I'm sure its not every day you get a wealthy CEO riding your train.. but a post a few weeks back talked about being nice because you never know who your dealing with..

Here's an example, unfortunately outside our field of endeavor..of a visit creating an interest..

Sigh..2.5 mil would go a long way on a lot of projects.. NKP 765, BM 3713, RDG 1187...

I will be nice to all my passengers and visitors.
I will be nice to all my passengers and visitors.
I will be nice to all my passengers and visitors.

CEO & WIFE DONATE 2.5 MIL
superheater@rrmail.com

In the early late 80s, I had two contrasting railroad experiences.

My family visited a railroad and museum in the midwest. It was great place except for the ride. The conductor, whom I am guessing was a volunteer, spent most of his time telling the passengers what they could not do using a particlarly surly tone of voice. There was little, if any, description of the railroad's history or significance.

We next drove to the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas. While photographing around their interesting collection in the yard, a uniformed employee approached and my first thought was "I am going to get busted and thrown out now." Instead this employee offered to show my around! We rode the ES&NA and the conductor was extremely personable. He talked to everyone on the train, made informative and interesting announcements about the railroad's history and his safety lecture was pleasant and even humorous. These two experiences were quite a contrast, more so since we rode these trains just days apart. I produced a video a few years later for the ES&NA and it featured another conductor even better than the first with which we had ridden!

I won't name the midwestern railroad with the surly conductor. I will just assume he was having a bad day and that kind of treatment of passengers no longer occurs. Perhaps the railroad now has a better training program for its conductors.

We also did the video on the Manitou & Pike's Peak and it has a lot of footage of their particularly interesting and personable conductors. The M&PP conductors frequently get applause as the train pulls into the depot and I have seen standing ovations several times. The conductor on my M&PP video is now a conductor on the Durango and Silverton.

Since it is just a half hour drive, I visit the M&PP often. I make it a point to walk down to the mainline switch and wave to the passengers on departing trains. Almost all of them wave back and smile!

I suppose the lesson might be that you never know who is riding. Not only might there be a potential donor on board but also a travel writer or the author of that next best-selling travel book.

The link is to a DVD that has both the M&PP and ES&NA videos on it.

ES&NA and M&PP DVD
cwiatrowski@earthlink.net

> I suppose the lesson might be that you never
> know who is riding. Not only might there be
> a potential donor on board but also a travel
> writer or the author of that next
> best-selling travel book.

> I might add, who may walk up to a project you are doing. A couple of years ago, a elderly gentlemen stopped by to look over our chapter's UN Tower that we saved from demolition. After commenting on how he remembered the tower and passing by it on trains, he departed. We strive to give every visitor our utmost attention and courtesy echoing the previous post of "you may never know who may show up." The following week this gentilemen returned and asked if we would like a sign that came from the torn down B&O depot. Of course we accepted and then when he asked for help getting it out of his pick up I thought how can this sign be any problem. Well, it turned out to be a cast metal sign about 7' long and weighed a couple hundred pounds. The man was delighted with what we were trying to preserve and he couldn't get over how he was treated when he stopped by to visit. The sign was appraised close to $2,000. It pays to be nice, not just for donations but mainly for the goodwill that you envoke.


galberti990@comcast.net