to death as an orphan in Holland near the end of the war and how a GI in a Jeep came by and saw him trying to eat a tree root. The GI picked him up, put him in the Jeep with another GI, and they took him to their field kitchen. The kid had buried a friend of his just the day before who'd died from starvation. He said, "A man in a Jeep like that turned my life around. I'm who i am today only because of him." Sadly, that GI passed away before he was able to track him down but he had met the family, whom he'd been close with every since. But he'd not been that close to a Jeep since the 40s. I asked where he'd sat in the that Jeep on that day, grabbed his camera from him and started clearing display stuff off the seats. I practically ordered him to sit where he'd sat then so I could get a shot. He was trying not to cry as I took a bunch of shots. He must have thanked me for ten minutes afterward. I'd offered to give him a ride once the show was over but he had to go before that (and we couldn't fire up vehicles while the show was still going on). Sort of makes me wanna cry just thinking about it, years later. But if I'd never stopped to pay attention to that story, what would I have missed? Well, I'd have missed the best WW2 story I've ever heard in person (and trust me brother, I've heard a bunch over the years) and now my Jeep has a context I'd never considered before. Not mine specifically, of course, but as a concept.
These aren't just cold pieces of metal and wood. They were the lives of so many people.