How do you get members to come out and volunteer for train crew? It seems that its been down to the last minute for getting crews to run the trains lately. And its not like we run a lot, usually a few times a month on a Friday or Saturday.

But then I hear of places that run 3-4-5 days a week all day on volunteer crews. To them, how do you do it? How do you get a decent size group of motivated and reliable volunteers.

Don't get me wrong we have some great volunteers, we've just been cutting it a little too close for comfort some of the time.

Clay

Can the volunteers bid on the jobs (presuming qualified) well in advance? When the crew dispatcher sees a hole, does he start calling weeks in advance or hoping somebody will come through at the last minute? Can/Do volunteers get "bumped" from previous assigned jobs by senior crew or visiting crew? Are there any benefits (short of working the train) for those who show up? If you are isolated, is there housing of any sort (esp important the further away from major urban areas you are)?

If you can provide a predictable volunteer opportunity that can be planned in advance that might help. If the work environment has issues (12 hours days, limited lunch, inadequate relief crew planning, over bearing management, poor equipment condition/maintenance etc, etc.) the volunteers might not want to show up.

Spoiling your volunteers (buy 'em lunch) might help. Is there a working water cooler on the engine? any assistance toward safety gear? (attach min. work requirement for this). "Attaboys" for those who come out to sit in a hot engine (esp steam) all day? Advancement opportunity?

Crew/volunteer shortages may stem from a variety of circumstances and without knowing your operation, it's really hard to say what will motivate people to work at yours. Managing volunteers is certainly a challenge, but trying to find paid staff to run your railroad at a decent (cheap) rate is probably near impossible.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

As somebody thats been part of an organization that suffers terribly from this very problem (and as a result have run trains with just 2 crew members regulary or cancelled when only 1 guy showed up) I'll add these two cents.

In most cases it's quite simple. -Don't treat the people willing to work for you like crap.- That's it.

If somebody shows up first thing in the morning, sweeps the cars, cleans the seats, tests the PA, spends the morning lifting open rusty windows in a steel car thats already 90 degrees by 10 a.m., and generally does that mysterious thing we all know as actual WORK then let them play with the bells and horns when train time comes around. Unlike the group I used to run with (emphesis on used to) where I did all that almost every weekend for a couple of seasons and 95% of the time when it came time to play I got brushed aside by "senior" members who would literally show up 5 MINUTES before departure and basically tell you to get out of the way.

On top of that I spent all my weekends in the non running season making repairs and doing track work ON MY TIME for the purpose of showing that I was capable of being taught how to do the fun stuff like running the locomotives. After a few seasons of this I found out it didn't matter how hard I worked because the master mechanic another "senior" member had a personal dislike of me and had basically "banned" me from ever being able to become anything more than a carhost.

Of course I was one of the few people left that would actually come out and do any actual work so they didn't tell me that to my face. They just let me keep working away every spare minute of MY free time as long as they could get it. It wasn't until I walked into our station house one day (which has paper thin walls) and overheard a little impromtu closed door meeting of some "senoir" members who were discussing how to get rid of other members they didn't care for including me.

Thus they lost another actually working member that day.

Boilerwash brings up an interesting point. Should seniority be the deciding factor when passing out assignments?

One operation I am familiar with has several newer (as in the last year or so) volunteers whom I would feel more than comfortable with working any train I was riding. This same outfit has some senior members (10-15 years) who aren't suited to be anything beyond a car host.

So who gets priority, the "capable" people or the "senior" perople? Should either get preferential treatment to begin with?

Should senior crew members be able to "bump" junior crew members just because they've been around longer? Wouldn't this negatively impact the recruitment and retention of newer volunteers?

With issues like this, I'm glad I work for an all-paid freight railroad where we can just yell at and/or fire people!

Dave Crosby

I feel seniority could be one of the factors in determining assignments, but not the sole. A minimum requirement of menial tasks like keeping the bathroom clean or pulling and cleaning plugs for a boiler wash should be evenly assigned to all qualified personnel. Another aspect to keep in mind is regularly checking on crews for improved ability or skills and making sure no one is sliding into bad habits and casting duties down to newer members of the crew.

0

Over the last 26 years, the Berkshire Scenic Ry. has operated with a pre-scheduled set of four crews. We operate every Sat., Sun., and federal holiday from Memorial day weekend thru the end of October. We set the crews up around mid-April so that everyone knows what crew they will be on and what day they will be working. You either work every other Saturday or every other Sunday. Makes it real easy for our volunteers to schedule vacations, time away, etc. Volunteers are required to find their own replacement if they can't work. They'll either swap a date with someone from another crew or get someone to fill in. We also have an "extra board" of volunteers who can't be on a regular crew but can fill in. Holidays are assigned to the four crews at the beginning of the season. Extra trains are called in advance and are first-come, first-serve. The system works well but isn't perfect. Once in a while we need to chase folks who can't show up to find a replacement.
I think another facet that has helped over the years is that our crews are provided lunch on days that they either work on a crew or come down to get "dirty". We also have a volunteer dinner at the end of the season where we tell everyone how much their efforts are valued and appreciated.

Tom Delasco

Chief Mechanical Officer

Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum, Inc.

It can help to have a crew caller who is willing to ask politely and repeatedly. Unfortunately, by the time someone has enough seniority to hold the position, he's bunt out from getting too many rejections.

Some very good replies with good advice.

Senor vs. Junior Crew isn't much of a issue. On days that we do have extra crew we break the day up so everyone gets to do stuff. For example if we get two engineers one will run going out and the other will run going back. We put the brakemen on the caboose when we do push-pull ops and they like having company on the caboose when we're pushing. Conductors usually like a extra set of hands to corral the public too.

Free lunch sounds like a possibility of a incentive to add, I know it would make me come out more.

Scheduling might be a another thing that we could change some. We start asking for crew a month or so in advance, maybe start asking sooner for trains that are for sure a go and being more persistent?

One of the problems with seniority is crew members whose eyesight, hearing and/or reflexes "ain't what they used to be". Some of us can admit that it's time to turn the engineer's seat or the controller handle over to other members, but it can be difficult if it involves a long-time active volunteer who has contributed considerable sums of money to the group or museum. A similar situation in the "outside world" involves folks who shouldn't be driving anything larger than a golf cart being unwilling to stop driving large, heavy automobiles and endangering their fellow citizens every time they pull out of the driveway. (for the record, I'm past 70 but still OK behind the wheel, but nothing lasts forever)

OK I have some insider knowledge of SMRS (being on the board) but I'll aim for the general.

- Volunteers need a higher purpose. "OK, I just ran a train back and forth and dealt with surly passengers. Why did I do that?" "Okay, to raise money for the Carbarn Two fund", OK. "To keep this failing place alive", not ok.

- To run on weekdays, you >>NEED<< a good staff of retirees. That means the museum's culture must be the opposite of American culture and must respect and trust elders.

- Leadership cannot be jerks. The thing foremost on management's mind may be getting the job done and all the frustrating impediments to it ... but the thing foremost on a new volunteer's mind is "I'm a VOLUNTEER!"

- Training must be available, relatively soon after a volunteer first shows up. They aren't going to mill around for 3 months waiting for a training. You will lose them to another department or another organization.

- Training must be FUN. If your teacher is boring or stupid or arrogant, people will assume all their days at the museum will be like this. The ideal way to train is 1-on-1, the trainer attuned to the speed of the student. The worst way is some overwrought classroom presentation - you've been in school.

- Training must be easy. Sure - drag volunteers through 30 hours of mandatory training on fixed days they must attend or not operate - and then wonder why you didn't get crew.

People are very achievement oriented. They want to finish the day (or even get to lunch) having scored some clear success. For instance, in computer gaming, they've learned players highly motivated by easily-achieved goals. "Ding" is the jargon for this. If there is some massive and difficult undertaking, there are many intermediate "dings" enroute so the player feels engaged and fulfilled. PEOPLE NEED THIS. Nobody wants to toil endlessly for a far-distant goal without some intermediate wins.

You can use this 'game theory' to design a training program with many intermediate "dings". An example of this is at WRM, which has many small trainings of 1-3 hours. Finishing a class gets your card punched for that skill. This can happen anytime you can get together with a qualified trainer.

- Your volunteers are NOT a profit center. Don't make them feel gold-dug, especially if they aren't rich. If you don't offer a significant discount at your cafeteria, have a sensible reason why not. In this day and age, don't charge for xerox, mail PDFs. In depressed areas where the unemployed are a significant potential labor source, I'd even contemplate reimbursement of gas money -- consistent with IRS regulations of course.

- I like Techshop's model - they use simple, quick training sessions to orient you to nearly every machine tool at the place. They teach each class at least once every 3 weeks. You can get trained on every machine you need inside a month. The handouts are PDF, and are available online if you know where to look.

One problem that has not been discussed is that volunteer crew members are docents who represent the museum to the public. Some people do not have the needed skills in public speaking and probably never will develop them. How do you politely say "no thank you" when one of thse people volunteers to work at a job that requires speaking to the public without offending the volunteer?

Also every museum seems to have at least one eager volunteer who is totally incompetent at everything he tries to do. What do you do wiuth one of these people?

I think that there should be training for people dealing with the public. Car attandents should know about the train & ride pointing out different pionts of intrest along the ride. Safety is #1 in this job & being able to keep the public safe is their main job. Being able to interact with people from all backgrounds is important.
Rail fans want different info than the Sunday school class. ALWAYS LISTEN to what people have to say. Never know what you might learn.
As far as getting people to volunteer I think that has been covered but look at groups like the Boy Scouts or a seinor citizen group.
The Boy Scouts can earn a railroad merit badge & the senior's can have a purpose & feel they are still revelant.
Make sure volunteers get a good discount at the gift shop. Listen to what they have to say about the operation.
I guess a lot depends on the size of your operation & the size of your crew base.
DBH

Getting and KEEPING volunteers involves making sure they feel wanted and are a part of something they believe in. Treat everyone with respect. Treat everyone fairly. Don't start talking behind their back. Tell then and show them that you appreciate their work for you. Have the rules and the proceedure written out and keep them the same for everyone.

Jim

As a former RR museum volunteer I find this an interesting discussion. I did a lot of the “not fun” jobs, like restoring old derelict locomotives to operational condition. I enjoyed this immensely since I’m largely a craftsperson and problem solver.

For example, I modified an old truck radiator core to replace a missing locomotive radiator core. Including all of the soldering steps and creating weldments to replace missing cast iron pieces. I never had much interest in operating anything other than my “project” locomotive. After several years of safely operating this locomotive a NEW operations manager was appointed to replace the mostly informal (but with a totally adequate book of rules class and at least two decades of safe operating history) operations manager.

That by itself was not a huge problem, except that the transition was poorly handled from a people skills perspective (i.e. the historical (several decades and many many contributions (time, money, and smarts)) informal manager found out from the chapter newsletter that he was being replaced by an “official” manager!).

While I was troubled by this “turn” of events I decided to adopt a wait and see attitude.

So the next step was a totally “new” book of rules that was mostly redundant with the “old” book of rules (which we were all current on). OK, I could deal with that. Next came the “crew is called” e-mails telling me I must be at the museum at a certain time in a few days. And the meeting notices that informed me that if I wanted to be part of the new operations group I must show up at the new meeting times (on days that were not necessarily convenient to me, especially since I live about 40 miles away from the museum).

I was even more dismayed when the “new” operations team seemed to be strangely absent during the cold winter months when I (and others) were struggling to drill out corroded brake rigging pins on old locomotives to properly restore the hand brake functionally on a 60 year old locomotives. Strangely enough they were right there when the weather turned and they could “play” with the locomotives.

The next straw was when my “project” locomotive was moved without any consultation with me to make sure it was safe to move (it was an active restoration project at the time, and all of the other volunteers had the sense/courtesy to check with the “project foreman” to be sure it could be moved without any bad side effects). Of course the locomotive was damaged by poor handling and a quick rush to achieve the priority of the day.

I was still somewhat OK with that, stuff happens and the damage was not too severe, and I (in a bout of enthusiasm after restoring a locomotive that had not operated under its own power in many decades) did say it was “operational”.

But the final straw was when the book of rules was modified to state that anything that needs “special handling” needed to be marked as such! Sorry, but in the decade that I volunteered at that museum I was under the mistaken impression that EVERYTHING at a museum needs SPECIAL handling! In my opinion the “special handling” rule is just a “get out of jail free” card for the operations department! If anything goes wrong it’s not their fault because you did not say they shouldn’t do that.

So, that’s my tale and that’s why I have no interest in volunteering in any capacity at that museum. Strangely enough the new operations team was sending out the “please volunteer to help with operations” emails before I “retired” from the museum. I won’t identify the museum because I don’t think it would help anything. I do wish them well.

Cheers, Kevin.