IF we were to develop a Most Endangered list,

What would the goal be?

It could be a simple list of items we think are in danger of being lost.
(in an attempt to save them?)

It could be a way to get attention for RYPN.

It could be a way of calling attention to issues in railroad preservation.

What would the criteria be?

Would we want mostly lone, specific items like a depot, or the “last”
caboose of it’s railroad or class, or a body or loco crying for salvation,
or would whole classes of items be welcome, for example, Mainline
steam excursions, or the “out back” body garden found at virtually
every railroad museum be eligible as well. What about more esoteric
concepts like a landscape?

Do we want to choose the most endangered, or instead the most
significant?

Can an item be listed repeatedly?

How many items should be listed? Is 6 enough, or do we need 10 or even more. Why?

How would items be chosen?

I assume we would provide a way for members to nominate items. We
would then need a jury to judge the entries. Any thoughts?

How do we make sure this is a positive process, rather than just a list of shame, or a place to cry over our collective losses?

Randy,

You have described several of the problems of setting up a "most endangered" list. The most important is determining what is significant and endangered enough for listing.

The students of any one railroad or field of technology or social interaction could probably come up with their own list. But the question then becomes how we move from the personal favorite list to an industry significant list.

Does it become an essay contest? Does it become a point rating system? Does it become, I’ve got more bluster than you do? Or my railroad was more important than yours? This car is rarer, or more important, or more threatened, or more complete, or less complete than your choice? There are many ways of developing any one list and then consolidating them or thinning it out.

We cannot be trying for agreement in any list. But we need an acceptance of the process and the end result.

AT&SF Alco PA

I was hoping this discussion would not be about nominating any specific item. Instead, I was trying to gather information on how such a list might be developed.

If we just discuss two criteria, endangered and significance, the PA's, two are now back in the US, owned by responsible preservation organizations, one is undergoing active restoration, the other is stored safely, awaiting funding to support restoration. I am not sure they meet the criteria for "most endangered". If they do, then all the streetcar bodies, tucked away in car barns, now out of the weather could also be considered.

If the reason for the list's existence was to promote restoration of "the most" significant artifacts, then maybe. The PA's probably qualify as significant (but I assume that we would need some evidence of significance.) Why are the two PA's more significant than the two Electro liner train sets, both of which are also in museums, inside, but need money and commitment to be restored. One of which has seen some restoration, the other is for sale, looking for a new home.

Randy,

You have hit the nail on the head when you talk about significance!

The National Trust uses the National Register of Historic Places as a measure of significance. It may not be the best yardstick but it is one that is nationally recognized.

And I am glad to say that there are an increasing number of rail related sites enteres into the Register. Especially equipment, not just stations and depots.

I am sure that the fact that our C. A. Thayer got her rebuild money because she was on the list at one point.

I am glad to hear that the Nevada Northern and the East Ely site is up for listing as a National Historic Landmark, now if they can just do the same for the East Broadtop RR could get listed?

Ted Miles

The EBT was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
It was named to the National Trusts' 11 most endangered list in 1996.

http://www.ebtrr.com - The EBT
http://www.febt.org - The Friends of the EBT

I'm not sure that developing a most endangered list of our own would accomplish much, and might degrade into the usual much-ado-about-nothing discussion we often see here. I do think such a list for the wider preservation community (and thus the public) is valuable, and when a rail subject gets on it it is helpful to the cause. Just because the wider list isn't perfect does not mean it is not useful. But we need to advocate more than just saving individual structures and/or pieces of rolling stock - there has to be a vision of how it can develop and be meaningful to society in general. Saving the last diner from the Rocky Mountain Rocket for instance, does not register much with the public - reassembling the whole train in its early 1940s form (which I'm not sure can still be done) just might.

http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00005907+OP-5907

A "most endangered" list shouldn't necessarily apply just to equipment and structures. Right at the top of my choices for inclusion in a "most endangered" list is the collective knowledge of the individuals who designed and built the equipment, and very little is being done to preserve that. While there are a few organizations that have made valuable efforts to preserve interviews with railroad employees there is no comparable coordinated effort to locate and interview people who worked for the equipment builders. A close second on my list would be the technical manuals and publications these folks produced in support of their equipment. There is no coordinated effort to preserve and catalog that information either, and the lack of a determined and coordinated effort in that area is likely to make things much more difficult as the years go by. The preservation and restoration of diesels can be influenced quite considerably by the availability of appropriate supporting technical documentation. That isn't to say that having every single piece of paper relating to a particular model of diesel locomotive is essential in a restoration, that certainly is not the case, but being able to identify and locate appropriate technical information certainly makes the task a lot easier than trying to mull out circuitry and identify suitable replacement parts without it.

(I am not at all picking on those PAs at all here, nor are they of any significance to this post than as an example.)

Objectivity
This brings up the issue of subjectivity versus objectivity in building such a list. Regional variants of specific types of equipment may have some limited regional significance, but without an underlying uniqueness about the item, who is to say what qualifies for the list?

Is paint a qualifying item for being endangered?
Many types of equipment were mass produced, the only difference between each example being the paint job it was given. Units were also traded and sold among various railroads during their commercial lifetimes, but which paint scheme is then the most significant? The PAs operated by the D&H on the Laurentian for a time would probably have some serious significance to many ferroequinologists on the East Coast, but would resonate more in other parts of the country in their original colors. Which side of that discussion would be correct?

How much is enough?
I would absolutely agree the last steam locomotive in existence from a given railroad would certainly qualify as significant, but if there were ten or more locomotives of different classes from a single railroad, which is the most significant? We could become a sort of Noah's Ark, attempting to save two of everything ever having existed on any railroad for any reason anywhere.

Criteria and Review Panel
The maintenance of a valid and useful "most endangered" list will require the establishment of hard and fast criteria for acceptance to the list, with those criteria containing most of the points made throughout this discussion and other points we have yet to see. That will require some group to be established to determine the criteria to be used. That, however, brings the question of who gets to name the members and sponsor the group, and how will they pick the individuals to serve on it. It should probably be something more formal than just a collection of random thoughts from one of these forum topics, so it will need a sponsoring organization; RyPN, R&LHS, NRHS, or whomever.

Once the criteria is determined, a Review Panel will need to be established to accept formal nominations for the list, and determine how well they meet the criteria. Again, who gets to name the members of the Review Panel and sponsor the group? Something like this requires some administration, and in what is likely to be essentially a volunteer effort, someone will have to step up to do all that, AND be reliable enough to handle that administration on a very long-term basis. Who wants to do that?

Conclusion
Is a "most endangered" list a good idea? In principal, I think it is, and would be willing to shoulder some of the responsibility for it, assuming anyone ever offered it to me. That is just one opinion, however, and a lot more needs to be said before such a thing is a reality. Still, there is enough merit in the idea to warrant further discussion. If you have not already offered it, what is your opinion?

Bob Crowley
Secretary
East Carolina Chapter, NRHS

Bob - i think (like most cooperative efforts in this industry) that it is doomed due to the individual agendas and conflicts preventing anything like a genuine consensus from being possible - unless the list is created by disinterested third parties.

Wouldn't it be better for each of us to locally advocate for our own most endangered resources? That would allow us to concentrate on convincing the decision makers rather than each other of each issues importance.

dave

Hmmmm. Interesting topic. Based on my experience, I'd say anything that was not stored indoors in a fire-rated building with an alarm system is endangered.

Beyond that I can think of some pieces in public and private collections that I would consider truly endangered. But the risk in that level of detail is that the exercise would soon turn into name-calling, etc. much as we have seen here on occasion.

Wesley

That is my point exactly, Dave. Without a central "authority" in the form of an organization of disinterested third party, any such effort devolves into regional, local, and personal ideas and agendas. Everyone in the hobby and preservation factions of this endeavor has their own opinion of how everything should be done, and as a result, we get nowhere. We make local progress when an individual club or museum does a specific project, but very little is done on any sort of "national" basis. That may be just the natural order of things, but we should at least realize as a potential threat to any "most endangered" list at the outset.

Bob

I suspect that while we would ask for nominations from list members, the choices would need to be left up to an appointed editiorial board. That group would need to be careful to avoid the personal agendas.

I would hope that the listed items would be chosen to illistrate problems and challages in railroad preservation, as much as to call out a specific artifact.

Any list will never make everyone happy.

A few thoughts:

1. Any such list is basically a Public Relations effort. I think before RYPN spends time on the project, they would want to determine who the target audiences are and exactly what outcome or response(s) is desired. If the audience is only railroad museum enthusiasts, an RYPN panel would be credible. If a larger influence is desired I suspect the name "RYPN" won't cut it. Probably better to create something like the "National Railway Preservation Board". It sounds better in the news release. Maybe add a few Board members with historic preservation credentials beyond just railways?

2. Altough it would be a lot of work, it might be worth creating a list of the most significant resources first, then determine which are the most endangered. That would also allow a more positve award to balance the negativism of "most endangered". Something like the year's 10 best success stories in railway preservation.

Pete Schmidt

Not intending to throw cold water on the idea, but between the "hard work" to execute and maintain such a list, plus all the variables mentoned by other posters, isn't this all a bit of a moot point unless there is also a known, reliable source of funding to take action on listed artifacts? We continuously hear about "finds" and requests for donations to "save" this piece or that, because it is "significant". While I can sympathize, and would love to be able to help out, I think we can all safely say we have our own "finds" and needs to "save" something of local significance. Personally, I can think of about 14 off-site pieces (meaning not already in posession of the museum, and this is just in southern Georgia) that I feel should be "saved", some with more significance (meaning relevance to the region and the museum collection) than others. But how realistic is it to think they can all be saved and further, or more importantly, preserved?

I think Dave phrased it well, basically, that there are individual and local agendas that would likely prevent a national "most endangered" list from being anything other than just that...a list.