This comes from a little channel surfing this morning, a C-SPAN discussion of involving youth in the electoral process ("Rock the Vote" sort of thing). It was pointed out by the representative from a hispanic organization that for every person that dies in the U. S. today, EIGHT hispanic babies are born here.

Now, I don't have any hard figures on membership statistics for railroad clubs and museums, or attendance at preservation related functions or fan trips, but my observations would indicate that we do not have much penetration in the hispanic community in attracting members, volunteers, or even as passengers and patrons. I really have no scientific or other empirical data on that, and I'm sure that I will hear from preservation activists in CA, FL, and some other places that they do in-fact have some members from the hispanic community. However, from my observation of attendance at things like Trainfest in July, the VAST majority of attendees were middle-class white males and their families.

It's been like pulling teeth the last couple of decades to get any younger people interested in the hobby, at least the organized part of it. Things like junior memberships in organizations and Rail Camp certainly help. Now, we need to consider how we reach out to a generation of hispanic youth who may have grown up near the tracks, may sort of like trains, but have no connection to organizations related to the hobby that, let's face it, are more likely to have members who belong to the Minute Men than LaRaza.

When I was in Europe last December, the two transportation/technology museums I visited in Germany and Switzerland had multi-lingual captions for most displays. Probably a good start for a lot of museums to reach out to the hispanic community. I saw this demographic change coming 30 years ago. Like it or not, it's here. It would seem to me that if we want railroad attractions to be relevant and viable for succeeding generations, then clubs, museums and tourist railroads are going to have to reach out to those in the hispanic community with any sort of interest in the hobby. It might also be one way to try and reduce vandalism to museum buildings, displays locomotives and rolling stock.

Just a little something to think about.

Being 27 myself, here's my take on this.

Perhaps the issue isn't that railway preservation as a whole is losing relevance, it's that the relevance is shifting.

For example, not many people alive today remember steam locomotives, but yet, how much effort and money in our community gets devoted to their preservation, restoration and operation?

I do not deny that they are awesome machines, and ones that have great historical significance, but history is being created every day, and peoples interests, obviously, change as time goes on.

If we connect with the things of our youth, then it's no surprise that an organization that focuses on things far over 50 years old will not be finding support from those under 40.

If you want to connect with younger things, it's time to start focusing on more modern history. Has anyone thought about trying to find / preserve some ATSF Fuel Foilers? What about spine cars? I know TTX is tossing those at a good clip these days...

We are facing a big issue in that our kids are not as hands-on as a generation ago. They don't build go cats, tree houses, and hardly work with any tools. This is impacting the skilled trades and I'm certain we re going to see it at our museums and operating tourist railroads as well. As a movement we should have 20 or more Rail Camp programs all over the country.

How about trying to make your museum and exhibits appealing to people that are not already technically-oriented railfans?

Are we trying to preserve items or display them in a way to appease ourselves, or are we trying to educate/entertain John. Q. Public?

Since we're all pretty much train enthusiasts here, we might not be able to be totally objective about how to lure in new people. Maybe we have to use complete ousiders as consultants?

I think one of the surest ways to get people "hooked" on trains is simply by watching the real thing. Steam or diesels, it does wonders. White or Latino.

Lets face it. As our government continues its assault on upper middle class white people, many of the institutions that have developed in this country are doomed. As wages continue to decline there will be less money for activities not directly related with survival. The white middle class is being replaced by a multiracial lower class that does not have an appreciation for traditional American arts or culture, but would rather replace it with their own culture. The middle class well paid taxpayer is an endangered species, except in this case we are not covered by the Endangered Species Act!

The facility that I am building is focused upon live demonstrations of real machinery doing real stuff. We just acquired a tensile tester which I will use to demonstrate the different physical properties of various steels. I have a small rolling mill under construction (steam driven of course) in which we will roll small pieces of steel. A cupola furnace for iron casting demos has been built, and I have a list of some other machines that I want to add to the facility.

We do not plan to follow the quantity approach to museum visitation, but would rather focus on small groups of visitors who would spend a half day or so taking my crash course on industrial history and technology. A visit here would be set up ahead of time, and after paying your "tuition" you would be enrolled in the program.

But of course without people with disposable incomes this will simply not work!

In all fairness, I think we can include the private sector in the list of those entities creating a widely divergent gap between pay scales for workers of all races and origins. The pendulum is swinging, and will no doubt continue to do so forever.

dave

To add to the relevance issue already mentioned, the fact is that railroads in general are not nearly as visible as they used to be, and thus are not as relevant to impressionable young minds. So many mainlines are gone that it is actually rare to come into contact with trains these days. Think about when you guys grew up, and figure out how many more chances you had to get stuck at a crossing.

I do not think race enters into the equation. Minorities generally attract to the more urban areas, but we all know that many rail lines have been pulled up in our cities and suburbs as well. Latino kids are seeing just as few trains as the whites or blacks or Asians.

It is not that the Latino kids are non interested in mechanical things. Quite the opposite in fact - there are zillions of Latino kids that are into their cars in a big way, and can wield a wrench with the best of the rodders.

--
Will

I couldn't have said it better myself, I don't see to many museums trying to acquire GP38's or SD40's most museumes limit themselfs by there mission statements.

On the other hand... here we are.

And kids are living in cities, that are getting waves of new rail transit.

True, but light transit does not have the variety to stimulate pre-teen minds like the old railroads when we were pre-teens. And when you are a teen, you have more interesting things to look at.

--
Will