On a positive note, see where UP 3985 made ABC news website with a very positive story.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

One thing that distinguishes the USAF Museum - they are chronicling their own history with their own artifacts.

It's a big difference. When our third party museums discuss what the GF&W RR did, we must say "they did..." The USAF Museum can rightly say "we did..."

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

The Air Force museum is one of my favorites, for the reasons noted above. It's even got a couple Navy search-and-rescue planes that fished AAF flyers out of the water, so that I could show my son the Duck and Catalina that his grandfather navigated.

But on my last visit, whining from the rest of the family prevented me from hiking across a lawn for a close look at a new acquisition: the prototype of the ICBM-launching box car constructed in the 1980's. This looked to be on four 2-axle trucks, about a hundred feet long, painted oxide red (for camouflage). A remarkable exploitation of the concept of the rail network as a steel ocean capable of hiding missiles the way the ocean hides submarines.

- Aarne Frobom

UP seems to be the only major RR that has any understanding of public image, and I'm sure there have been internal forces even there that have tried to squash those efforts. What's really amazing is that Steve Lee and his platoon have managed to keep the steam program alive all these years, despite the bean counters' attempts to kill it.

> On a positive note, see where UP 3985 made
> ABC news website with a very positive story.


ryarger@rypn.org

> On a positive note, see where UP 3985 made
> ABC news website with a very positive story.

Here's the URL for that, below


3985 - ABC story

> UP seems to be the only major RR that has
> any understanding of public image, and I'm
> sure there have been internal forces even
> there that have tried to squash those
> efforts. What's really amazing is that Steve
> Lee and his platoon have managed to keep the
> steam program alive all these years, despite
> the bean counters' attempts to kill it.

Please remember that a steam excursion program does not automatically translate into positive public image. Yes, it can and does when played correctly. But (just to play devil's advocate) it can also translate into "RR is a playground", "railroads pollute and make lots of noise", "trains are old-fashioned dinosaurs refusing to lay down and die", etc. It's really rather hard to translate a steam locomotive show into a PR piece about how railroads haul X share of freight, are vital corridors of American commerce, keep your power plants alive, etc.

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

As Sandy said, it depends on how the engine is used. If the PR Department sends a display car behind the engine filled with information on today's railroad operstion, the steam engine will get people to the trackside in a way no diesel (even the historic ones) will. When Southern Railway placed their steam program under the PR department, it gained enormous goodwill. In later years when the NS program became primarily a party for railfans, and an operating headache for the railroad, we all know what happened.

kevin.r.gillespie@verizon.net