I’m 60 now, grew up on the East side of Milwaukee and always begged my parents to watch trains. My toy train was steam but by about 1959 when I had the chance to watch I can only remember diesels on the Milwaukee and CNW. I remember the sound of steam shovels and pile drivers, also saw a few stationary steam fed teakettles at the peppermills up north, but that’s it.
When we run steam at the IRM it increases our attendance and I do notice a lot more white hair.

I'm a little over 70 now and well remember steam in everyday service. My Dad was an engineer on the Frisco and as soon as I was old enough to nag, I would be taken trackside, usually in Shrewsbury or Webster Groves, MO to watch Dad "come up the hill" out of Lindenwood yards. I was lucky to have ridden with him several times and once got to do some running and switching with a 4100 class mike. I was wound up for days after that one. He always loved steam and was a consumate story teller about steam and the Frisco.
We lived about a block and a half from the MP main line to KC and I spent several summers on the platform at Maplewood,MO watching mikes, mountains northerns and 2-10-2 helpers run at Kirkwood Hill. From my bedroom window, I could hear the Frisco leaving the yards and battling the hill, and the 2-8-0s kicking cars in the yards. I could hear the MP on Kirkwood HIll very well at night.
A lot of times if Dad was home on a Sunday, we would drive over across the river to E. St. Louis,IL and visit roundhouses like the IC, NYC, WAB and Burlington. One time Dad talked a NKP hostler at Madison into letting me run a 2-8-4 from the service area onto the turntable, and then into the roundhouse.
Last steam I saw was on the IC in southern IL.
And you wonder why I got involved with the 1522?
Don Wirth (See, I put my name in here)

I guess I am to preoccupied with my own interests that I didn't see the memo. I didn't realize that there was such a urgent need within the steam community to reach out to the "younger generations" that I fall into. My coworkers at the two railroads I have worked for didn't get the memo either. Nor did any of the other individuals at the numerous organizations I have donated time too. The other organizations I have come into contact had quite a few younger guys and girls involved. In fact I don't know of more than a half dozen people who work with steam that were around when steam was regularly operating across North America.

I don't really see the lack of new blood as a problem of epidemic proportions in railway preservation. I think if there are issues at some organizations then they need to be dealt with on a one on one basis. I don't think a cookie cutter answer would fit well for everyone. I think there are other issues that should be better dealt with on a national level.

Dave Sutter

First off, I am one of the younger generation of railway preservationists, I'll be 27 this year, and will have been active in preservation and operations for 14 years.

The main thing that needs to be remembered is that all memories fade because there is a maximum time that living memory can stretch. The human link is essentially severed on the 19th century, a handful remain from 1900, the living participants in WWI can be counted on a hand. Each year that passes will fade memories, and knowledge and experience will vanish forever. My grandfather was born in 1913 and died in 2006. There is so much more I should have asked, but I didn't. He is gone, but I remember his stories, I have pictures he took, and furniture he built. The man is gone, but his memories and stories are not completely lost, just nit everything was saved or preserved, but I have enough to remember him and get the feeling of who he was. The railroads are the exact same. Not everything was saved of preserved, but enough remains to capture the essence of the eras. Thousands of pieces of equipment from the earliest days to the modern era are available to us all. Millions of books and documents, buildings, photos, films, oral histories, and living links are still with us.

The trains and knowledge we have saved sets the guidelines for an era that is gone forever. It isn't coming back. By focusing on a specific period of time, we can sometimes devalue the history we so cherish. So these engines aren't hauling freight on the mainline, they're hauling visitors on a heritage line, it's just another aspect of history.

We live in a time that has the Internet, space exploration, genetic engineering, and daily technological advances that would have seemed the realm of fantasy even a decade ago. Yet for all this, people will cross the globe to see and experience a machine that was designed to move coal over 200 years ago, and has intrigued and delighted humanity ever since. I don't think the golden days of rail preservation are over at all, I think they're just getting started.

Taylor

How fragile we are:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 06538.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... eran_N.htm

In the early 1950's, sometime before May 1952, I remember riding a train from Philadelphia to Pottsville on the Reading, and as we left the train, we walked by a steam engine on the head end. I remember riding through Tamaqua in the family car on Sunday afternoons and seeing a line-up of engines on the track parallel to the street. Once in a great while, a light engine would pass my grandmother's farm. Then I was out of the country, from 1954-1960, so I missed whatever happened. When I got back here, the Reading Iron Horse Rambles had just started, and I rode my bike to the location of a "Speed Picture Stop," the Reading's name for a runby. I rode my first Ramble on July 16, 1961, just a few days after my 14th birthday. In 1963, I had my first "real" experience with in-service steam when I was able to visit the Wanamie Colliery near Wilkes-Barre for the first time. The next year, I had my first cab ride in Carroll Park & Western Climax No. 3. I saw the fireless 0-6-0's at Shamokin Dam a number of times. I'll be 64 in July.

For reference, a couple of similar earlier discussions:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29793&hilit=young%27uns

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29906&p=145589&hilit=young%27uns#p145589

Memories are indeed fading, but why does that have to mean doom?

For me, the most interesting history and the most interesting technology always seemed to be before my time, and I am old enough to remember regular main line steam. Undoubtedly having stories from parents and the only grandfather I ever knew had an influence on my interests. An interest in history, reading and wondering about how things evolved both locally and more globally, help too.

The true railroad glory days were before my time.

Glen Brewer
Railroad Glory Days
http://railroadgloydays.com

One thing that hasn't been mentioned.

The memories are fading, but they have been written down in countless books and magazines and other media. As a young boy, I read countless books on trains and railroading. Stories about Casey Jones, John Henry and Kate Shelley and the narrow gauge lines etc. Some were real, others were fiction, many were a bit of both. Some were great and full of facts, others were so hokey that even a young boy could tell there was lots of tall tales in there. That's what fueled my interest and taught me about railroading.

Even back then, there was nobody around to tell me about how they hung the Chinese in baskets on the side of a cliff to build the transcontinental railroad. (Nor was there anyone to tell me "Uh, they didn't actually do that..."). But the books and movies and train songs managed to interest and inspire me.

There's no reason they couldn't do the same for today's kids as well.

The same applies for the art and science of caring for and feeding the iron horse. Yes, most of the fellows who did that in regular service are gone. But there's lots of books out there that still hold the knowledge.

I was born 12 years too late to even see the 0-8-0s at Northwestern Steel & Wire, but for some reason I have a deep love for steam locomotives. As far as I know, there were no railroaders in my family, and I didn't grow up beside a tourist railroad (or any railroad, for that matter). I can't remember when this interest started, but according to my parents I watched Thomas because of my interest, not the other way around. I've loved steam ever since, and have been a volunteer at the Boone & Scenic Valley for 5 years now. Interestingly, a friend of mine I met over a guitar forum is a year younger, and has a similar story. No real exposure to steam, but somehow developed a love for it. So I feel there's hope for the future of steam preservation. I see hundreds of families every week at Boone, and I have yet to see a kid that's not impressed by 8419. Virtually every kid goes through a train phase; most grow out of it, but for a few it sticks. I don't see that changing any time soon.

Joe Wallace

Joe,

Steam is just plain cool, at least to some folks, and you don't have to have a family history of it to get hooked. That's why I enjoyed working the Thomas events a few years ago. Sure, most of the kids were having the same "Hey, this is cool!" reaction they'd have on a pony ride or visit to the circus, but there were always a few kids that you could tell were really hooked. I recall one young boy who came out every single day to see Thomas. He had a better engineer's outfit on than I did, and I was Thomas' engineer. His mom told me how hooked he was on trains and how he really wanted to build a great big model of Thomas. I expect he'll be back. :)

The same is true of a lot of hobbys. My son enjoys airplanes and he has a career in the Air Force. Where did that come from? Not a clue! He's a train fan too, but he also loves planes. I can tell a 747 from a B-52 on a good day, but my total lifetime "stick time" in flying machines is probably less than 8 hours, done mostly in 10 or 15 minute intervals of "Here, you wanna try flying for a bit?" or "See if you can keep the wings level while I take a look at this chart..." Not exactly a strong family history of aviation. ;)

Reading the flying magazines he enjoys, it's common to see stories of "I rode my bike down to the airfield one day, a local pilot said 'Wanna go for a ride, kid?' and I was hooked for life!" (Obviously most of these are older pilots, as today he'd probably have the TSA and FAA after him for having un-authorized personnel in the plane and the family would have him turned in as a stalker or worse...)

It's our job, in the preservation movement, to create new memories which will keep steam preservation relevant.

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario

I was born in 1967 and have never seen steam in commercial operation- mainline or industrial. I count myself as a railfan, a preservationist, a diesel fan and a steam nut. But the key to it is the term railfan- it is all encompassing.

As a side note, many times over the years I have found myself at preservation sites and the common theme from many volunteers when stricking up a conversation has been to denigrate my interest in saving diesels by immediately referring to them as diseasels. They all seem to think this is funny and then lament the fact that they can't get new volunteers. Don't chase away the keen ones!!!

Wes