Okay, so at the last minute I have a potential for a business trip to central Pennsylvania sometime this week. I can do it tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the NRHS and CP are running their only real "rare mileage" trip of the NRHS Convention, the "Susquehanna Limited" from Scranton to Sunbury-ish and return, which has been sold out for some time. It's basically an impossible-to-chase run, but I know of two possible great photo locations from public properties.

Just try to find any information on the excursion times. Go ahead, try.

Dig deeply enough at the Convention website, and you'll find this, which is one philosophical approach to such a convention:

"Q: I’m not attending the convention per say, just planning to chase the individual trips, can you give me more information like motive power, times, routes and so on?
A: No. Endless Mountain Rails is being operated for the benefit of its guests. Since we will endeavor to provide the best possible experience for them, we will not be assisting those who have not paid to take part."

Now, there's another philosophical approach purportedly out there: That the NRHS supposedly exists, in part, to educate the public about the history and hobby of railroading. That, in other words, they might just want to share with the public the fact that they exist, that they do cool things like run excursions, and maybe, hey, you could take Johnny trackside on Tuesday or Thursday or whenever when an honest-to-goodness passenger train will be running through town for the first time in decades, so he can wave at the real thing instead of just watching "Thomas the Tank Engine."

The Scranton Times-Tribune has a stock event listing for the NRHS Convention, referring all to the Convention website. Where, of course, you'll find out that you can't come without ponying up $50, oh, and all the events except a couple trolley runs and one night photo are sold out, anyway.

I'm reminded of the time in 2005 that I offered pre-Convention assistance to the Washington D.C. Chapter NRHS, which was planning/running the 2005 convention in Baltimore (the one sharply reduced by a roundhouse collapse and the cancellation of the Fair of the Iron Horse). I offered photography, already-written travelogue information, and more--free of charge, no obligation to give me a Convention pass. They refused any consideration of the material unless I joined the DC Chapter first--$50 or so atop my concurrent membership in two other chapters. "Liability" reasons, of course.

And we wonder where the new members are.................

When next year's membership renewal comes in, I'm seriously going to have to reconsider--even though I'm just shy of a 25-Year pin.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV
1st Vice President, Baltimore Chapter NRHS
[views expressed are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of other Baltimore Chapter officers or members--and the fact that I feel it necessary to add this disclaimer is one more nail.....]

The 2005 example cited is not unusual.

The "request" for people to volunteer their time or assist by presenting clinics that is qualified by the "requirement" that they join the organization requesting their help and pay a registration fee to be present at that group's convention or event, is becoming an increasingly common practice in a number of organizations. For people who are authors, photographers, or skilled modelers, and who get multiple requests each year, that can amount to a significant additional expense above and beyond their travel and use of their personal vacation time to insure their availability for midweek events. It has been a subject of frequent discussion among the "program presenter" community the last few years, and the general consensus has been that charity has its limits when people are trying to "railroad" you (pun intended).

PC

I can understand, on one hand (to play devil's advocate) why to keep some of the privacy here. A lot of railfans would love to chase these events, and I'm sure the information is out there on the web about when these trains leave, routes they take, etc. But have the NRHS (of which I used to be a member in my late teens) give this information away freely, then they may be thinking that it would take away from their ridership and money that they get from these excursions. Keep it a secret, this way you would have to pay to just ride and give up on the thought of chasing. If you don't know what time the train leaves beforehand, why bother to chase it? Of course people would find out regardless.

But I also agree, let people know what times the trains leave, the routes the train is taking, etc. and let people decide for themselves whether they want to spend the money and ride, or just chase, and increase awareness on their own part about trains, railroading, these excursions, and the NRHS in general. What's better, keeping the departure times a secret, and getting money from selling tickets, or advertising the route, put the info out, having more people chase/watch the train, be interested in the NRHS, and get more memberships this way?

Sorry if my post rambles and is confusing. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed.

I can relate a similar experience. I attended a David Goodheart photo special on the Ohio Central on October 11, 2003 using ex-GTW 4-8-4 6325. For this trip, the 6325 had its GTW lettering attached to the tender. I am told (I can not verify this myself as myself and the other photographers were riding in a passenger train pulled by their F units now owned by the Canadian Pacific) that the lettering was removed between photo locations so that the engine would appear as Ohio Central 6325 to the general public.

With that said I can understand on certain occasions such discretion being used, but at times can come across as arrogance and paranoia. It's not like the train is carrying a politician that needs to be kept a closely guarded secret by the Secret Service. On the other hand, that trip wasn't cheap ($200) and I suppose the photographers would have felt what was the point of riding the train if they could just catch some shots by chasing.

While the NRHS has been improving and catching up on the backlog of their Bulletins in the last couple of years, it is still obvious that their membership is languishing but as far as solutions I don't know how to fix. Having lived in the southeast for my entire life, I doubt we will see another convention anytime soon in the region (the last being Chattanooga in 2007) as there just aren't that many places suitable for filling an itinerary with mainline excursions (steam or diesel powered) not being an option other than the few Amtrak excursions allowed by NS and CSX on occasion (New River Train, trips out of Roanoke, Va. and Spencer, NC). I'd love to see another Roanoke convention (having been a host city in 1957, 1977 and 1987) but other than trips to the VMT and O. Winston Link museum there are no tourist railroads within a reasonable driving distance that I am aware of, but then again I don't know how a Roanoke convention could possibly live up to any of the previously mentioned conventions without the presence of large active mainline steam (N&W steam in 1957, SR 4501 and T&P 610 in 1977 and N&W 611 and 1218 in 1987).

That is not to suggest that anything other than steam locomotives are not historic or would draw people to attend, but it certainly helps. It has been obvious over the past 16 years that at least on the east coast, NRHS conventions have changed with their focus being on more museums and tourist railways than mainline excursions. At least the west coast still has the UP steam program (although they don't run very many public excursions anymore), Santa Fe 3751, Southern Pacific 4449, SP&S 700 and the upper midwest has Milwaukee Road 261. I know that the Charlotte, NC convention of 1996 was severely impacted by the loss of the NS steam program not quite 2 years before and then a couple of Amtrak trips on CSX were cancelled at the last minute. I don't know that the Piedmont Carolinas Chapter even broke even financially, but then again the last NS steam program convention of 1994 I read that attendance was lower than expected possibly due to some of the ticket prices so that shows that steam won't necessarily make the event a success.

While I respect everyone in the rail preservation field, at the past few visits to NRHS meetings I can't help but notice a lack of people under a certain age and that has been addressed here before so there's no point in rehashing that, but my point is there are a number of factors that need to be addressed in how to make the NRHS relevant in the 21st century and attract new members.

Steven Ashley
Spartanburg, SC

I repeat: They.......... Sold........... Out.

Every trip except the extra "trolley to the ball game" they threw in at the last minute for this evening.



As I did.

On other occasions, "Train Chaser Packages" have sometimes been sold.

If the presenter has to join and pay to provide the entertainment, what about the movers and riggers he must pay to help carry the equipment and exhibits? I don't mean his groupies, family, and friends who want free admission, but help that really is needed because the show and its electronics are too much for one person to handle.

I also belonged to the local NRHS chapter when I was younger and poorer. My main interest was, and still is, to get to ride and run trains like the chapters' officers do. Lack of money forced me to concentrate what donations I could make on places where I had a chance of doing that. Many years later, I now have more money and time to donate, but it's still concentrated on a few recipients.

For the record, this is completely fine with me. Another trip operator took to putting orange traffic cones on the pilot of the engine between photo stops, and such hijinks as a sports-team-emblem flag fluttering from the smokebox. He told me, "I can't do anything about the public seeing this train. All I can do is see to it that freeloaders can't get a contest-winning or magazine-cover photo out of it." They paid for an experience above and beyond what anyone else can see, experience, and photograph multiple times a year/week/day.

Photography, schmotography.

What I'm talking about is bringing a different railroad interaction to the public on a one-off, special occasion. Give the public something to care about and say "hey, cool!" to balance out the negatives of trains tying up road crossings, blowing horns at 2 in the morning, and carrying hazardous materials. Indirectly "market" Steamtown, the NRHS, and the D&H/CP (in this particular case), and passenger trains and the railroad industry in general, by putting on a positive public face.

Tailsigns on passenger trains used to be a form of marketing for the railroad. I wonder if today's train will have a tailsign, and what it will be promoting. Or will it just be a photo prop for a select few?

The CRHS had discussed a number of these issues back before the Conrail Express last fall (our excursion).

Our final decision had been, once it sold out (which it did), to publicize as much info about the route as possible, and even post updates about where we were on Twitter.

Why? Because the PR value was priceless. It's one thing to post videos and photos of your own event, but to have a legion of foaming followers do so is even better. That plan actually ended up falling apart though, because despite our best intentions, we just didn't have the time to get the comprehensive guide to chasing it together for folks.

And then the weather was miserable, so that fell apart on the day of too.

Of course, the plan might've been different if we were going into the trip with 40% occupancy...

Following up on the posting by Jim, from what I can see, the qualification of having to to "join and register" to present a clinic or a program is often resulting in potential presenters just saying "NO" when asked. There was an event in my area a while back where the organizers decided to impose such a restriction after they had already contacted people to put on programs and issued a tentative list of events. All of a sudden a new revised list got issued, because some people who would already have traveled a long way to help them out just told them to take a hike when told about all the additional expense.

This is just more bad news at a time when production of new programs and clinics has dropped off a lot due to the change to digital media and the aging population of presenters. Each month now the newsletters from the local organizations have requests for more people to do programs. The emergency alternative seems to be commercial videotape viewing, and that isn't going to keep interest in the hobby going for very long.

Hope that the back and forth between topics is not too distracting, but the issues being discussed here are pretty significant to the future of the railroad enthusiast hobby and the preservation industry.

PC

In an era when a presenter can, if he so chooses, burn a CD or DVD with a complete photo-and-graphics presentation ready to show on any laptop-and-projector combo and mail it to a group for presentation--deciding for himself whether or not to charge for the content or service, and how much--the stuff upon which Brother Cook is commenting is the equivalent of watching two dinosaurs fighting to the death while the giant meteor/comet blazes overhead towards the atmosphere of the planet.

The best presentation we've ever had at our NRHS chapter was a CD of three separate multimedia programs sent to us by a noted photographer. Gratis.

I think the point Mr. Cook is getting at is that it isn't good for a group's public outreach if you require those presenting at your meeting/convention to also join the organization. Using Mr. Mitchell's example, it would be like the group charging the photographer for the privilege of sending in his free presentation.

While you can literally "mail it in" in today's digital world, it's hard to beat having the knowledgable person right there, live, to answer questions. Maybe the audience asks good questions that lead to the all-dreaded topic drift. A CD can't make those adjustments.

People like Mr. Cook have enormous volumes of information to share with us. The fact that people like him are willing to travel at all, usually at their own expense to share that information is very generous. Don't slap down their generousness by then requiring them to pay money to present.

Exactly. The way you handle this, if you have class, is you GIVE the presenter a membership in your organization. At least for a year.

Dude! You jinxed the trip! Reports on the D-L Yahoo group state that at around 6am the train was pulling across the south leg of the wye at bridge 60 and the rail rolled under the second unit and derailed. No one was hurt and the passenger cars were pulled back to the station. Engine was rerailed and departure is now scheduled for noon.

I'm of the minority who still values meeting the famous presenter in person. Also, if he has the speaking skill, I value live narration of the audio-visual presentation over hearing the presenter's pre-recorded words. A good presenter can tailor his narration to the particular audience, even if the rest of the show is engraved on a disc.
Not all chapters have converted their Magic Lanterns to handle Compact Discs. And some presenters are using DVDs! It can still be necessary for the presenter to bring his own special equipment, even if he is now too elderly and frail to carry it. Some might even bring interesting artifacts and exhibits, instead of just projecting their images on the screen.
Since I'm not a famous Chapter Officer, I can go with the idea of giving a free membership and thinking that the famous presenter is now a fellow member!
However, to each their own.

Hey, I told the D-L crews that e-mailed me with what info they had to "have a boring, uneventful, unexciting day, if you know what I mean"!