If no one is ever going to do just that, what is the purpose of your library?

To preserve the knowledge in hardcopy form until the resources become available to digitize it in an easily searchable form so that the knowledge may be more readily disseminated and utilized.

This type of discussion reminds me of an email exchange I had with Thomas T. Taber III about two and a half years ago. I lost touch with him since, but at the time he was near completion of a massive 6,000 page index (which he was putting on a DVD) of all the railroad-related research resources that he was aware of from his lifetime of researching his books. Sort of an analogue version of what Google is doing with libraries.

WE use said archive almost weekly to, for example, identify "mystery" photos and caption them for future generations, to figure out which loco we're looking at, etc. That still requires experienced loco spotters who can, for example, distinguish a flared-stack D&H loco from a flared-stack T&P or KCS loco when you can't read the lettering because of the sun glint angle......... or, for that matter, someone who can distinguish a Davenport from a Whitcomb, or an ICG Paducah rebuild from a DeWitt rebuild.....

I would very much be in favor of a yearly publication that is a compilation of the progress reports and articles from the preceding year. I think that would be a very good thing to have as it does allow us to keep track of the progress the industry makes year to year.

I feel that many of us do not even think that what we do as being historic or worthy of recording. I guess those who were running railroads during the steam days had the same attitude. But considering that much of our equipment has been in preservation for longer than it was in revenue service, and some equipment has greater historic significance for what it has done in its tourist/historic career, perhaps we should take greater pains to record what it is that we do in a way that will stand the test of time. We are making history every day, whether we realize it or not.

Our children and grandchildren who will be taking care of this equipment after our passing are going to want to know what was going on back in 2015, just as I sometimes would like to know what was going on in 1965, 1975 or 1985. I'm lucky as there are plenty of print publications to consult, but where will people 30 years from now go? No I do not believe that RYPN will exist online in 30 years, and no I don't think that the ATRRM blog site will either be extant or searchable back 30 years. But a printed (and digital) yearbook of railway preservation, with copies in rail libraries and in private hands, can help assure that at least some sort of record/timeline continues to exist.

Something for the ATRRM board to consider at York perhaps.

You've just described what the NRHS Annual Chapter Activities Yearbook was.

Funny, they no longer print that............

All the more reason for a replacement to appear on the scene. I have a collection of the yearly activities issues as well as a small collection of older Steam Passenger Services Directory that Empire State RR Museum published. Both publications are good soures of historical info. about our industry.

That's a great source, though complete sets going all the way back to the first one are fairly rare.

That said, what hasn't been said in this thread is what is the purpose of the AATRM publication and who are the intended end users --- is it the general public, rail historians, academic libraries, railfans, foamers, AATRM, members or....

and that's a decision that those who don't belong to that organization shouldn't be making.

Bob H

And it's exactly this kind of insular, introverted thinking that has gotten the NRHS and a lot of other rail preservation organizations to the sad state they are in today.

Almost every periodical publication I have seen by a well-run, competent non-profit organization, rail or otherwise, is part news, part documentary, part public-relations, and part promotional, and is aimed at being read by members, potential members/supporters, and the public alike. Of the others in the rail history fold, most folks get the "news" part down pat and may also provide a place for historical articles, photos, etc. to see the light of day, but too many of them do a poor job of enticing outsiders to join or financially support them. Indeed, a few of them tend to make their organizations look as "exclusive" as a rich, prejudicial country club. And, in my experience, I've even run into historical groups that take a "pay your dues, then we can answer your question" approach. And they wonder why membership continues to decline.

The approach cited above is kind of like a bar deciding that only the people in the bar at the moment get to decide what booze gets sold there. If the ten people inside at the moment all want only mass market beer, well, fine, you have them, but as for the three hundred-plus people walking by outside want wines, spirits, cocktails, microbrews, and sodas in addition, well......

On the other hand.....
. . . the mission statement of the ATRRM at its website says:


Nothing whatsoever about, you know, actually promoting rail preservation and rail history/heritage preservation as a whole to the general public. So if I'm completely off base here with my observations, now we know why.

Harken back to a day when the average teenager --couldn't -- crack the Enigma code in 34 milliseconds using the GPU in his video card that's actually intended for rendering video games. Some people are still there.

That, plus the contextual serendipity which occurs in finding things you are not searching for. Finding other content in journals you are searching is of a fundamentally different and higher quality than exploring TVtropes or Wikipedia.

As a newly minted full member of ATRRM, I feel fully justified in making my opinions known!

ATRRM is a trade association focused internally on the needs of its membership as outlined in the mission statement.



Like ARM before it, the association itself is not focused on promoting preservation to the public. That would require an addition (#) in the statement above. Our local Arts and Humanities Council is an example of an organization that does 1-3 above and also includes a promotional element.



Wesley

The ATRRM magazine is certainly intended to further the association's mission and serve its membership. With that goal in mind, we report on all North American tourist railroads, railway museums and other rail preservation, regardless of who is doing it. In that way we cover best practices, innovations and industry trends. Hopefully the magazine helps attract new members, and that in turn benefits our existing membership. With more members we are better able to advocate for this industry (I estimate it's a $300 million per year industry). Besides museums and tourist railroads, our membership includes vendors who sell to the railway preservation community and the magazine helps them promote their products and services.

Anyone who attends the ATRRM conferences will tell you that the chance to network with peers is extremely valuable, and lots of fun as well. All sorts of technical knowledge is shared, and long term friendships created. The magazine is another tool to bring the industry together, because we have so many interests in common.

By the way, if you haven't looked at the online magazine mockup lately, I've been adding more material. In particular, check out the Progress Reports section. I'm trying to populate it with every major equipment restoration and capital infrastructure project currently underway--a one-stop list. If you see one that's missing, please let me know. Go to www.atrrm.org/blog.

Aaron Isaacs, editor
Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums
Editor@atrrm.org

This is impressive.......imagine what we could do if we actually worked cooperatively and consistently provided high quality experiences to our visitors?

dave

and I don't think the $300 million number includes the amount of money people spend when they visit museums or tourist roads.

consider for example, the economic impact the Baseball Hall of Fame has on Cooperstown, or Steamtown on Scranton, or as far as that goes any National Park (and remember who created most of 'em!)

Bob H

I arrived at the $300 million estimate by going through the expenditures reported to the government by all the non-profits railroad museums and tourist railroads in the US and Canada and came up with a pretty solid $200 million. The other $100 million is a pure estimate of annual expenditures by the for-profit side of the industry, so I have less confidence in that number.

Bob is correct that this doesn't include the economic impact of visitors spending money on food, lodging and other local attractions. Someday I'd like to get a better idea of that dollar amount, so we can use it to promote our industry.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums