This should be required reading for everyone in this industry.
I only wish I was as young as Dave assumes I am!

An incredibly valuable discussion. I have to date probably recommended reading this discussion to more friends with small business activities than any other discussion on any topic that has appeared on RYPN.

PC

Page 4 of the AAA decision mentions that the project had Federal Funding -- does anyone here know what federal program(s) were involved?

I agree. A very valuable discussion indeed.

As to the discussion about young vs. old, in the pre Internet age there was a certain barrier to entry for people engaged in these discussions. Large scale discussions rarely took place outside of in person gatherings, where young people were not generally welcome to participate. Also, publications that discussed issues of interest were moderated by gatekeepers who filtered out the sometimes uninformed ramblings of younger people.

However with the Internet, those barriers have been removed. Hiding behind a screenname could be an 18 year old foamer or a 70 year old railroad tycoon. Nobody knows anymore. So with this greater access to discussions by everyone, we must learn to tolerate and accept the uninformed ramblings of the youth as the cost of this new communication system.

I'm with Dave here. The problem with this thread and the one before it is that the OP offers up as evidence of malfeasance only the judgement of a professional arbitrator (i.e. a lawyer), and then a court confirming the legality of arbitration in general. We don't know how the arbitrator reached his judgement, especially regarding the original contract. For example, how was it decided to use foreign suppliers? Did the customer emphasize the need for "buy America"? I have to imagine a discussion in which the contractor enumerated the parts that would be needed, what they cost etc., and perhaps the difference in price between US and foreign supplied stay bolts. Or did the customer wave away the discussion and say "whatever... you handle it"?

I am not willing to trust the judgement of a lawyer without knowledge of steam boilers for a determination of who is a bad apple and who is not.

Sorry it’s not the old days where the old guys could keep out women, people of color, and people who are young enough to have an idea that’s different than your own.

In one of the other threads one of the volunteers from the k&t went into more details.

It’s amazing how people would excuse this operation... I guess we shouldn’t judge Gettysburg either. After all it was just a judge that decided that the boiler exploded.

No no, Rick is 100% right. Don’t try to throw insults where none are needed, it does no good to do that. And no offense, don’t try to say that you know better either. Some of these people who post on this forum (who need not be named) fit into the categories of being old enough to have seen the last days of steam, orchestrating preservation efforts, owning locomotives, restoring locomotives, and/or operating locomotives, as well as many other things in the field. In most cases, they likely do know better than you about many of these things. Again, no offense, but you probably don’t know better in most cases than they do, and 9 times out of 10 I’m taking their word against yours.

By removing these sorts of barriers you give opportunity for greater access to others. Which is both a positive and a negative. The positive of course is allowing the perspective of more people from different backgrounds. The negative is that, as Rick has said, internet anonymity allows for anyone to voice their opinion, and sometimes those opinions can be entirely irrelevant, misguided or unqualified. By allowing these opinions to be expressed online, you give opportunity of both of the categories Rick mentioned: a 70 year old with years of rail experience who might not be able to go many places these days, and a teenager who just wants to see things rebuilt, restored, etc etc etc.

Allowing more opinions through the use of a free Internet forum has its downsides, and you need to remember that while it’s awesome these discussions get to take place on a public Internet forum, you get the opportunity of some people giving these sorts of opinions I mentioned before that don’t really add anything

"being old enough to have seen the last days of steam, orchestrating preservation efforts, owning locomotives, restoring locomotives, and/or operating locomotives, as well as many other things in the field. In most cases, they likely do know better than you about many of these things. Again, no offense, but you probably don’t know better in most cases than they do, and 9 times out of 10 I’m taking their word against yours."

I've been sitting back and watching this without comment, but as someone who has worked a number of legal cases, has operated charter trains across the country, provided testimony to the U.S. Supreme court on rail matters, testified in front of Congress, conducts regulatory training, etc. (and I have to work to stay current for all of these), I want to comment.

Some of the biggest screw-ups I have ever seen in the railroad industry have come from the so-called "experts", "experts" just because they have lived for a long time and touched a lot of projects. Equipment has been scrapped, contracts have been signed that worked against projects, regulations and laws broken, the ability to operate excursions and charter trains lost, FRA fines, lawsuits, etc. Why? Because they want to continue to do things the old way - the way they always did it. If they are not staying current, they are dangerous. I have been involved with several cases where "experts" got in trouble in court cases and hearings because they kept quoting old regulations - in one case, pre-FRA - because that was how they always did it.

Now, I don't have a bone in this fight (although I have operated a number of events with the folks at Stearns, just so that relationship is clear), but simply saying that because someone or some company has been around a long time makes them qualified is foolish. That doesn't carry one bit of weight in a trial or in getting things done, it can actually be a negative. Look at how many old companies have failed because they couldn't stay current.

The key in the K&T case is whether the contractor was in compliance with the contract and applicable laws and regulations. The second part is whether the issuer of the contract correctly wrote the contract based upon the laws in affect at the time and the requirements of the funding. If the contractor was not, then they are at fault - same for the issuer. The contract is not required to provide all of the detail as long as it states things like "Buy America" and other terms. This leaves it upon the contractor to be current in their understanding of the law and practices. No matter what they have done in the past, it is this contract that is the issue. So, stick with this contract and quit bringing in all sorts of outside stuff. In a trial or hearing, this is known as muuddying the waters and is generally a sign that someone knows they are losing the case and they want to just confuse the facts and issues. Learning from this unfortunate episode could help the entire preservation industry.

Always remember that old saying......"don't judge another man 'till you've walked a mile in his shoes".

Whatever the final out come is, this is a sad event for the rail preservation community in general and of course for these two parties in particular.

As I previously posted we have few enough capable steam locomotive boiler pros as it is and were we to lose this one that hurts us going forward.

Let's hope that somehow the 2 parties are able to reach an agreement allowing them both to survive and play another day.

Ross Rowland

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Rowland on this.

The ability to drive volunteers off is not just an old person ability. Young staff can do it just as well. When I worked at a tourist RR that depended heavily on volunteers a volunteer went to a 40+ year veteran of various RR's in the mechanical department to ask a question about one of the diesels. The young individual chewed him out about going to him with the question instead of him who was in his mid 20 and was busy violating the rules at every opportunity.

Another young arrogant individual and recently given a title because he was worshiping a supervisor, he chose to rip on a guest who we were in negotiations to get certain equipment from. The solution of the supervision at this RR was to hide.

In the end this situation is typically allowed to happen by the inaction or ignorance of others. How we solve this is we have to confront it. We have to address the issues head on without the resorting to personal attacks whenever possible.

Robby Peartree

Agreed. I’ve seen what you are referring to in myself and in others. It happens to the best of us.

If this was the only controversy Wasatch had been involved in, then we could chalk it up to maybe a one-off thing. But there's Ecuador, Steamtown, and other things as well...

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