Not to demean those who currently keep this site going…. My two cents, or less if you think, is that there are at least three options:

1. Go back to the original premise of this entire site, nonprofit or not, and promote it on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. You may need to figure in some kind of revenue stream to pay for it, though.

2. Have someone else host only the forum, HRA or someone to that effect.

3. Continue onward in it’s current form.

No matter which way you go, it’ll take a team to make it go. The work load diminishes in the same order above.

I’d also advocate for a bit more moderation to keep things on-topic and in the proper categories.

I still think that a one-stop place for sharing news, technical info and experiences can be a good idea. You can’t overlook the ease of finding relevant, on the mark information here. Maybe conduct a survey of some sort to see if the premise is still viable. Can it still work? I guess we won’t know unless we investigate or try to take another crack at it in some fashion.

As yet another data point:

I looked in on the website of a very popular, young-skewing (teenager-to-30) annual pop-culture convention on the Eastern Seaboard that, as I type, is wrapping up, being packed away and disassembled, etc. One of the top organizers just texted me that they had an all-time record attendance, in spite of the current economy, air fares, gas prices, mask mandates reimposed at the city's Convention Center, etc. -- 38,000. Individual attendees, not day attendance times three or whatever.

The organization's website has a BBS just like this.

Ten to fifteen years ago, that BBS hosted tens of thousands of users, posts, queries, etc. It was perhaps THE way info was shared before the convention and feedback given afterwards.

It now has maybe 5% of the participation in 2022 that it had in 2010. And I'm being optimistic.

The most recent post (please factor in that everybody's just now streaming out of said con, on Red Bull overdose, sleep-deprived, en route home one way or another, etc.) is "[ConventionName] BBS End of Life?"

Don't look at this as a rail-preservation problem. Look at this as a "changing with the tech/times" issue.

ADMIV - I hear ya. I just don’t know of any other format besides BBS that can host discussion in an easy, readable, linear fashion. Seems everything else is “ Here’s my cute kitty picture, comment please and maybe I’ll post back in there somewhere”. Yeah, you can make it work, but there’d be a lot of “See More” to click/tap on. And the posts and topics aren’t necessarily in chronological order by default. Unless I’m totally out to lunch, which is highly possible, I don’t know of a better format. Maybe BBS will come back in style like most things seem to. It certainly isn’t a functionality issue.

This type of format doesn’t lend itself to a catchy image, instant gratification, look at my likes kind of thing, which I think is also part of the problem though I don’t really see it’s place here. I don’t know what the format solution should be.

So, when you go to a ballgame, you assume everyone there is a big baseball fan and will be for life, regularly watching games and buying team swag?
No. Most of them, especially the kids, were taken there as it was 'something neat to do' that one time with little likelihood they'll come back at all, or just once or twice for the rest of their lives (if then).
Look up "research bias" and see that this is a common thing; people will decide on a final result (which is what they want to be true), then they'll look for that which supports the final conclusion as 'evidence' to support that presuppostion.

I submit that R&N 2102 is the new shiny object in the surrounding tourist and leisure market. Sales will go well the first year then level out to some consistent normal level below sold out capacity. Andy Mueller can also control supply and demand by limiting use of R&N 2102 to create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Meanwhile mainline steam lives on in NE Pennsylvania.

Of the 840 on the train what is the statistical likelihood of return on investment in terms of trickle down to the railway preservation field at some level?

Wesley

I will agree with you to the idea of "research bias."

However:

There are large numbers of "us" where the "bug was bitten" first by smaller steam operations (you name it--Strasburg, Conway, Valley RR, Reader, Sierra, Mid-Continent, TVRM, Heber Creeper, White Mountain Scenic, etc.--and then later firmly infected by "big steam"--UP 8444, AFT 1, Chessie 2101 and 614, Reading 2102 here and there, SP 4449, the SR and NS steam programs, etc.

I'm shy of sixty (eeeek), and I have associates at or near forty who have expressed envy at me for having ridden behind 614, 2102, 1361, "7002"/1223, 611 at real speed, 1218, 587, 2317, 3254, 261, four different EBT steamers at once, and, yes, PRR GG1s and Metroliners, PRR 5706/5898, etc. years ago, in much the same tones as i used being envious of the guys who saw the last of PRR steam/the Reading Rambles/etc., and have been waiting for years to "baptize" their kids the way they wish they had had the opportunity to have been decades ago.

"History" is dry and boring, and we are strongly discouraged, if not barred, from letting young people interact with "real" railroading in the 2020s in a manner that captivates them with excitement and spectacle. And, sad to say, a more typical excursion train of the 2020s, creeping along at walking speed with a couple open cars behind a diesel, just isn't the same.

I was fortunate enough to ride and chase not only the BM&R'S own operations and its main line trips over Conrail (a couple of the latter "death marches," if you will), but also the Gettysburg's hours-long 50-mile round trips, Steamtown steam to Moscow and Tobyhanna, mainline steam in the UK at 80+ mph, NS big steam, and more. And those impressed me in a way that most modern excursions--subdued speeds, sealed windows, closed vestibules, and upper-class offerings and prices--never will. Compared with spending hours in the baggage doors of the Chessie Safety Express' "recording car," the youth of today, restricted to a closed-window coach seat might as well be in an airliner, albeit lurching slightly as if in turbulence.

The few young people I get to converse with in railfanning, even the hard-core, are envious of me having been able to see a Railfan Weekend on the Blue Mountain & Reading (now a weed-choked, storage-car-clogged branch) and later ride rare mileage on their RDCs. I point out to them as often as I'm allowed how so many of these operations, and others like it, would be brief, and never to be taken for granted, that "Tomorrow never comes......."

First of all, I don't believe RYPN is dying. There are new threads every day which is more than I can say about some other forums I visit. The fact is, a lot of forum activity has migrated to other places, especially facebook groups. Even forums catered to more mainstream hobbies and younger demographics are experiencing this. It has nothing to do with waning interest or people literally dying off. It's just part of the evolution of how people prefer to receive information.

The real problem I see with RYPN is that it has lost it's purpose. I started frequenting this forum back when it was the go to place for in-depth discussions about preservation and technical topics and some of the leaders in the industry were frequent contributors. I could ask a question and get responses from some of the top who's who in railway preservation. Today, I come here mostly out of habit honestly. There is way to much of the same old arm chair quarterbacking, nit picking, complaining and politics that can be found anywhere else. A newly written mission statement and heavy moderation to keep the forum on track would go a very long way.

Happy 5th Anniversary!! It's been five years since it's been nearly six years...