Also applicable to every aspect of rail history preservation:

https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/l ... rent-easy/



Read the whole thing. And the comments.

Many good points but the viewpoint is wrong. Jay is looking at this issue from his perspective, and no doubt the perspective of many of our readers. We see the world as behaving incorrectly while the world has simply changed.

Hard work is looked down upon because it’s literally no longer valued- you’d have to be a fool to labor endlessly to achieve something in real life when a cgi fantasy in a computer will do. This is what I find when I browse YouTube videos anymore, not real objects but computer generated copies. To spend hours, days or even years making something is inefficient, an embarrassment, and distressing - this is how the world currently thinks. They want a quick high and then move on.

For those who CAN appreciate a large physical accomplishment, they do so to the point of considering it a God-like feat; something to be respected yet nothing that they themselves could ever possibly have the ability to do. They are numb to cumulative learning, especially in the physical world. They have been taught to think that some people just have a natural talent to restore/operate steam engines and some do not - and that ends the discussion.

The world also currently thinks small - no grand ideas or goals. Insular. No improvement beyond one’s personal space or experience. Many of the things that we are interested in are from a time when people craved adventure, travel and interaction. Get somewhere, fast, and make a grand entrance using all sorts of resources. Today’s world could not be more removed from that way of thinking.

Not to be overly pessimistic, but there are two useless generations out there screwing up the world right now. I don’t know about the third, I have my hopes but they have been left a pretty dark hole to climb out of. Personally I’ll keep turning and burning until the lights go out.

I think anyone who practices a skilled trade in most major cities would disagree.

People who know how to do needed things well can charge dearly. Those rates will only increase as the boomers retire and there are fewer tradespeople to replace them.

In the late 20th Century, I put in a couple years working for Texas State RR. Even that long ago, the main thing we looked for in our hiring was to find somebody who knew what work IS. Education, connections, liking trains, etc made no difference.

Well, I don't think that "appreciation for hard work is fading", but that the ability of individuals to PAY for that work has diminished.

That's why is costs a million dollars to restore a steam engine.

Some group can give an old boxcar an "aerosol overhaul" and make the public think it's new, but the group couldn't afford to upgrade the entire car to make it so... brake system, new trucks, doors, interior lining, lower the high handbrakes... all that stuff, because it costs too much!

In the town I live in, lots of houses are in falling down bad shape. Number one problem is they're hundred year old houses. People who live in them can't afford the high cost of labor to have things fixed by a carpenter, painted by a painter or plumbing upgraded by a plumber or an electrician. Then, there's the cost of materials, and in the case of most of these houses... lack of suitable replacement material~ i.e. lap siding. Impossible to find 3" lap siding to match what's on my house, so if you want to make a change on the outside of your house (remove a window), you can't make the repair seamless...

To my knowledge, there is only one guy here in town who does carpentry for a living. 2 painters, one of them is retired and the other has a full time job as a painter and just does it on the side for cash.
No plumbers.
A few electricians, but only one will do residential work.

It's a vicious circle. People need their houses repaired, but don't have the money. Tradesman need the money to survive in their business, but there are very few customers who can afford the amount the tradesmen need to charge in order for their businesses to survive. So, houses end up falling into disrepair.

So, not so much they don't appreciate good work, they just can't afford it.

This is EXACTLY what Leno is talking about. The problem is NOT that folks can’t afford to pay for repairs...it is that they can’t do the repairs themselves anymore. You mention 3” lap siding. If you have a table saw and know how to safely use it.....you make your own. Simple plumbing jobs...get some tools and watch a YouTube video and do it your self.
It used to be that high schools had shop classes where you learned how to use tools. But now schools have dropped manual arts classes as the students felt it was beneath them to do manual labor and the school boards were afraid of lawsuits if junior bruised an elbow in class.
Here in Maine they have such a hard time finding people willing to work, hamburger restaurants have permanent hiring signs out front offering $17.00 an hour to flip hamburgers. At that sort of minimum wage you can afford to buy a few tools and maintain your own home.

Great opinion piece by Leno.

I do agree that you need to pay for labor but you also need to have a service provider that is honest.

I perform most of the repairs on my own cars, most recently rebuilding an engine on a 2009 Mini Cooper someone left for dead and I picked up cheap. About the only thing I don't do myself are tire changes and wheel alignments but on two recent trips with two different cars to two different local tire shops I got the "call", you know the one they find other stuff that needs fixing. Both cases they said the cars needed new brakes. In both cases the entire front suspension including brakes had been changed two weeks prior to me bringing the cars in for tires. The charge for new brakes would have been in the $500 range. In both cases I told them the brakes are new and do not perform the work.

This turns me off to taking the car back to that shop and the search begins for another shop.

I have no issue with paying up for labor and parts, and I try and go to the mom and pop outfits, but I need honesty from the vendors.

Just ask any artist trying to make a living, they'll tell you a lot of stories like this.
Artwork is one of the few things people will stop and say, "Yeah, I can't do what I need here" and go to someone else.
Problem is, they'll value the end product but never the work it took to produce it. I've had people bring their kids by who have some talent, asking to pick my brain on how they can make a living at it (as I have been published many times in my life). I've crushed a lot of dreams in my years by saying simply this:

All art schools should have a mandatory first class for all students where they teach people that nobody will want to pay you for your work, and how to try to get around that. Everyone will tell you, "It's good for exposure" which you'll fall for a few times when you're starting out, then wise up quickly if you're smart as that never ends.
Here's the thing with that; free work only ever leads to one thing; requests for more free work!
Early on, I'd tell people, "I have had all the exposure I need, thanks," and now I tell them, "Exactly how naive do you think I am?"
I'd think the same would apply to other crafts as well. My Dad is one of the finest craftsmen I've ever known and a casting genius. People would see his work and they'd always ask for him to make the same thing for them and that they'd pay for the materials. Dad would just change the subject, a tactic I never rally picked up (as Mom says I never suffered fools even as a kid) but it's a lesson I learned long before I had anything to offer others.

Well, this most recent post definitely applies to MUSIC. You're quite right, that kind of exposure just helps you to build a reputation as a pushover. In fact, if you do perform for free, these good people will always call somebody else when they have money to pay a performer. They call somebody who refused to work for nothing.

As far as rail preservation goes, (I bet I get hate mail for this) the folks that want me to work on their stuff for nothing usually have plenty of money in the bank. This is one reason that I am making damn sure to pay everybody WELL who works on my project, even when they would do it for nothing if I allowed it.

That is SO true.
Other than art, I do historical consulting from time to time for movie, TV, book and magazine projects on a few (non-RR-related) subjects. I've noticed that the more money a person/company/group has, it's inversely proportionate to the amount they'll offer to pay you for your time.
I was asked to research something for a WW2 movie a few years back. They wanted a bunch of research done and to provide stuff they could use in the movie itself (uniform patches, gear and the like). It would have cost me hundreds of dollars in just the stuff, never mind my time.
On my last call about it right before I was going to proceed, I asked what they were going to pay and what contract I'd get before I moved forward. I could hear crickets chirping at the other end.
A multi-million dollar production and they expected me to do it all for free and they said they were actually offended I wasn't happy with just a name in the credits!
There's a reason that was my last call with them. It ended with, "...and the horse you rode in on," before I hung up.
That was the second movie project I'd been asked to take part in that went into production limbo and never got made, but I'd had lots of art clients who also expected drawings for free. One actually met me at a meeting about that project in a ne Porsche and then started whining about how they don't have money in the budget for the artwork for their project. I looked at him with a "puh-lease" look, gestured to the car and said, "You might not want to show up in your expensive toy when you come to a meeting to cheap your way out of paying for something," and also then got up and walked away.

There’s still some younger hands that believe in hard work. I’m happy to say that we have about five of them that are simultaneously working on multiple large-scale projects at this time. They do some dang fine work too.

Earlier posts on this site have mentioned that the perception of the hardness of work can depend on the skills of the viewer. A good welder may think that wooden cars are a headache and a termite's delight, while a good carpenter may have similar thoughts about metal cars, and that they are only rust buckets.

I've gotten a few 1099's working on other peoples locomotives. The thing I heard was, we can't find people to fix our equipment. It paid for a few vacations for my family. If you can fix things correctly you shouldn't lack for work. No matter how much they automate you have to have people to fix things.

I know an excursion railroad which HAD an operating steam locomotive but the person in charge of the outfit says steam mechanics cost too much. Now the locomotive sits OOS in the middle of an overhaul which might never get finished.

Jay Leno is 70 years old... he’s just a rich old guy complaining.

Go to any operation with operating steam - IRM, Nevada State, TVRM, Strasburg, etc. and you’ll see plenty of young adults who enjoy putting in the time to restore, maintain, and operate historic equipment.