While this type of comment (or whine, take your choice) doesn't appear often in this forum, it does show up now and then.

The authors perceive some needed task and asks "Why don't THEY....?" and goes on to explain why someone else should expend considerable time and money to accomplish whatever the author wants done.

As correctly noted in another thread, the proper response to any such comment is "Why don't YOU....." perform the required act or expenditure?

That would give the person with the desire a feeling of accomplishment, and the ability to post a message explaining how they accomplished the objective. It would save the rest of us from reading yet another "Why don't THEY....?" whine......

Who wants the soapbox next?.......

I'll step up.

I've often said that some people are pretty good at telling other museums and organizations how to manage their collections or expend their resources. Of course, many of these armchair volunteers have no real experience in preservation. One person I know likes to call one particular subset of people "Internet volunteers."

Thank you Brother David. I shall pass the box back to you.

Of course, it also happens internally... with members dissatisfied with board or committee decisions allocating resources...

Much of our collective attraction to old trains or machines is at least in part irrational, at least at a group level (we probably can explain some experience in our personal life that explains why we like a particular locomotive or railroad) So, it is hard to focus group efforts well or continually.

Such is the way of the volunteer based/managed/funded museum.

Randy

We're all too familiar with museum members who show up twice a year to tell us what we are doing wrong.

My favorite is still; "I have been a Model Railroader for 35 years, you don't do that to a steam locomotive."

We were adjusting a live hot steam locomotive with a sledge hammer at the time. ;-)


-Hudson

How about the people who complain that "You should have saved some locomotive or car" when the museum already has a duplicate or near duplicate. My favorite example is the suggestion that the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum should have saved an example of every one of the six orders of Pittsburgh air-electric PCC cars. We have 3 such cars, of which one is unlikley to be kept.

Quoted for truth.

It’s ALL forms of preservation. A friend of mine who’s well known in historical architectural circles tell me the same kinds of stories when he’s working on a building. I own a WW2 Jeep which I display at events (often when I’m in a WW2 uniform) and hardly a show goes by without someone telling me why my Jeep shouldn’t have something or other on it. In fact, everything on it is quite correct. Some people have found out that my Jeep was used by the Navy in WW2 but is now painted as an Army Jeep (hey, I was an Army officer in real life, no way it’s going to be USN marked).
With the more annoying ones, my standard response is to look around in all directions, scratch my head and then ask, “Really, where’s YOUR Jeep so you can show me how it’s done?” I have yet to encounter someone with that approach who either has one at all or brought one with him. I’ve also said, “Well, you can do that with your own Jeep any time you want.”

Ah yes. For years I used to say "I wish someone would restore one of the Frisco 1500s. I'd help if I could". Spent 18 years living up to my words.

Yep. Spent close to 30 of the past 40 years restoring (and re-restoring due to outside storage) N&W "# Blankety-Blank"..... I try to be cordial to anyone who shows an interest, but I save my respect for those who earn it with their sweat.

I think the best was the guy who, after my wife showed him photos of our caboose before it was repainted (i.e. in the last paint that SP put on it), pounded his fist on the table and declared, "that's wrong, it shouldn't be painted that way... that's not correct."

What I've learned is that the majority of people who speak first and listen later are the self proclaimed experts. They're legends in their own minds. Horray for them.

Barking dogs don't bite, biting dogs don't bark.

A few years ago I got a phone call from a thoroughly irate railfan, demanding that I "immediately" remove a photo that I had taken from http://www.steamlocomotive.info. Bear in mind that this was my own photograph. The ranting caller said that I had to remove it immediately because "the locomotive was NEVER painted that way!!"

I paused for a moment or two, and said, "What part of photograph do you find confusing?" And hung up.

After we saved our N7E caboose, we got a call from someone claiming to be from the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society demanding that we turn the car over to them as it was an EL caboose. I wish I could remember the guy's name. It went something like this:

*ring......ring...*
Us: Hello?
Them: Yes, I'm from the ELHS. Is this the group that took the caboose from Sands Point, Long Island?
Us: Yes, it is.
Them: Well, we'd like you to arrange transfer of he car back to us.
Us: ....Umm....Why?
Them: Its an EL caboose and therefore it's ours.
Us: As we have a letter of donation from the former owner, I would say your mistaken.
Them: But it's EL and we're the ELHS! It should go to us for preservation!
Us: Well, it's also Conrail, and no, you can't have it.
Them: But we're it's rightful own....
*click*
*ring.....ring....*
Us: Hello?
Them: DON'T YOU HANG UP ON ME! WE -DEMAND- YOU GIVE US OUR CABOOSE!
Us: Nope. Please don't call again *click*

While I highly doubt this came from anyone at the ELHS who was of any importance, be aware that sometimes the 'Why don't we' crowd can get itself in trouble.

Hope everyone here had a smile about it and no hard feelings to anyone over at ELHS (except maybe the guy who called).

Russ

I won’t reveal places, names or dates, but I was at a private home that had once been a RR station. From the outside, it looked just like it did in the 30s and the owners did an incredible job at external preservation. Inside, other than the waiting room you’d think you were in any normal home. One day I was visiting the owners when someone from a ‘preservation’ group came over unannounced. On the end sill of the house was a repro of the original station sign (the original signs were in the one ‘display’ room inside but you wouldn’t know that standing on the ground). This nut ball started to pull out a ladder and put it next to house and broke out a tool box! This guy was going to pry the sign off the building! We heard the noise and went outside. It took me a minute to convince the owner that this was NOT a practical joke I’d up and that I didn’t know this guy from Adam. The ‘preservation’ guy said he was there to ‘preserve’ one of the few existing RR station signs from this particular line. The owner gave him some choice words about personal ownership and how he was ‘preserving’ the building just fine on his own, thank you very much. The ‘preservation’ guy was adamant, he represented an organization that preserved such things and they were entitled to it. The owner, realizing the sign would likely disappear later anyway, pushed the guy off the ladder, ripped the sign from the wall with his bare hands, carried it down them proceeded to beat it with a landscaping brick until it was a pile of kindling. The ‘preservation’ guy just stood there, dumbfounded. The owner then declared (again in colorful language) that he would place a reproduction sign back up there to keep this from happening in the future and to not waste their time trying to steal it. He also made it clear that this was his home and how the castle doctrine applied in that state in regards to an armed homeowner and intruders (a legal-ish way of saying, “If you come back to steal anything else, I’ll fill you full of lead.”) The other guy realized his safety was truly in question at this point and was dealing with a lunatic, so he beat a hasty retreat. I later asked the owner how much time he’s put into the sign he’d just destroyed, and was told, “I think it took me half an hour to paint this and hang it, it was almost worthless to me and I can paint another one easy.”

Is there a "Best of RYPN" I can nomiate this post for?