Looking over some various proposals--all assumed to be light-hearted--Let's look at some serious suggestions along this line:

*The purported rationale for this festival was the 175th anniversary of railroading in America. Well, that is still ongoing and amenable to flexibility. For example, The South Carolina Railroad started up in 1833, if memory serves correctly. So, although we would technically be running late, we *could* push back things a year. And whether we hold it in Baltimore or somewhere else, we'll need another year to plan.

*Pushing back the Fair a year would allow certain factors--such as the frantic struggle to either raise funds or mend certain locomotives, or a depressed economy--to be addressed with better success. This would allow a better shot at attending locomotives.

*One problem that MUST be addressed is the cooperation--or lack thereof--of the "host" railroads. Whatever the merits of Baltimore as a gathering locale, it was severely hampered by the reality that only CSX and Amtrak main lines reached town, and CSX was not (publicly) in a cooperative mood with such things as steam locomotives on their mains. If the Fair were moved just about anywhere else (Savannah? Charleston? Altoona? Chicago? St. Louis?), there would exist at least the hope of steam making it there via either an enthusiastic or at least cooperative operating company. Chicago and St. Louis strike me offhand as the locales most likely to be reached by steam in spite of recalcitrant major railroads. In addition, the central location offers a shot at West Coast locos either finding the money/track to come or fitting the Eastern clearances (Baltimore was a BIG problem that way--I still haven't figured out a way the UP locos or 4449 would get to town).

So I entertain motions: Do we postpone said celebration and try for Baltimore in 2004 or 2005, or will someone else pick up a torch?

lner4472@bcpl.net

Without wanting to sound like someone looking to take advantage of the B&O misfortune, may I remind everyone that we in Altoona are in the planning stages of 2 large events and would welcome the participation of anyone who had previously planned on participating in the Fair. First, we are planning our annual Railfest event for October 4 and 5. This will be not only our annual fall get-together but will also kick off the other big year long celebration in Altoona. We will be spending the year celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Horseshoe Curve with events throughout late 2003 and all of 2004. Everything is still on the table for discussion and we have nothing nailed down with the folks at NS as of yet. We would welcome any thoughts you all might have and cetainly welcome the participation of those left disappointed with the cancellation of the B&O event. Let's all hope for a quick recovery for our friends in Baltimore. In the meantime, please feel free to send thoughts, ideas, questions about the Altoona event schedule as you see fit!

Thanks

Scott Cessna
Director
Railroaders Memorial Museum

> Looking over some various proposals--all
> assumed to be light-hearted--Let's look at
> some serious suggestions along this line:

> *The purported rationale for this festival
> was the 175th anniversary of railroading in
> America. Well, that is still ongoing and
> amenable to flexibility. For example, The
> South Carolina Railroad started up in 1833,
> if memory serves correctly. So, although we
> would technically be running late, we
> *could* push back things a year. And whether
> we hold it in Baltimore or somewhere else,
> we'll need another year to plan.

> *Pushing back the Fair a year would allow
> certain factors--such as the frantic
> struggle to either raise funds or mend
> certain locomotives, or a depressed
> economy--to be addressed with better
> success. This would allow a better shot at
> attending locomotives.

> *One problem that MUST be addressed is the
> cooperation--or lack thereof--of the
> "host" railroads. Whatever the
> merits of Baltimore as a gathering locale,
> it was severely hampered by the reality that
> only CSX and Amtrak main lines reached town,
> and CSX was not (publicly) in a cooperative
> mood with such things as steam locomotives
> on their mains. If the Fair were moved just
> about anywhere else (Savannah? Charleston?
> Altoona? Chicago? St. Louis?), there would
> exist at least the hope of steam making it
> there via either an enthusiastic or at least
> cooperative operating company. Chicago and
> St. Louis strike me offhand as the locales
> most likely to be reached by steam in spite
> of recalcitrant major railroads. In
> addition, the central location offers a shot
> at West Coast locos either finding the
> money/track to come or fitting the Eastern
> clearances (Baltimore was a BIG problem that
> way--I still haven't figured out a way the
> UP locos or 4449 would get to town).

> So I entertain motions: Do we postpone said
> celebration and try for Baltimore in 2004 or
> 2005, or will someone else pick up a torch?


director@railroadcity.com

Given todays logistical, insurance, and economic issues, I wonder if large steam events are even feasible today...at least the type we would all like to see.

About 10 years ago there was talk about having a "Short Stacks" celebration in Cincinnati. This was to be a spin-off of the successful "Tall Stacks" Steam boats(by the way its coming in October 2003 again).

"Short Stacks" was essentially a problem for lack of a venue within the city where folks could view the engines. At that time, the possibilities for engines was very promising. L&N152, NKP587,NKP765, N&W 611, N&W1218, 4501, and others, that were within easy reach of the Queen City. Of course today the climate is different, and the railroads aren't that inclined to run steam on their mainlines.

Short Stacks was to be an exhibition, as well as train rides, much like Tall Stacks. In my opinion this would have been a really great thing, as it would have drawn a big general public crowd, as well as the railfan community. It would have created more awareness to our steam engines, and railroads as a viable part of our society.

Today I beleive the only way a big steam gathering(which includes display and steam trips) will work is to have the host railroad be a non-class 1, so the insurance and other restrictions are not quite the issue. If you have about 300 miles of railroad in the middle of the country with two medium size cities in the region on the railroad that would be best.

I keep hearing how in the UK they have these guest engines on all these different rail lines, and here in the U.S. with all our might and rail size we can never seem to pull-off much in this regard.

In my opinion, to ferry a bunch of engines from many points to a location simply for static display is a waste of energy unless the engines can be allowed to help pay for themselves and folks can ride behind them at some point during the event or see them in action.

It is one thing to enjoy the appearance of something like 844 sitting on display all steamed-up, but its nothing compared to watching it accelerate a 20 car train, or race across the Nebraska country-side at 65 miles an hour.

As I said in my heading...Reality or Pipedream!

Greg Scholl


Videos
sales@gregschollvideo.com

> Today I beleive the only way a big steam
> gathering(which includes display and steam
> trips) will work is to have the host
> railroad be a non-class 1, so the insurance
> and other restrictions are not quite the
> issue. If you have about 300 miles of
> railroad in the middle of the country with
> two medium size cities in the region on the
> railroad that would be best.

> As I said in my heading...Reality or
> Pipedream!

> Greg Scholl

So are you leaning towards WLE, OCRR ???????


lamontdc@adelphia.net

I am very uncomfortable with all this discussion of "moving" the Fair or "changing venue." It seems to me that this is looking at the event from the perspective of only one consituency--railfans and rail historians--and not from the perspective of all the other stakeholders, especially the City of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Convention and Visitors Bureau geared much of their marketing, travel agent pitches, and collateral to the Fair. That is now a dead loss, pure writeoff. They also of course paid the "opporunity cost" of not having promoted something else instead. They sold 10s of thousands of tickets already, all of which have to be refunded. Also a dead loss. Hotel agents are losing all the anticipated bookings the Fair might have generated this summer.

These and others were all major stakeholders in the Fair of the Iron Horse 175 and shifting it to a different venue does absolutely nothing to help them or hold them harmless. If anything it amounts to taking a "brand" that they put time and money into publicizing, and using that brand in the service of another region and set of partners/sponsors.

So, please, plan away for other Rail Festivals. I hope there are great events in the future at Spencer, at Savannah, and Altoona, and Steamtown, and I'll happily go to all of them. If you start planning one, by all means work with the B&O Museum staff to get the benefit of their backroom planning and contacts, experience to date, etc.

But don't call another festival at another location the "Fair of the Iron Horse--Alternate Venue." It's hijiking intellectual property, and its disrespectful to the very real losses of the Baltimore merchants and public agencies who invested in that brand and won't be helped by "The Fair of the Iron Horse--Alternate Venue."

This is bigger than our little preservation world, and our desire to see a bunch of steamers in one place, folks.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Lessee.......... "Rail Fair"? Nope. Been done. "SteamExpo"? See Vancouver 1985. "Steam Special"? See Chessie. "21st Century Express"? Buy the name from Ross Rowland......

First, I wish to apologize if anyone is truly construing my earlier proposals as *simply* "moving" the Baltimore event elsewhere. That does cheapen the hard work cranked out by both Baltimore and the B&O Museum.

Second, my sincere sympathies to the Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Bureau for the cruel twist of fate handed to them. However, if one wishes to search "BACVA" at the local newspaper's website (www.sunspot.net), s/he will find that the B&O Fair was about the ONLY thing the BACVA was doing right this year......... a local dust-up is currently under way about the BACVA's dire underperformance (if I recall the statistics and reports right, they were projecting 2003 revenues at about 18% of last year's figures for the same time frame, and internal BACVA reports intended to be publicly released have remained confidential.....).

However, let me state this much: The proposed purpose and occasion of this Baltimore event was supposed to be the 175th Anniversary of the B&O (and by extension, railroading in North America). Now, admittedly, past events in Sacramento, Vancouver, Chessie System, etc. were geared towards their own unique location or event, not railroading as a whole. (Hell, the last time anyone put together a public pan-railroading gala was 1939-40 for a World's Fair!) But Baltimore does not have a monopoly on railroad anniversaries, much as some here would like to think (an impression railroads like the PRR, D&H, CN, SR, etc. would have been quick to correct in olden days).

However, we are fast approaching another watershed moment in railroad preservation. I am throwing down a gauntlet and saying that if the combined efforts of the railroad preservation "industry" and the railroad industry cannot find it within their joint efforts to effectively unite to market a railroad anniversary (piddling and trivial as a 175th is in the grand scheme of things) to the general public, then we are in SERIOUS danger of NOBODY being there to mark a 200th anniversary of railroading in, say, 2025--and, more importantly, no one to care, either.

In which case, we might as well pack up, go home, call the scrappers, and move on to preserving Corvettes or VW Passats.

I fully understand the obstacles that are going up every time we turn around, and how many of them have nothing to do with steam or trolleys or whatever. But if we're not going to do any better at confronting these obstacles than hand-wringing and crying in our beer in the tool car, then why am I even going to bother to try to preserve those freight cars or stations or steamers? Or, for that matter, even restore what was under the roof at the B&O Museum--is anyone going to care 25 or 50 years from now? My ego ain't that big; I can't take it with me when I die; I could do "better" things with my time........

Yes, I'm on a soapbox getting agitated. I'll stop now. But I do have a point, no?.........

lner4472@bcpl.net

If I may add ... with no diminishing of the awful mess ... what you are seeing is an attempt to make lemonade. If an "event" can be put together so that the RR preservation community is acting together to celebrate a milestone and help ease the pain then more power to the community. It is just not in our nature (if I may speak for others) to fold our tents and go home.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

> Given todays logistical, insurance, and
> economic issues, I wonder if large steam
> events are even feasible today...at least
> the type we would all like to see.

You missed the major impediment.......lawyers. Until there is some reasonable tort reform that dries up the pool of blood sucking clowns who appear on television every day and promise instant riches in the Great New American Lottery and the redistribution of wealth by a jury of your peers, no large successful corporation with deep pockets is going to allow or encouage any type of event that bring people to trackside. You cannot blame them.

Todays mainline excursions run as AMTRAK trains with the Amtrak federally mandated "cap" on liability applied to the host railroad and the underlying insurance between the retention and the cap provided by Amtrak.

The entire legal profession is not only choking our abilities to organize anything significant, it is also choking our nation's ability to be productive.

I am not against redress for injuries or damages, but I am against over aggressive lawyers controling our economy as well as our right to life, liberty, and the "Pursuit of Happiness". There should be a quota on law schools and the numbers of parasites they produce. If there weren't a glut of lawyers with nothing to do but to promise riches, share in the booty, distroy productive endevours, this advocation and the country in general would be in a much better place. Luke had it right long before Shakespere reached the same conclusion.

v-scarpitti@att.net

Given todays logistical, insurance, and economic issues, I wonder if large steam events are even feasible today...at least the type we would all like to see.

In my first paragraph I think the words insurance and economic issues cover it. Economic issues to include legal matters!!!!

Because of these factors I labeled it as a pipe dream!

Greg

Videos
sales@gregschollvideo.com

Alexander Mitchell wrote:

. . . .

"> However, we are fast approaching another
> watershed moment in railroad preservation. I
> am throwing down a gauntlet and saying that
> if the combined efforts of the railroad
> preservation "industry" and the
> railroad industry cannot find it within
> their joint efforts to effectively unite to
> market a railroad anniversary (piddling and
> trivial as a 175th is in the grand scheme of
> things) to the general public, then we are
> in SERIOUS danger of NOBODY being there to
> mark a 200th anniversary of railroading in,
> say, 2025--and, more importantly, no one to
> care, either.

> In which case, we might as well pack up, go
> home, call the scrappers, and move on to
> preserving Corvettes or VW Passats.

> I fully understand the obstacles that are
> going up every time we turn around, and how
> many of them have nothing to do with steam
> or trolleys or whatever. But if we're not
> going to do any better at confronting these
> obstacles than hand-wringing and crying in
> our beer in the tool car, then why am I even
> going to bother to try to preserve those
> freight cars or stations or steamers? Or,
> for that matter, even restore what was under
> the roof at the B&O Museum--is anyone
> going to care 25 or 50 years from now? My
> ego ain't that big; I can't take it with me
> when I die; I could do "better"
> things with my time........ "

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My reply: if YOU do NOT care NOW, then WHO WILL?
"If not now, when? If not me, then who?"
Caring NOW is one excellent way to create a
future in which MANY people WILL care about
these things. I know it is VERY hard to keep
on keeping on, but, really, do we have any
choice? Remember Mr. A. Philip Randolph, who
founded the Pullman Porter's Union: it took him
TWELVE YEARS to get that organization going....,
and there were SEVERE economic (and other)
reprisals for HIS efforts: I tell everyone about
him, to try to inspire them to keep going when
things are hard. At least we are not in any
danger of THAT for trying to keep operating
locomotves going. We are risking almost nothing
important, except possibly wasting our precious
time and some money.

Remember: if you REALLY CARE about something,
giving up is NOT an option.

I fully support keeping the 175th anniversary
celebration in Baltimore. The people there
deserve our support.

Margaret (SP fan)

> I fully support keeping the 175th
> anniversary
> celebration in Baltimore. The people there
> deserve our support.

The people there are the ones who have decided that it is in the best interest of the Museum and the collection to cancel the Fair and concentrate on raising money and doing the organization and engineering necessary to repair the Roundhouse and the Museum. That is the decision that deserves our understanding and support in my opinion. It's not a matter of "giving up," it's a prudent response to compelling circumstances.

I guess I really don't understand exactly what we're all in a knot over. The Fair of the Iron Horse 175 has been cancelled by its organizers. It's not moving anwhere, nor has anyone involved in organizing it suggested that it would be moved anywhere. It's cancelled.

Perhaps in a year or two the B&O Museum will organize a new or different Fair in Baltimore, but they have a lot to think about and do right now before making that decision and committment. Perhaps in the interim others will organize neat events elsewhere, which would be terrific. But those are the only two options on the table right now, and frankly, they are also vaporware as they say in the software industry. We're arguing of pure hypotheticals, nothing more, nothing less.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Maybe it's just because I'm a Baltimorean, but Erik makes the most sense to me. We might also keep in mind that -- although this is highly speculative at this point -- that the B&O Museum would want to stage a "grand re-opening" celebration once everything is put back together. If they do, that might at least partially compensate.

> The people there are the ones who have
> decided that it is in the best interest of
> the Museum and the collection to cancel the
> Fair and concentrate on raising money and
> doing the organization and engineering
> necessary to repair the Roundhouse and the
> Museum. That is the decision that deserves
> our understanding and support in my opinion.
> It's not a matter of "giving up,"
> it's a prudent response to compelling
> circumstances.

> I guess I really don't understand exactly
> what we're all in a knot over. The Fair of
> the Iron Horse 175 has been cancelled by its
> organizers. It's not moving anwhere, nor has
> anyone involved in organizing it suggested
> that it would be moved anywhere. It's
> cancelled.

> Perhaps in a year or two the B&O Museum
> will organize a new or different Fair in
> Baltimore, but they have a lot to think
> about and do right now before making that
> decision and committment. Perhaps in the
> interim others will organize neat events
> elsewhere, which would be terrific. But
> those are the only two options on the table
> right now, and frankly, they are also
> vaporware as they say in the software
> industry. We're arguing of pure
> hypotheticals, nothing more, nothing less.


herbhar@yahoo.com

> Maybe it's just because I'm a Baltimorean,
> but Erik makes the most sense to me. We
> might also keep in mind that -- although
> this is highly speculative at this point --
> that the B&O Museum would want to stage
> a "grand re-opening" celebration
> once everything is put back together. If
> they do, that might at least partially
> compensate.

Herb, my friend, I like your way of thinking best of all. (*^_^*)


lner4472@bcpl.net

I'm certainly not privvy to all the details and complications, but my opinion is that it is a mistake to cancel (or put off) the Fair events that were to take place this summer.

Within 4 months, certainly much recovery can be accomplished. Imagine if Union Station had been closed for 4 months after the Federal Express crashed into it in 1953. How long was it closed? A few days?

Yes, 4 months is not enough time to completely restore all the wonderful exhibits damaged in the roof collapse, but the roundhouse probably could be reopened, and there'd even be new room for equipment on loan for the Fair.

No room on site to store the damaged materials? Make room by hauling something into storage elsewhere.

Not having the Fair would seem to be more costly to the museum than proceeding with it. Visitors see could see active restoration and recovery efforts in action, and as a result might feel compelled to donate even more funds.

As for the Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, I too have little sympathy. I'm involved with a non-profit group that attracts thousands to an event in Baltimore each summer. I've tried many times to contact BACVB about it, but they don't return phone calls or emails, and never list our event on their calendar. It makes me wonder why they exist.

intersys@insystem.com

but the impetus for the idea was as a fund raiser for the roof repair et al. Nothing can be done to compensate the other Baltimore stakeholders but it seemed the participants involved with the specific event might have wished to take advantage of the opportunity, and thereby salvage something from the work already done. If not, fine and well. As I mentioned earlier, were we in a position to make the offer to B&O Museum it would have been made, and their decision would indeed have been respected either way.

Apart from offering assistance there isn't much more any of us can do to help. Their staff is highly respectable and competent to act in the best overall interest of the museum and I wish them the best of luck in the tough job ahead.

Dave