Lets say that you have a reasonably successful tourist operation. You might even have a little freight to help maintain the passenger infrastructure. You have interchange, a scenic right of way, even a little street running. You are near population centers and complementary tourist attractions.


Here's how you wreck your operation:


1.) Fail to recognize your key personnel as part of your success. Try their patience until they go elsewhere. Act as though their paychecks are mere leaks in your income statement. Since people ARE the key to such an operation, this is the key element in the plan of destruction.

2.) Give control of your operation to an individual(s) with no operating skills and without effective management or people skills. If the individual is prone to abusive outbursts, all the better. This supports objective No. 1 and creates or worsens financial problems.

3.) This is sort of an adjunct to No. 1. Fail to recognize your volunteers. Act as though you have no concept that VOLUNTEERS are their for their enjoyment. Fail to provide proper amenities, such showers or lockers. Act outraged when they don't provide their services as frequently as you'd like
them too.

4.) Fail to appreciate and maintain your most important equipment. Even though you are running vintage equipment, acted shocked when said equipment exhibits failure.

5.) Finally, use your property to maintain a collection of equipment that is unusable and unmaintained. Refuse offers of sale that would improve your financial condition, the appearance of the property, ease and focus of operations.

Is this a hypothetical? No. I'll avoid naming the specific operation to avoid incurring the ire of the moderators, but those that have watched this destruction are a little sadder tonight.

Unfortunately, there will be one less steam engine running next year.

Superheater:
While it is truly frustrating to watch management drive an operation in the wrong direction, it should not be unexpected in the preservation business. Unfortunately, the management you wish to address probably does not view this forum.
Not knowing the circumstances surrounding your case, we probably cannot offer much in the way of solutions, and since the operation is a private one, probably could not practcially intercede if we could.
It might be interesting to see the story of how this developed over time, just to remind the rest of us of the warning signs of a managerial implosion. I can say this because much the same thing happened at my former workplace, and we knew for almost three years that things were going the wrong way.
But all that can happen in the end is to learn from these terrible mistakes and do our best to learn from them and educate others so they may avoid them.
Best of luck.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Three Cheers for superheater

I Have a front row seat to much of the same thing right now. I also have a board meeting tomorrw night. Yea ha this one is going to be fun! I'm going to keep my mouth shut though. Control freaks can't be resoned with! I just wish I knew a way to figure out how to deal with people like this. I've put 26 years of my life into this and hate to see all our work down the drain.
Just to prove my point I run a locomotive shop for a living, train poeple in operations and have a eletrical enginner telling me how to maintain equpment!!!! This person has NO PEOPLE SKILLS, He's run off so many very taleneted people, I can't even count. But in his favor he's done alot of good to.

Well it is a sad state of affairs, I have been there...I have worked on the steam engine, I have volunteered my time, skills, and even my own personal assets there at the M&H, but it was never done for current management, but for my friends and as my hobby. Well, finally, perhaps those in charge will get the picture that you can not expect to give nothing and recieve everything. I know all the defects, heartaches, etc with current management.

Well the story goes on, we volunteers, those who are left, will not let engine 91 die, she will be mothballed and ready to be placed back into service.

Now that it has been made known to the board that the railroad Superheater is refering to is the Middletown and Hummelstown I feel I can now say what I need to say. Unfortunately as an ex M&H employee I can tell you nothing about this situation is new. With the exception of the part about the volunteers and giving operating control to unqualified people these are exactly the reasons I left the M&H in early 1982. We had no volunteers and only 2 fulltime employees back then, the owner and myself. I have always thought the M&H was a good little railroad with some potential. I guess the fact that it is still running in spite of the problems proves that.

I am not knocking the M&H or any individual. The owner is a nice guy whom I still consider a friend but when it comes to dealing with employees he does not have a clue. He is a trolley guy and scared to death of steam. His plan to run trolleys on the line is fairly unrealistic if he ever hopes to recover the investment. The condition of his "collection" keeps him in conflict with local officials and the neighbors.

My comments are made in hope others will not make the same mistakes and are not intended to offend anyone.

John Bohon

Wait what happened. Are they suspending operations? This is the M&H with the CN 2-6-0 #91 (I think) right? If you cant post this here please some one send me a privet message.

-Eric

Yes, we are talking about the Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad. The 91 is being mothballed by the owner. He did the same thing after they got the engine running about 15 years ago. In addition the two principal guys behind the steam engine are no longer with the railroad. I do not know the circumstance behind their leaving. They have a new general manager with little railroad experience. The owner is a trolley guy who apparently now wants to concentrate on getting some wire up and running trolleys. That is about all I know at this time. Perhaps someone can fill in more of the details.

John Bohon

From the view as a recently ex M&H employee, here is the scoop,

The owner (s) did not want to purchase the necessary equipment to maintain the steam program.
#1 A water softner to soften Middletown's incredibly hard water so we could formulate a treatment program, and
#2 Did not want to spent the necessary time and money to take care of the routine off season maintenance that all steam locomotives require after a hard season of operations. The Company's focus has shifted as it does on a day to day basis, from wanting to maintain and opearate a steam program to the unrealistic goal of restoring and opeating trolleys. It is an unfortunate because a many volunteer hours and in most cases, the volunteers bought the necessary parts to complete the project such as lagging, a blowdown valve, and countless other parts. This project was our lives for four long years we put our blood, sweat, and tears into this locomotive. This is darn shame, we had a fantastic group of people whom I feel privileged to have worked with and an awesome locomotive we had a very well put together program in place and we all enjoyed working with the locomotive and the comrodarie, both of which I will miss. We accomplished something that many people said we would never do, bring 91 back from the dead. It is such a shame however that her return to service is soo short lived. It was a great ride while it lasted! For those of you were on the hill to see and hear her climbing that 3% grade, that is an image that will be etched in my memory forever. So, there's the scoop sad but true.

~Steamteam 91

Moderator comments -- this thread is on the boundry of what we can accept here on RyPN as potential "flaming" and has generated not a few PMs between the moderators. The comments are valuable for the lessons they may (or may not) teach. But please don't use individual's names unless they are here to to use their own name or to defend themselves. Our policy, which sets RyPN appart from other discussion groups, is the measured consideration of the words posted to learn and/or to teach, not to inflame. -- Ed

Superheater
you hit the nail on the head, after 4 years and meny thousands of dallars mostly given with privat donation and from the steam team people them selfs Managment deleted was always jelous of the steam team and has no one to help with the dead trollys , a huge pipe dream from one old man.
He had a great steam program but he was not willing to purchase the water softner needed to protect the boiler or was willing to give the proper time to do the anual inspection.
The entire steam team has left the M & H also due to the unrelenting back biting and lies from this one individual, The steam team guys themselfs are the best bunch of guys i have ever met!! he believes you can put 91 on a shelf and in two years dust it off and fire it up, this is not so ,there are inspections to do paperwork to keep filling out and as always the maintenence to do.
This is a terable blow to the steam comunity to bring an engine back to life only to have a wire head destroy it all.
And as for the employees, he had knowledgeabl railroad people around him to help run the show, and thay have all left in the past few monthes, is there a proplem here?
This guy deleted put this place on the map by rallying the volenteers and cleaning it up and getting coaches painted and buildings built and then 91 but back in service , but he was not willing to destroy the engin with hard water and no good treatment. This is truly a SAD Day

This hardly seems rational on the face of it - much like killing the goose that lays golden eggs because you think you might prefer the taste of chicken.

I briefly visited the M&H at Dave Crosby's invitation on the day of the floods, ariving late due to blocked roads near Hershey, and missed the operating that provided the fine pictures he has shared. The M&H seemed to have a lot going for it and lots of critical pieces in place - proximity to good roads and a large fairly propserous SMSA, pleasant and nostalgic scenery, a nice little depot (which needs more directonal signage to find) well maintained coaches and the prettiest little 2-6-0. The only jarring element was the string of SEPTA junk trolleys which were far too visible in the predominant public venue of operation.

Converting the M&H to a country electric interurban line is certainly possible, but it won't be inexpensive or immediate. As such it would have a certain amount of charm, but I wonder if the operating cost savings relative to the steam and diesel operation would make up for the cost of the captial required to carry out the conversion and the loss of revenue and momentum and volunteer staff incurred during the changeover.

Still, it isn't my railroad and perhaps there are other forces at work we know nothing about which would more readily explain the situation.

dave

And I was planning to go & ride #91 this spring. Just goes to show, when something's runnig, ride it while you can. Tomorrow can be too late.

Looking beyond the specifics of this case, the broader issue is the proper role of volunteers assisting a private business. Some of the "Friends" type organizations have developed both a strong internal structure as well as a good working relationship with the entity they wish to support. Perhaps someone can share insight as to the degree of formality needed for success.

As the owner of a short line, I usually turn down offers of volunteer help. I recognize the risk of having good hearted people put time and effort into something that they do not own and I don't want to create a false sense of equity. Ultimately the decisions about equipment, operations, etc., are strictly mine to make, and it's too easy to create misunderstandings or unfulfilled expectations.

Most small, independent short lines - either freight, passenger, or both - reflect the passions, priorities and idiosyncrasies of their owner, for better or worse. Building a sucessful volunteer auxiliary can take a lot of patience; folks like the FEBT and others can probably attest to this.

Perhaps we can see a new thread reflecting on the "do's" and "don'ts" of volunteers working with private enterprises.

Alan Maples

I also was a volunteer (Machininst) during the restoration of #91 at M&H only to recently learn that it was being moth balled. I thoroughly enjoyed machining parts for the "old girl" and will miss it. I feel sad about the whole ordeal but more importantly devistated for the guy who was the back bone of the restoration. He put his heart and sole into this project only to have it ripped out from underneath him by a women who has no clue. You deserve a lot of credit Brian. I enjoyed the friendship with the steam team and am looking forward to machining more parts for the "old girl".