The Texas State Railroad now has an online petition, which reads as follows:



The petition is available for signing online on the TSRR website at http://www.texasstaterailroad.com. Please take a minute to sign it. Thank You.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

It would be an honor sign such a worthy document, but participation seems to be limited to Texas residents only. Too bad, because the TSRR has friends all over. Please reply to this posting if you know of a similar effort which I can support.

I signed it and I'm in Louisiana. I saw people from many different states had already signed. I couldnt see where it is limited only to people in Texas.

Sign up!

Thanks for giving us the heads up about this James!

..... online petitions are generally regarded as worthless by those whom they're supposed to influence: the lawmakers.

And they have a quite valid point.

See http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.htm for an explicit and exhaustive analysis of the failings of online petitions.

This is not to denigrate the good intentions of the TSR's supporters, and indeed there's actually a better chance than most thet they'll get somewhere with this, because (we presume) the petition has a clearly defined mission and destination, as opposed to those just ranting against politics in general. But if I'm going to denigrate the multitude of online petitions to stop [name your cause of the week] that fill my box every month, I owe it to them to also criticize a well-intentioned effort like this that has the same failings.

Thank you so much for taking the time to denigrate the TSRR petition. I personally don't get very many online petitions, and it is a pleasure to support this one. Not only that, but it took less time to sign it than it would take to throw water on their efforts.

[quote="QJdriver"]Thank you so much for taking the time to denigrate the TSRR petition.[/quote]

I don't think any denigration was intended. I will agree that online petitions may have less efficacy than expected. Better to contact the legislature, IMO.

I repeat: My response is not intended to denigrate the pro-TSRR efforts, but rather as a more general re-education of as many people as possible about the ineffectiveness (at best) or total worthlessness (at worst) of such online petitions.

Signing a petition that does not have a firm paper trail and does not follow proper protocol serves only to make the persons signing feel better about themselves. Someone may not order their electricity from a "green" producer at a 35% premium, or stop driving their cars, or adjust international economic policy to reduce CO2 emissions, or install a geothermal heat pump for their house, but by good golly, they signed a petition to "stop global warming," so they did their part, huh? And as it turns out, I have so many back-up e-mail addresses that I could sign an online petition 15 times or so. We already have a nasty legal fight brewing in the state courts of my home state over the validity of a paper petition with real signatures challenging changes to the state's voting laws, changes which leave an opening for fraud big enough to drive a train through.

There may come a day when we no longer have people cluttering our e-mail boxes with the petition solicitation of the week. Until such time, I'm going to be part of the educational process. In the meantime, I hope I can get to Texas in time to support and ride what I understand is an excellent operation.

Excuse me, please. What I SHOULD have said was thank you for "educating" all the rest of us by "criticizing" the TSRR (actually Texas Parks and Wildlife) petition.

If you go to the TSRR website, you will see that THEY ARE ASKING US TO SIGN THIS PETITION. That really is not so much to ask. Whether you consider this a good enough reason for me to sign it does not matter at all.

The fact that you get too many emails is not a good enough reason for me to fail to do an easy thing when it is asked of me by my friends in Rusk. And, what happens in your Maryland state courts does not matter at all in Texas because their state laws were derived from the laws of the Republic of Texas, and are unique among the 50 states.

The Texas State RR has so many things working against it, that any public criticism of their way of doing things accomplishes more harm than good. You are quite correct in thinking that simply doing what the railroaders are asking us to do makes me feel better about myself.

A lot of people seem to agree with me enough to add their signatures. Honestly, it's an awful long shot. This is not really a good time for anyone who claims to care about the TSRR to try and discourage supporters from their efforts.

You know, there are some states that have laws that explicitly prohibit state employees from public lobbying of this nature. It's viewed as a conflict of financial interest, one that should not be taken by state employees directly affected. I've been briefed many, many times on just what the Railroad Museum of Penna. can and cannot do in terms of advocacy, for example. (Pennsylvania just happens to be an admittedly extreme example of this, from what I can tell.)

I don't know what the state laws are in Texas regarding a matter like this, but it occurs to me that such an effort would be best handled by a separate, independent group (say, a "Friends of the RR" group or even a specific individual) rather than by the railroad itself. Linking to someone else's petition from the RR's home page would probably pass muster, but if this petition was started by the railroad's employees/managers............

Mr. Mitchell makes some valid points and I must disagree with the suggestion his post would "denigrate the TSRR petition".

I agree that internet petittions have a limited effect if any on lawmakers. There is too much room for error and confirmation. I could go online and sign up my wif, uncle, parents, grandmother and everyone else I know without them even knowing it and pretty soon this petition is no more valid than an Illinois election.

If I was a lawmaker I would put more validity in a petition presented with actual signatures by people directly involved and/or affected - citizens of Texas.

just MHO of course.

Let's all sign it,it might just help?? Keep it civil fellas or you'll incur the wrath of a certain thread locker with evidently a very sensetive trigger finger!
Ross Rowland

Thank you Ross. For the information of everyone on ths forum, this moderator has signed the petition. In the interest of railway preservation, I encourage every other reader of this forum to do likewise.