A few weeks ago a small city in the Midwest asked to obtain one of my photos of its heritage streetcar to print to display in city hall. I quoted a price of $200 for as many copies as it needed and, after about a week, was told that the city did not have the budget to buy any images and would pass on the deal.

I just want a "Thank You".

As the owner of a large Archive, and as a Custodian of a couple of Large Historical Society Archives, I get a lot of requests. And not so many "Thank Yous".

My policy is that people that say "Thank You" and people that give a specific requests get served 1st.

The question "When was Snowplow xxx built" will get a answer, the request "Send me everything you have on Snowplows" never.

And if you really want good service help me with my projects, and I will always say "Thank You"

I am fairly lucky to be around people who care/know about my interests and have a habit of dropping copies of stuff on my desk without being asked, and I try and do the same for them.

/rant off

-Hudson

They don't realize how much trouble it is to establish a different price than
for weekend runs, to make it worthwhile to cater to their whims.

Oh I don't know. Most of the photos we take of trains are not worth very much. An opportunity to help preservation by donating an image to a small city or non-profit for their use is something I would be happy to do.

That's probably the best approach with an item that actually fires. I don't know what the regulations are for manufacture of these devices. I do know that if somebody was to get injured while using one, even if they were entirely at fault, there is a likelihood that they or their family if the worst outcome occurs, would come after the "manufacturer" possibly claiming manufacturing defects or who knows what. Not worth it.

Point missed. We run our operations for our customers, not for us - we could do it in HO for ourselves at much less cost. So, we need to run the trains people want to ride when and where they want to ride them. Besides, any operator who doesn't know what it costs to run or rent a run is not managing with a full deck anyhow.

The whole "weekend" thing is still sort of operative, but as the nature of business changes to something more attuned to something driven by global constant interaction 24/7/365, we need to know how we're going to change to make our programming available to a smaller number of people per day more days of availability per week.

dave

If you get any thanks at all, you're probably doing okay. I got contacted by one of the most famous collections in the country for assistance on a project they were working on for a WW2 subject I have a huge collection of stuff on. Countless people saw the exhibition and its online, but my name isn't in there anywhere. I asked why and I got a response that said that I wasn't a society or group and "just a collector" they decided to name only the groups that assisted.
Never again will I provide assistance to any organization unless they pay me up front, based on this experience from a few years ago.
Heck, you get requests? I often get demands of declarations more than anything else when they contact me.
I've gone so far as to write some of them back, stating that telling someone they're going to be allowed to help out (unsolicited, no less) is the worst possible way to get said assistance and a sure way to prevent my involvement. None ever replied.

Because they're all the same and they all treat people in the same manner, right? Also, they're all equally worthy of your support, or lack thereof. Just like the phony charities that give 2 cents on the dollar ruin it for the organizations that provide 80% or more for program services.

Just like many photographers, I've had the same problem. The local small town paper I contributed to was paying $5 per photo (only 400 more photos and that new lens is all mine!). Then they changed to "Photo courtesy of Bob Harbison". Then they simply changed to "Courtesy Photo". The editor sent me an e-mail, "Hey, did you get any photos of the concert this year? "Yes, I did, but if you can't even be bothered to put my name in the photo credit, I can't be bothered to send you photos...."

Meanwhile, the Seattle Times used several of my railroad photos for an article on Santa trains. Since they're the "big guys" I didn't figure they'd bother, but it was great PR for the railroad so I was OK with it. I get a call from the writer "Working on this article, need to verify the photo credit. Do you prefer Bob or Robert? Let me verify the spelling on your last name..." I was impressed, and yes, it ran exactly as promised.

The same author (or a student) used to work for a credit card company soliciting applications with a similar pitch.
With that success on the resume, a change of job to writing copy for other lines of business was assured.

The requests that frost me are when I am asked to share my historical research - field notes, primary reference material, photographs etc. On most occasions I am happy to oblige - to the extent I feel comfortable with However... On occasion when I have asked the interested party exactly what they need I get the "Everything you've got" response. Needless to say they end up with nothing.

Its like the Little Red Hen. No one wants to help grind the wheat, roll the dough etc. but they sure come around when its time to eat the bread!