According to this evening's NBC news President Musk's DOGE operation has laid off approx. 250,000 federal employees as of Sunday night , ( 75,000 who accepted the "buy out " and 175,000 from 11 different agencies who have been " terminated".

Next up are the Department of Education and the IRS. According to a DOGE insider early estimates are that approx. 15,000 will be let go from Education and 20,000 from Internal Revenue.

The same DOGE insider said that he estimates that when the " reduction in force" is completed that the total number will be approx. 500,000 employees. He further stated that DOGE early estimates that it will be possible to reduce federal spending in the upcoming 2026 budget by approx. $ 3.5 Trillion dollars thus producing a surplus of approx. $ 1.5 Trillion dollars to be used to begin paying down the $ 36 trillion federal debt.

What has all this got to do with Steamtown NHS and railway preservation in general??

With Steamtown hard to say what the Interior Dep't. will do if their budgets are drastically reduced but parks in the system with very high costs per visitor like Steamtown would seem to be the most at risk??? As Superheater says it will probably be "given" to the state or county vs. shuting down??

As to the rest of railway preservation who knows???

Interesting times. Ross Rowland

There has been speculation that this will be the end of the highly effective and beloved CRISI grants, which provide funding for MOW for shortline railroads who couldn't afford it otherwise.

I suspect that NPS, an already underfunded organization, will receive further cuts in funding, and we all know which parks would get the short end of the stick in that scenario...

(Hint: it's not Acadia or Joshua Tree, and it's in Scranton, Pennsylvania)

Layoff of probationary employees have yet to happen at the agency I work for. But the rumor mill is vast, expansive and often wrong. For example, if I were to believe what I read in the media, on reddit and the like, half of my public safety focused agency has already been laid off and we all about to die.

Whatever you do, don't believe everything you read. Even in established media.

I do expect to hear news tomorrow. It will most certainly impact a very smart, very nice young programmer we recently hired that brings commercial sector experience and experience with technology that we have home grown in the shop, but lack this person's out-of-government experience. It will be a sad thing to lose this person. But it won't result in the loss of people or property.

We also have some probationary folk who are longer term employees who taken positions in our agency after working elsewhere in government. Their coding of probationary status is difference on their SF-50 employee record forms. I'm a bit nervous they will be swept up by this, but lay odds they will be fine.

When you hear numbers, consider the following:

* Probationary employees have been hired in the past year. Federal govt systems tend to be complex with complex rules that take some time to learn. Consider how long it takes before a new employee is truly productive in your own organizations and triple it.

* Numbers can be fun. Stories have it that IRS is losing 12,000 people. The agency currently has 94,000 employees. That's roughly 12 percent. Show me a massive organization that grown by 12% in less than a year and I'll show you a very confused organization.

* Agency heads have the capability to keep probationary employees that are in essential positions. Example, apparently Forest Service avalanche forecasters have been retained. If an essential employee took the Fork in the Road option, agency heads can make the case to keep them active.

* If you see a story that agencies can't contact fired employees that they have had 2nd thoughts about, become very worried about the core functions of that agency. Any agency that doesn't have emergency contact information for their employees has failed their core COOP functionally and would fail a FISMA security audit.

Personally, these layoffs aren't the big game. A slightly bigger game will be the reduction in force (RIF) that comes next, as it could reach deeply into positions in agencies of more senior people who understand things and hold the corporate knowledge.

A big game will be the upcoming FY25 budget. Figure 10% cuts across the board. Most of this will be absorbed by the labor savings.

But the biggest game will be the FY26 budget. 30-40% cuts, perhaps more. All of these actions will encourage agencies to become very efficient very quickly and develop a keen sense of their core mission.

aww... did someone say something to hurt your fragile political feelings?

either ignore the thread or join me in cooking up some popcorn and enjoy!

Is regulating and inspecting antique boilers really part of FRA's core mission?

"Is regulating and inspecting antique boilers really part of FRA's core mission?"

Who do you propose? Utah-based "con"-tractors? Self-regulation? (See: Civil War battlefield-adjacent shortline/tourist railroad, 1995)

Especially if a locomotive (steam or otherwise) is operated on a general system railroad, then it indeed is part of their "core mission".

Part 230 may not be the peak of perfection, but it's pretty good, and everyone is used to it now. I suspect it has weeded out some marginal operators in the last 25 years.

Howard P.

So other than the fact that we all are interested in trains-is there any other reason that these beloved grants shouldn't be called "corporate welfare"? And isn't free money always beloved, probably rewarded with campaign contributions? I have it on good authority that politics is the world's second oldest profession-and it bears a remarkable similarity to the first.

After twenty years observing Steamtown and the NPS, I have no idea whether or not the NPS is "underfunded", because I have no good yardstick to measure that against. They are certainly losing ground against inflation without a Papa Joe watching out for them.

I certainly don't think funding had a direct role in the inordinately long time (17 years) it took to get the BLW 26 running again. Bluntly, one of the former project managers and not Bruce-was referred to as RIP "Retired in Place". For years she would tell the T&E crews that when it was to emerge that summer, we shouldn't plan on getting our grubby mitts on it. Unfortunately, it came out before I could say "get the damn thing out, then we'll worry about your damn turf war"

One of the reasons given by the immediate former Superintendent (not the only one) for summarily ending the relationship with the L&WV Chapter-and I have so many good memories of those nice and dedicated folks manning the Moscow station with a cold soda in July and hot chocolate in November-was the opportunity to get grants. From who? Having heard from Debbie Conway that you need to start requesting fund a decade before you anticipate the need for the first disbursements. My recollection of the description of the funding process could best be analogized by observing piglets jockeying for position at the sow during the Farm Show.

I do think Steamtown's biggest problem is that it's a square peg in a round hole. For the most part, parks fall into Natural History "Woodsy Owl", military history or other historic event (Presidential birthplaces) categories.

When you need a maintenance manager at Gettsyburg, there's plenty of other sites that might have a maintenance supervisor familiar with a visitor center, some antebellum buildings and statuary. There isn't a single other park that performs a single car air test, lead or asbestos abatement or coupler replacement. The closest thing is Promontory Point. In short, the Park Service doesn't have the "core competencies" to restore or operate trains.

The NPS in its infinite wisdom, decreed that procurement had to be done by certified contract officer. The first result was CNJ 1021. I'm still wondering if that car will ever be recovered-or if there's anything to recover. The rigidly adhered to their process-but the product was the impairment of the asset.

A final thought for those people lamenting the loss of federal jobs. Did you grieve for the people whose private jobs and businesses were about to be destroyed five years ago, while federal employees received a laptop and didn't miss a beat?

And to the private inquirer: yes I am aware that these posts are read. I keep good records, I can back up everything but accounts of discussions. If it bothers people that as Ross said "I know where the bodies are buried"; keep in mind I know the manner and cause of death and who pulled the triggers. (Not that it matters, the guilty have rode on or passed on).

Signed,
Your Friendly Agent Provocateur

Unless you are willing to have steam declared verboten, you might want to reconsider that question.

The reality is the FRA has exclusive safety jurisdiction on anything 24" guage and above-(or is it above 24) and connected to the general rail system.

What's your alternative? State (stationary) boiler inspectors? Do we then call in the FRA to inspect the running gear?

OK, some clarification here....

First, what appears to be happening is vaporization of various agency staff in many places. By vaporization I mean the employee is terminated, accounts locked, and the only way you know they are even gone is the email is returned with an unknown address. Unlike private industry, it isn't passed upstream to supervision to reassign duty or follow up. Gone.

Now, combine this with the reality of almost all federal grants. They are REIMBURSEABLE, either on the completion of a project, line item, or percentage of completion if the grant allows it. Virtually no federal grant is a big check you get to deposit. You spend the money up front and pray you get it back. You're on the hook in the middle. I always warn clients you need a line of credit to get a grant, a banker on the board, or a benefactor.

So you can imagine the chaos that ensues when payments hesitate or stop, or in the case of CRISI, you have an awarded grant that is pending a grant agreement, to clear environmental review. Now, the FRA financial staff you are dealing with for months is vaporized. That just happened to one of my clients yesterday. Still trying to figure out what's going on and if they will ever get the grant they were awarded about a year ago. And the next notice of funding availability is scheduled for Fall 2025. Maybe.

This is across multiple agencies, even military procurement, according to my son.

FRA safety/inspection staff, according to my internal contacts, has been spared. And unless you want another Gettysburg that shuts everyone down once and for all, you better hope that continues. At least the FRA regs are consistent, apply across state lines, and have had industry participation to develop.

Sure, there is too much waste in the government, but it sounds like the gutting of it is leading up to a big tax cut for the 1% with a trickle-down on the rest of us, not a reduction of the national debt.

So I say, let the Trump, etc.. tax cuts expire. Close some loopholes. Then let's and see where we are.

And by the way, how much does America need to contribute to fund Musk's Fly Me to the Moon project? Shouldn't some person other than Musk review the need for his rocket man fantasy?

I'll go further back.

It was political when places like Scranton, Pa. and Kingston, NY originally courted the Steamtown Foundation to relocate out of Vermont.

It was political when the State of Vermont wouldn't let them put up a state-produced, "Burma-Shave"-sized sign to mark the entrance to the Vermont site, and there was a well-worn turnaround spot along US 5 just to the north where people driving north from Bellows Falls would see the steam locomotives off to the right, realize they'd just passed the entrance, and turn around to go back. (That turnaround spot is now the entrance to the industrial park, RR yard, and messy truck terminal that now sit where Steamtown Vermont was...... oh, wait, is THAT where my transmission valve body rebuild kit came from????? Small world!)

About the only reason we even have passenger trains anywhere, save for a few "land cruises" or tourist lines, is political.

When people claim "I don't want things to get political here" about a topic that is blatantly, unavoidably political, what they usually mean is either "I don't want to hear facts or opinions that might make me have to reconsider my established political biases."

I don't understand how some can think that in any of this wholesale slaughter of govt. agencies, the removal of entire sectors of government employees, was even thought out at all in advance?
You're giving them too much credit. This is retribution and anarchy. Appointing people who are enemies of the department they're chose to head? What in the actual hell?
All I can say is I wish everything comes to a head quick. I want to see the implosion.

The one saving grace in all this madness is the very proven fact that the pendulum ALWAYS swings back the other way and compensates for the excesses of when it was far from center.

The great orange one has as much as told us that he will ignore court rulings that go against his and President Musk's agenda which will put us squarely into a major constitutional crisis.

Not that he'd listen to me but I'd counsel Trump to think some before he ignores a court order as doing so will only add to the other sides ammo which they will surely use in his 3rd. Impeachment trial.

Will the 3rd. trial be the one that convicts him???? Time will tell. Ross Rowland

Who's gonna hold his feet to the fire? The courts have no method of enforcement.

I was just thinking.... you see how he's decapitated the FBI, took the entire justice department captive, has defanged Congress (well, 50% of it) fomented distrust of everything he decides is against him.... "don't listen to the fake news"?

I haven't seen one word mentioning NSA, CIA or any of the other more covert security agencies. Wonder why?

I'm hoping that the NSA and CIA are keeping tabs on all the doings of the moles Trump/Musk have inserted in the Treasury... with CIA/NSA I.T. sleuths watching them as they place back doors in secure government computer systems, so they'll be able to remotely disable entire systems when the world comes crashing down on MAGA. If Trump/MAGA feel threatened, they'll hold us hostage that way.

This is not really about "saving money", it's about maintaining power.