I first got a glimpse of the future on a trolley in Pittsburgh, Pa.

I wanted to see the line out to Library, which I had never seen to that time. As normal for me, I got on the line at South Hills, and rode to the junction to the Library line.

Also getting on at South Hills were about four gabby, giggly teenaged girls. I remember their clothes--hot pinks, brilliant lime greens, day-glow oranges, blazing yellow rain slickers, colors so bright you had to wear sunglasses to look at them, despite the gloomy, rainy day. I remember their talk, too--"chip, chip, chee, chee, chip, chirp, so cute, chip, chirp, cheep, chirp, chee, chee, nice, chirp chip"--that 's one reason we guys call'em chicks!

Got off at the junction, got on the car to Library--and so did those giggly girls. I thought they were going to see someone.

When we got to Library, there wasn't too much to see for me, so it was time to go back. The car I came in on was to lay over, but another was about to head back, and so I got on--and so did those girls. They were joy-riding on the trolley. To this day I can not imagine them doing so on a bus.

I currently live in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, which includes Berkeley, Jefferson, and Morgan Counties; principle towns in these three counties include Harpers Ferry (site of John Brown's raid against an armory in 1859 in an early step at an attempted slave rebellion), Charles Town (site of John Brown's trial and execution, and also the site of a mine union organizers' trial in the 1920s), Martinsburg (site of the spark point of the first national labor strike in 1877, and the location of an 1866 roundhouse that has been under restoration for some years), and Berkeley Springs (once the end of a branch from the B&O that came out of Hancock, W.Va., which is across the Potomac from Hancock, Md., and which is still partially in use, with the stations still standing at both ends, and a manual interlocking tower still in service at Hancock until just a few years ago).

This area has passenger service in the form of Amtrak's Capitol Limited (stops at Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry) and MARC commuter trains (stops at Harpers Ferry, Duffields, and Martinsburg; Duffields has an ancient station from 1839 under slow restoration).

As you can guess for a location just 70 or so miles west of Washington, DC and 100 miles from Baltimore, this area had explosive residential growth until the recent recession. This put a lot of strain on the local road system, and provided an impetus for the HIghway Department to finally execute a long-planned (as far back as the 1960s) expansion of the principle east-west road (W.Va. State Route 9) to a 4-lane road.

This generated a considerable amount of opposition from history and environmentally minded people for the usual reasons. I was also among the people who disputed the wisdom of the Highway Department, but with a different twist.

My argument was that it just plain wouldn't work, and we could do better with rail. Principle exhibit in this was I-270 leading into Washington itself. This road regularly becomes a 12-lane parking lot. I should know, I've had to use the road on my job as an auditor on assignments where the business I had to audit was in West Virginia, but the headquarters or the accountant would be in Gaithersburg or Silver Springs or somewhere similar, and I had plenty of time to count the 12 lanes when I was stuck in traffic. It once took me 4 hours to come from Washington to Martinsburg--so much for progress! (I've long since used that train whenever I could on such an assignment.)

Anyway, I tried to argue for modern rail transit as an alternative in this area. Specifically, I tried to argue for a modern interurban, essentially built to highway standards for grade and curvature, which would allow speeds in excess of 70 mph between towns and an intended 1-hour running time from end to end of a system that would be about 50 miles long. Service was designed around three trips per hour for 15 hours per day (this is a relatively rural location; Berkeley County has about 100,00 people in it, with about 15,000 in Martinsburg). I went to the trouble to put together a cost study based on the best information I could find, which included the Highway Department's typical costs for earthwork for two and four lane roads, and interviews with a local railroad contractor and a couple of people in the State Railroad Authority in Moorefield to help with extimating construction costs.

The results in the cost study surprised me. Largely because you wouldn't be moving so much dirt and rock around, the cost estimate was $60 million less than the highway option; with the relatively light service and the high speed (which would allow the service to be covered with only 4 crews at any one time, actually only 4 people with one-person crews on the cars), the cost savings owuld pay to run the system essentially for free for 10 years.

Members of this forum would have appreciated my choice of equipment--replicas of either Cincinatti & Lake Erie Red Devils or Indianna Railroad High-Speed cars for performance and nostalgia value (we do get a lot of tourists around here).

What did I get for my trouble? I was told I was trying to take people's cars away and bring back the horse and buggy. I was reminded that this was not a Communist or Socialist country. I was told some other things by one of my political representatives (a county commissioner) that I can't repeat on a family-friendly forum. So much for representative government!

Here is where things get interesting. In talking with a lot of people over the years about this, I noticed a pattern. People who like this trolley idea were either under 40 or over 70, those who hated it (including my political misrepresentatives) were between 40 and 70. Not everybody fit this pattern, but most did. This is to be expected; after all only four out of five dentists prefrerred C----- brand toothpaste for its ability to fight cavities! This was almost 20 years ago.

In addition, I knew an Amtrak marketing man who lived here at the time (we were both members of a local civic organization). I brought this up with him, and he told me his marketing department had measured the same pattern nationwide in regard to Amtrak. This was getting interesting!

Things took time. Everyone got older. I began to notice that my age break points were moving up. The new low break point became 50, then 55 or so; I currently estimate it to be at or close to 60. I would presume the upper break point to have moved up as well, to almost or at 90!

This was visible on the train, too. The passengers really did start getting younger and younger. And on the Washington Metro, I got to feeling like an old geezer at 50!

What is the reason for this? I think it has to do with when people "come of age." If you talk to a psychologist, he will tell you that your view of things crystalizes at about 20 or so , give or take a few years. You decide who and what you are, what your world is, and, among other things, you form your guess as to what the future will be like.

My hunch on this is that the old folks, over 70 before and around 90 now, remember what we had, including trains and transit service that was just a part of the landscape, and wish we had it back. The young crowd, under 40 before, and (gasp!) approaching 60 now (and I'm 55!), grew up in a time when cars were a part of the landscape; the youngest ones perhaps do not properly appreciate what a mobility machine a car is because of this familiarity, are environmentally aware, and live in a time when the fun has gone out of driving.

We'll break here to keep the length of the post within bounds.

And now we continue. . .

The group in the middle, between 40 and 70 before, and between 60 and 90 now, would have come of age between about 1950 and the first oil crunch of 1973. The future for them would supposedly look something like "The Jetsons" or perhaps the New York World's Fair of 1964. That future including exotic ideas such as flying cars or self driving cars; it didn't include trains, steam locomotives, or trolley cars. These were supposed to go away like the stagecoach. The net result is that this age group is actually hostile to rail, at least for the most part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6pUMlPBMQA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ccAf82RQ8

Well, we know how some of that worked out, including the cost and availability of cheap gasoline. This, and the hassle of driving today, are two of the reasons I am not only one who is an advocate of rail preservation for history, but of rail transportation as part of the future.

What's interesting is that this age demographic is appearing in other areas, too, including the movement for high-speed rail in California. I have had the chance to make some small contributions in the form of commentary on a website similar to this one in that field, and one of the the first comments back I got was, "Oh my gosh, we see the same thing here!" Most amazing of all, there is evidence that the younger crowd is turning away from cars, at least as a status symbol. This has some people worried.

http://www.ct.gov/teendriving/cwp/view. ... 722&a=3283

http://consumerist.com/2010/07/why-are- ... iving.html

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... irst-car/1

http://www.gazette.com/articles/birthda ... fewer.html

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/fewer-young-drivers

http://nineshift.typepad.com/weblog/200 ... oys_d.html

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=144155

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01339.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/09 ... /fi-rebel9

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26975&page=1

It’s not just here:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Th ... Japan.html

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/16/a-po ... ociety.htm
Early trend?

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/01/04/repo ... ion-in-20/

All of this, I am sorry to say, bodes ill for the Notre Dame project. Those retirement people are just a little too young to wait out until they die, and chances are the management at Notre Dame itself is also old enough to not fight for what they are likely to really need in the not-too-distant future.

Still, I do think we may have an advantgage or two. The apparent recent uptick in posters here who are very young and interested in steam is one example, and one of those posters commented about other "young'uns" who are interested in electric traction as well.

I'll even go so far as to say we might--might--have a change of heart on CSX in regard to steam because of this! Why? A pattern, of course. . .

A key person in Southern Railway's steam program was W. Graham Claytor, Jr. , who was born in 1912, and would have been 20 in 1932, at a time when railroading was still had a great deal of the 19th century about it, and yet also had a great sense of importance, of public service, and a shot at a glorious future, or at least it seemed so at the time. No doubt he we instrumental in the program's earliest years, and helped nurture it in the 1970s. His successor, L. Stanley Crane, was born in 1916, and would have been in his 20s in the late 1930s. Robert B. Claytor, who was so important to steam on successor Norfolk Southern, was born in 1922, would have been 20 in 1942, at the peak of the efforts in WW II and the peak in steam railroading's development. Arnold B NcKinnon, who continued the steam program after Robert Clayor left, was born in 1928, would have been 20 in 1948.

David R. Goode was born in 1941, and would be 20 in 1961--right about the middle of our rail-doubting age group, and he would earn an amazing amount of ire for the discontinuance of the steam program. The current president of Norfolk Southern, Charles "Wick" Moorman, was born in 1953, joined Southern as a student in 1970 when he was 17, and would have been 20 in 1973, as the Southern steam program was beginning to hit its stride--and is undoubtedly a key person in the steam program's recent revival.

As to CSX, its current head, Michael J. Ward, is 59--right on the border of the age demographic we are looking at, a point that suggests an individual could easily go in either direction.

Now, some readers here will really think I'm full of hooey. I will not totally discount that possibility. But I have seen this pattern, as have others. I think there is something to it.

And just maybe, it is something the rail preservation community can exploit in the not-to-distant future.

Basically what you are saying, is that the singularly most selfish and destructive generation America has ever seen, the Baby Boomers, are the Poo-Pooers of rail transit...I think that the collective psychological attitude of these folks (present company excepted) typified by the "me, my, mine" and "Me first", as well as the generally 'boomer feeling that nothing important happened until they showed up, has as much, if not more to do with their hostility toward those things we love.

Interesting parallel-I am Lodgeman, and the membership numbers have been declining from the '70s on, basically when the BB generation came into the age when they would have joined the worlds oldest fraternity that supports childrens hospitals, burn centers, ect. What is going on now is an increase in membership-all Gen x and Gen y. It seems Masonry skipped a generation, and young memn in their 20's and 30's are embracing their Grandads institutions.

So I guess there is hope.

Right on Jim. I see it as all about that post-1950 cultural thing. You know... PROGRESS. The moonshot. Tang. Nuclear power too cheap to meter. TV dinners. Heck... TV. Oh yes - and the private automobile.

How can anyone pass those up? But most require that you give up the old thing. You don't eat a real dinner then a TV dinner. You don't drive to work then take the streetcar. So people got real accustomed to choose one or the other. And that means you get accustomed to rejecting what you don't want.

I would expct the 40-60 generation will have "drank the Tang" as it were.

I basically see three segments likely to support rail:
* Fogeys who have experienced it
* Cityfolk who experience it because it's available to them
* Starry-eyed idealists who see rail as a "great white hope". There will be loads of those on a college campus.

I would start by running trolleys between Notre Dame and the grade-overs at the retirement community. There are no pave-overs there, and it serves two key constituencies: the student body, and the retirees. Give the retirees a free pass, which means they now have a guaranteed seat to Notre Dame games. (remember, retirees are all about free stuff and "I got mine". Market aggressively to the students of both colleges. Both will combine to motivate removal of the grade-overs, which will give the railroad a clear shot for another mile plus, down to the river bridge. The rest will be harder, but do a couple crossings a year, and when you get to a certain point it'll gain momentum.

Heck of a project!

I appreciate the comments, more than I can say, but I have to note that the "anti-rail" or "pro-car" generation does not fit the normal definition of the "baby boomers," who traditionally are those born between 1946 and 1964. Rather, I place this generation's birth dates from about 1930 to about 1953 or so. This would include all the Depression Babies and all the War Babies, and just the first part of the Baby Boomers. Wick Moorman, whom so many of us appreciate for his part in the Norfolk Southern steam revival, is solidly in the Baby Boomer demographic (born in 1953,) and interestingly, is as much on the pro-rail and steam-excursion border as Michael Ward at CSX! And Ross Rowland, whom no one would doubt is big on steam and preservation, was born in 1940 as I recall, which should put him in solidly in the anti-rail, pro-car demographic.

Jim commented about how he thought the Baby Boomers were overly self-centered. I won't say that's untrue, and I'll say I am old-fashioned enough to appreciate his commentary about (danger, off-topic comment approaching) "cultural decay." But I'm not so sure the Baby Boomers were greedier or more self-centered than others before or since; rather, they had greater opportunities to get into more mischief. Remember that "Dennis the Menace" was in some ways born in 1946 or 1947 (he is always about to turn six years old, and the comic strip debuted in 1951). The businessmen who saw teens as having money and started feeding their tastes starting in the early 1950s, and continued to feed their tastes as the boomers got older (i.e., Hugh Heffner) were hardly the boomers themselves, you know!

More than anything, I think this says much about the arbitrary nature of the labels we put on things, and of course we need to recognise we are always dealing with individuals. We also need to remember that we are dealing with a relatively narrow subject area; many of the people who will oppose us (or modern rail transit) are otherwise fine people and citizens, although I am still sore at having been called Communist, and that we are getting the dinosaur road, as I call it.

That Communist business has given me the idea that I should start wearing fatigues, a beret, a beard, and take up smoking cigars; then I can go around and annoy people. "Here, comrade, have a smoke! Best cigars in the world, courtesy of Brother Fidel in Havanna!" That might be fun!

Robert's comments about this being a "Progress!" generation are perhaps more accurate for what we are speaking of here. And I have to give him credit, his identification of the market in this area and the free rides to the Fighting Irish games is a great marketing ploy. I wish I'd thought of it!

On an alternate note, how do we recruit the younger generation away from their current toys, all those electronic devices that are such staus symbols today?

Thank you for the interesting idea........

Looking back as a Boomer myself, i'm seeing a progression of cultural values, not a decay in them. For example: (Greatest Gen) faith in established institutions, (Boomers) loss of faith in corrupt established institutions, (Post Boom) wishing for institutions worth believeing in and starting to create them.

Greatest - fast progressive economy and wide open future. Boomers - why are things getting bad out there? Diminishing resources, ecological problems, etc. Post Boom - Yes We Can find a better way.

We all react to the imperatives that most affect us during our formative years. If we don't want to stagnate, we need to continually question our belief systems and adapt them in view of fundamental changes. It gets a lot more difficult to do so as we get older and temporally further away from the youth-driven technological change and its common vocabulary and way of comprehension.

I grew up with the Beach Boys singing about open highways and perfect waves and endless summers. Gas cost less than oil in my old car back then, and I never worried about getting anywhere on time. Fewer cars were on the road and fewer people on earth competing for resources. We created a system that overstressed this situation and it is unsustainable whether we like it or not, regardless of political persuasion, and unpleasant to deal with regardless. Despite my age, I WISH I could get by without a car to get through my daily life, but in the society in which I live and the infrastructure that was both created by it and created it, I can't. No choice but drive or give up work, and other such activities, and stay home watching Cable.

I keep coming back to the idea of "community" and "neighborhood". Not sure I've got a handle on it yet, but i think there's a structural and cultural synergism that has to do with communication, interdependence, and just getting to know one another and work and travel cooperatively again. We only seem willing to pull together when threatened instead of to make interesting things happen.

I think our younger generations will do a good job of dealing with a lot of this if we get out of their way.

dave

Not really preservation oriented, more in the line of restoring something that wasn't preserved: Last year I attended a rally at Citrus College in Azusa (Southern California) building support for the Gold Line Foothill Extension, a light-rail project that will extend from East Pasadena to Azusa. The historic aspect of this line is that it will parallel the route of the Pacific Electric Monrovia-Glendora Line through Azusa (the PE was about a block north). The PE abandoned passenger service here in 1951, and over the years much of the right of way has been built upon with residential and freeway construction. Getting back to the rally, here were dozens of college students, mostly children of car-centric California, gathered to promote a railway project. When I showed up, some of them invited me to help make posters, even though I was old enough to be their grandfather. I even came up with a slogan: It's shovel-ready! Let's dig it! which was highly approved. These young people are aware--$3.00 a gallon gasoline won't be around forever, and the time to build a replacement is now!

"All Aboard, for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuuuu-ca-mon-gaaa"

Sorry, sorry, I couldn't help myself. . .

http://www.tvacres.com/trains_azusa.htm

A few weeks ago, we had two bus loads of 5th graders through our facility. I handled the outdoor segments and showed them our rolling stock collection and a brief explanation of each including the year they were built. Here's where it gets interesting. Our Tidewater tank car has "Built 6-23" on the sill. I asked all four groups if anyone could tell me what that meant. Not one kid could answer the question. I asked how many kids had a train set. Two said they had them when the "were younger!" As the tour progressed, I took them by our N6b chassis that is covered with a tarp held own by milk jugs filled with water. At least one kid in every group asked what the jugs were for?

Conclusion? As far as a many 12 year olds are concerned, there is no history, probably why they can't get interested in history class in school. Now we often have families through the facility with kids of all ages. Most of the time, their kids are there because they are interested in trains, not history. That will come later if they stick with the love of trains as it did with most of us here. It feels good when you talk to a little kid and he or she knows what a caboose, box car, etc. is. In time they will come to tell one style from another. These are the kids that will someday replace us in the preservation field.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Nah, it's always hard. I have done very intense study of personal transformation. To be blunt, people don't. It's much harder than it seems. People are COMPLETELY run by stories they don't even realize they have, that they have reinforced in their own thinking for a lifetime. These stories can be as twisted as "I cannot be successful because my parents and grandparents spent their lives on welfare, and to exceed my parents would disrespect them and family comes first." Everyone has stories like that which absolutely run their lives. And simply getting people to observe and notice what their own stories are is a herculean undertaking requiring one to absolutely conquer ego. Ever try to conquer ego?

Usually the motivation is that something is Just Not Working in your life. But even that is usually not enough. We ontologists like the show "Rescue Me". The lead character has enormous personal power, but steadfastly never uses it for self-awareness, with the direct result that he never gets what he wants. A favorite line (spoken to our antihero): "Rock bottom just doesn't exist for you, does it?"

Ah, but look at me... talking shop.


People (especially gearheads) can do many things to challenge the status quo. Build an electric car. Buy a Chevy Volt (supporting US industry as a bonus). Get a diesel and convert it to fry oil. Move to a transit city. Move to a transit enclave of your city. Telecommute. 1000 ways.

You said it better than I could, Jim.

Interesting, now we're getting some heavy philosophers here . . .

Actually, I think it's neat; it says we have some people of considerable intelligence in this field, perhaps much higher than average, but we have always known that. :-)

Challenging the status quo, though, can be terribly difficult if not dangerous. Recall the insults I got for a transit proposal (which, when you think about it, is a form of prejudice based on age). And this is not the only thing I've attempted and failed miserably at. A couple of others have included a proposal for a television series based on the adventures of railroaders on the job (spent two years learning to write for this, wrote 12 episodes and had basic research done for another 30 or so, but couldn't sell it to save my soul), and I couldn't get anywhere with a proposal somewhat similar to Ross Rowland's Greenbrier Express.

My proposal was more on the lines of what I would call the Class I Tourist Railroad concept; mainline steam taking people from traffic centers, such as a large city like Washington, to multiple tourist destinations like Harpers Ferry and Martinsburg (this was when that town had a large outlet mall, and in fact it helped sponsor some diesel excursions back then), or another operation that was essentially an extended and regularly scheduled New River Train taking people to Hawks Nest State Park, Kanawha Falls State Park, Grandview State Park, Pipestem State Park (the latter two off line, with a bus connection) Blenko Glass in Milton, and of course White Sulphur Springs and the Greenbriar. The logic behind this was that most main line excursions lost money at least partially because they were "events," in many ways similar to that of a circus (you are constantly having to pick up and move to the next venue, with all the expenses and trouble that brings). This is in direct contrast to what a railroad normally does, which is to act as a transportation factory, in essence the mass-production concept of making a lot of similar if not identical items--in this case, steam trips, and isn't that what a Strasburg or a Durango & Silverton does? In fact, the closest thing operationally to what I had in mind is the Cumbres & Toltec; only differences are in length of trip, track gauge, and speed, and in my case, multiple possible destinations, strung together like beads on a pair of steel strings.

Was the problem a lack of a voice of authority, a voice of persuasion on my part, or a prejudice that could not be overcome? Was it both of those, or even something else entirely? Was I born in the wrong time? Many people have felt that, and I bet this audience feels it more strongly than most, but I've had at least two people tell me that from the outside! (Oh, and my wife tells me that I have lied about my age; she says I am not really 55, but 155, because only someone that old would know some of the things I do!) In any event, it has all been very frustrating. In fact, this and having been burned out on my job for years, makes that idea of staying home with cable a good idea if I could afford it--except I might use the time to finally do something with that model railroad I've been planning all this time. . .

It's enough to make one consider taking up drinking for medicinal purposes. . . :-)

The original idea of this post was to point out that we do have hope for a new generation of preservationists, as was brought out in the "Young'uns" thread. Our advantage may be that we are facing less of the prejudice mentioned above. Jim Templin's comments about his Masonic lodge and Bob Davis's story about the kids who want to see trolleys come back in modern form also speak to this. At the same time, our success is not guarenteed (boy, do I know something about that!). We still have to somehow compete against the greater (and some would say toxic) culture of our time. One advantage--we do not need to take over the whole culture. All we have to do is sell enough tickets.

Oh well, enough of me, at least for now. . .

[quote="robertmacdowell And simply getting people to observe and notice what their own stories are is a herculean undertaking requiring one to absolutely conquer ego. Ever try to conquer ego?

I try hard to do so many times every day - whenever it becomes obvious that i need to take another look from another direction at something.

The lead character has enormous personal power, but steadfastly never uses it for self-awareness, with the direct result that he never gets what he wants.[/quote]

The problem with introspection is that if you spend a lot of time doing it you don't get much else done....and society does not reward getting not much else done. Besides, none of us are so interesting as to make introspection as entertaining as looking at other peoples lives.

dave

Whenever I see comment about the decline in interest in preservation among young people I am reminded of the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Middlebury, Connecticut. In several visits there, we met a number of people who had family memberships and brought their children to spend the day at the museum, making use of the superbly equipped childrens' play areas that are designed around trucking toys and themes. I suspect that as they grow older their children will look back very fondly on their time at that museum and reflect on it as they watch trucks roll by on the highways. Getting young people's attention requires planning and building facilities specifically directed to that goal, and integrating them smoothly into the theme and presentation at the museum. It is an area where many railroad museums are unfortunately lacking in vision.

The Golden Age of Trucking Museum is also memorable for its attention to the needs of older visitors, including the strategic placement of comfortable seating in the main display area so that if you get tired of walking around the building, you can sit down in a living room style chair and relax. Too many museums are an obstacle course and an endurance test, designed to herd you through the aisles as quickly as possible with no provision for you to sit and relax and view the displays. A lot of railroad museums rely heavily on older patrons for donations and support, but make relatively little provision to improve the access for them in the display areas.

And of course the other interesting feature of the Golden Age of Trucking Museum, those enormous parking spaces for (buses?)...(motorhomes?). Well yes they work for that but actually, they are parking spaces for eighteen wheelers. If you are going to have a truck museum, doesn't it make some sense to cater to the needs of professional truckers. And we have seen a lot of them there, visiting with their rigs while waiting for the next loading. And the museum is designed to allow them to enter and exit the parking lot easily and safely.

There are lots of great ideas out there in other museums, you just have to look around a little.

Lets see, how many times have we had this discussion now.....?

PC