Do you ever randomly check different links out on the internet, or even in print, concerning historic railroad equipment? You do? Great!

I just wanted to know why every person that posts a picture of a locomotive must tag it as: OLD 1234, or OLD steamer, or any other selection of words. Please, just call it a STEAM ENGINE. I also am consistently amazed at how EVERY steam engine that is being worked on is referred to as a "RESTORATION". I will give an example: Southern 401 in Monticello, IL = RESTORATION. Milwaukee 261 in Minneapolis = OVERHAUL.

I really like when the local paper says: "Old Steamer Set To Puff Down The Track". No wait, it is even better when a freight train has a derail mishap and the paper quotes 50 idiots saying: "well you know America's tracks are so old, amazing it doesn't happen all the time." Another one: "Trains used to be the only way you could travel. You just rolled along at a leisurely 25mph till you got to where you were getting to." (Insert country twang and don't forget the picture they will post with the most overweight and out of touch human being they can locate...with the "steamer" barely in frame)

Last gripe, but not least: the coal car. Journalists...that is what you are called, right?...that car behind the engine is a tender. It holds water...and either wood, coal, or oil for fuel you fool. It isn't called a "coal car"...it is a tender!

Now...I will roll back into bed until the Super Bowl starts...and see if I am less cranky when I wake back up.

I think there's an unwritten rule in journalism that says that every article mentioning trains has to have the phrase "on track" or derailed" in it. A second, closely related rule is that any and all articles mentioning a new streetcar line must use the word "desire".

Anyhow, perhaps it is the job of the railway museum these days to explain a little bit of history when someone asks what we often consider to be a "silly" question.

For example, while volunteering on train crew around Christmas last year, I had a lady and a young boy (I assume it was grandma and grandson) come up and ask me "where is the caboose?" as they were getting ready to board the train. I responded "There isn't one on this train. Cabooses were only used on freight trains". They responded with a surprised "oh". If there had been more time, I could have also explained why cabooses were used on freight trains, and why they aren't used anymore, all in a storytelling manner. Question and answer is one really good way to teach a subject, both in the classroom, and on the interpretive railway excursion. The more interested the person becomes, the more questions they'll ask, and the more answers you can give.

Trust me, I know it can be annoying when someone doesn't seem to have a basic understanding of trains (especially train safety, no thanks to Hollywood), but rather than knowledge-shaming them or preaching a list of "important facts", why not interactively teach them, raising interesting questions, and then helping them find the answers? In the museum field, this is known as docenting (Latin root: "Doceo" - "I teach").

It's all part of the edutainment thing that museums are likely going to have to get a firm grip on in order to survive.

--Drew Black

Well said...

...I recently explained the Hollywood favorite...for showing the engineer throwing the locomotive in reserve...sliding the wheels...an then throwing it forward...how that wouldn't be happening in real life.

...Another one I thought of...Pentrex was really bad about this..."Steam locomotive, blah blah blah, her old boiler can just barely summon the strength to move the cars, blah, blah, blah." Spare me! The ability to move cars is based on many things...and age typically isn't one of them. The same 200 psi that your favorite locomotive pulls with today...is the same 200 psi it pulled with in 1935!

Any other thoughts?

"The conductor said he sounded his whistle at the crossing..." or similar. Most trains haven't had whistles for years, and the conductor doesn't blow the HORN, the engineer does. Also, the crossing "arms" came down; aren't they called gates?

EDM
Grumpy, NJ

I always like hearing that the conductor pulled the emergency brake.

And then there are those "tanker" cars.

Speaking for my fellow trolley/streetcar types, I hate it when a young reporter uses some form of reference to Williams' play Streetcar Named Desire when they "report" on the planning for or building of a proposed new streetcar or light rail line. Example: "Minneapolis has a desire named streetcar." Arggghh! Shoot me now.

Thanks!

How many of us have actually spent the time to privately email a reporter who uses incorrect terminology and explain proper terminology? Does your organization have a media kit that you distribute that includes a sheet explaining proper rail terminology?
Does your website include a media page that includes a statement as to the misuse of rail terms and the proper terms to use?

We as an industry have been content to just cringe at hideous reporting and not take steps to try and change it. This is a rel problem as we are a professional industry and the constant use of childish jargon in newspaper articles mocks us and hurts our public image. It is no wonder that the average person thinks that we are just a bunch of big kids playing with big toys when all they see in the media is "Local Choo Choo Chugs its Way to the Future" or "Local Buffs all Steamed Up".

BTW, to the thread starter, they are NOT steam engines! A steam LOCOMOTIVE has a steam engine, it is not a steam engine. Perhaps to rail mounted steam lovers its not a big deal, but to those of us who mount our steam obsessions to large chunks of concrete, there is a REAL difference!

[quote="IC382"]Well said...

...I recently explained the Hollywood favorite...for showing the engineer throwing the locomotive in reserve...sliding the wheels...an then throwing it forward...how that wouldn't be happening in real life.


Oh, I don't know about that......seems to have happened in Texas about a year ago.

Let's not forget that trains ALWAYS "chug."

And a turntable is a "swinging bridge."

Any car on the rear of the train is a caboose, and it has big steering wheel on the end for when they back up.

And that any effort to restore or repair as locomotive is "putting it back on the rails."

And yes, I have gone to a great deal of time and trouble trying to keep reporter (usually about 17 years old and knows nothing about the real world) accurate, avoiding jargon and silly cliches, etc. Usually with little or no positive result. Sometimes it even made it worse.

Preservationists have a huge, never-ending education job to do.

The journalists also like to dig up irrelevant historical facts when reporting on something railroad related. My example: here in Tacoma, WA, new track was constructed to connect the ex-Milwaukee Road track at Freighthouse Square with the ex-Northern Pacific "Prairie Line" through the Nalley Valley in order to allow the Sounder commute trains to run south to Lakewood. This new track negotiates a rather steep ascent. During the first days of revenue operations, one of the Sounder trains stalled on the hill due to malfunctioning automatic sanders. When the incident was reported in the Tacoma News Tribune, the reporter felt it was relevant to point out that 90 years or so prior, many people lost their lives when a street car ran away on a Tacoma hill to pile up at the bottom. Say what?? First, the street car line wasn't even in the same location as the NP's Prairie Line, so the point is irrelevant. Second, it was a street car accident, so the point is again, irrelevant. And third, what the heck good does it do to bring up a story about lives lost in such a fashion? Was it intended to warm the public of the dangers of riding trains on steep grades? Or that trains are inherently evil, dangerous contraptions that should be looked upon with disdain and contempt?

We in the preservation/tourism industry need our local news agencies to help get the word out that we exist, and that what we are doing is worthy and honorable, but this kind of reporting is simply counter-productive.

Brian Wise

There seems to be a widespread assumption that all locomotives in North America are incapable of exceeding 60 mph. The boiler can't hold the pressure of fast speeds. Perhaps people have been watching too many Back to the Future movies.

I've been involved in interviews and have correctly described certain items and features but it falls on deaf ears. Article comes out with the driver of old 1522 will be chugging out of town soon. Makes ya want to barf or slap the guy.
I was down at the tracks this morning and watched a freight train go by and it sounded just like a tornado.

Pot calling the kettle black.

There are some on this board who refer to Cummins and Caterpillar and EMD 567's and Cooper-Bessemer FDL16s and such things ... as ... "motors".

Some railroaders refer to locomotives as "motors."

Not to mention those who invariably refer to Cummins as "Cummings."

Oh, my, some of the things I've seen in the news over the years. . .

A classic was back in the late 1960s, in Wheeling, W.Va. A train derailed at a quite busy crossing in the southern part of that city; this was in the era of bankrupt Penn Central and a lot of other roads having bad track, and was also an era of several nasty incidents with tank cars loaded with hazardous materials. The newspaper reported that a "tank car" rolled over in this derailment, and fortunately, the "tank car" was empty. The problem was, the "tank car" wasn't a tank car; it was a cylindrical covered hopper. The !!@#$%^&**!!! hopper outlets were facing the photographer!! Grrrrr. . .

Then there was the derailment on a shortline north of Martinsburg, W.Va. The young female reporter wrote that it was fortunate the "engine cars" of this "express cargo train" did not derail. This was on a shortline running on what was then exempted track. . .

Finally, when the current president was first inaugurated a bit over four years ago, he took a train to Washington, partially in a reenactment of Abraham Lincoln's trip in early 1861. Several MAJOR news outfits described the office car he used--Georgia 300--as a "caboose." Hrrumph, how many freight conductors would have liked such a luxurious "caboose" for their freight duties?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_300

I didn't see anything about it at the time, but I wonder if the Gold Coast Railway Museum's Ferdinand Magellan was ever described as a "caboose" when another president used it in recent years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar

And don't get me started on Hollywood, not after seeing all the goofs they make, and also after trying to sell a TV series that was intended to be both accurate and entertaining to a family audience and failing to do so. . .

It still strikes me as strange as can be that the most accurate impression of modern steam railroading I've seen in recent years--which includes about anything later than "Danger Lights" of 1930--is a fantasy cartoon, "The Polar Express." Sheesh, what is the matter with that bunch out West?