It was encouraging to see that in an entire week of events they found the time to have four people do "live" presentations on historical topics. That provides some practice for the day when the insurance rates for fantrips become completely prohibitive and they have to do a convention where the focus is entirely on railroad history.

Seems to me that we all have a stake in trying to help reverse the NRHS's declining fortunes as it is the only national organization representing the general public to historic railroading.
Obviously something went arye between Mr. Jacobson and the NRHS as evidenced by his absence and his refusal to allow his coaches to be used. It's his privilege to speak to that if he so chooses.
It has been reported on another forum that the membership decline is accelerating and that some chapters are down as much as 40% in the last few years.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how this trend might be reversed?
Ross Rowland

Ross: An interesting question. I don't think a succinct answer can be brought forth, but in speculation, I would this these factors play a role,
1) Many of us are the last of a generation that saw passenger trains as a way of life, rather than a "lesser" means of transport. By that, I mean on the same level as a Greyhound bus. 2) The fascination of the power implied by a locomotive engineer is no longer apparent in younger people. Heck, many think an astronaut has nothing special in his /her job. Technology has leap-frogged several generations of people. 3) Many organizations requiring membership do nothing but feature old guys talking about what used to be, rather than being active and welcoming to those few young people who might be fascinated by the technology. Case in point is an air museum near my home that has two pathetic little planes on the lawn, and closets full of old uniforms and air force caps. I'm not fascinated, why would a kid be? 4) Money is required to get things accomplished. It's great to want to restore a caboose, passenger car, or locomotive, but money for such projects in this country is hard to come by, and requires large amounts (and I'm telling you?). 5) If you beat all the previous things I've listed, it's still an uphill battle to get railroad to run your equipment or even move your equipment.
Organizations which can beat all these odds may have a chance, but young people, ages 10 to 21 need to be appreciated and feel they are making a positive contribution toward getting their goals accomplished. Face it, if it isn't exciting, the new blood curls up into a world of fast, cheap cars, Ipods, and computers. It's a great deal with which to compete.

Short answer: make it meaningful / relevant.

How to do so is another thing entirely.

If one percent of the retiring boomers (who have disposable incomes and some spheres of influence) can be brought into railway preservation we will have more people to advocate for us than we can put to good use. Let's not concentrate entirely on today's teens, but we ought to find ways to attract that group as well.

I wonder if the demise of high school shop classes has resulted in few young people who have any idea about the challenges / rewards in doing hands-on craft work? Perhaps we need to ask our schools to reconsider.

Now half-way through a book called "Everything Bad is Good for You". It theorizes that popular culture has not devolved to an ever lower common denominator, but has actually made the "low and middle brow" culture smarter, and the cultural activities which contribute best to this raising more popular than the others. Perhaps we need to consider our approaches in terms of creating attractively engaging and challenging opportunities?

I also wonder if the structure and personality of our more traditional organizations might not be made more vital. Heirarchies and political squabbling makes for good soap operas, but not for an enjoyable life.

Ironically, we are as a nation starting to move back towards greater interest in developing mass transit and creating communities in which cars are not required for daily life. Freight movers are anxious to achieve the economies of rail rather than truck transport for bulk shipping of goods and commodities. The railroad industry needs to reinvent itself to capitalize on this - how can we do the same?

dave

The NRHS "generational" issue is systematic of a lot of other things going on within the industry. To say its simply effects just the NRHS is being a bit simplistic. Have you checked the average age of the Lexington Group lately, for instance ? And while I am sure there are specific reasons that there are fewer NRHS members, both in the local chapters and the national, the biggest reason effect the industry/ preservation movement as a whole.

Look, Teens, twenty's and thirty somethings don't need to be cow-towed to, and they don't need to be handed things on a silver plater. On the same token, they also don't need to be treated as if their idiots, or worse, paternalized to as if they are a bunch of pygamy's and those "in the know" are the British Empire. A balance needs to exist between a willingness to learn with the willingness to teach --- easy to say, hard to do. When you have experienced what this kind of positive exchange can be like, NRHS chapter or otherwise, and then have it yanked away over certain people's personal issues, it can be VERY hard to forgive and forget, to be sure; but you have to try.

The biggest issue against this truly happening right now are $#^$ insurance companies and their rules with "you have to be 18", giving a seemingly easy "no" to anyone who looks at getting younger people working with existing volunteers/ staff. This stupid mentality had just started to come into its own when I was a late teen, and sadly a great many of us now in our late 20's early 30's took the full force of this in the late 80's early 90's backlash head-on. Certain local NRHS Chapters, museums, and tourist railroads, which previously had been known for fostering new generations in steam/ rail preservation, suddenly turned their back and completely forgot the number one duty any of us have --- to educate and help those below us like others did for us.

Sadly, I suspect some also used the insurance issue as an easy way out to "get rid of those meddling kids", and in essence create a glorified retirement club. Sadly, some still do so. I'm sorry, but I come from a school where you were taught to pass ON what you have learned --- not hord it like some kind of twisted packrat.

There are and have been places where a wide variety of ages volunteer or work --- where a great balance exists between repect of knowledge and years hardened in the industry as well as an interest and a willingness to learn. Sadly, there are places that had that and threw it away as well --- but that's for another day.

TJG

RyPN and its kin are responsible for the decline in the NRHS. Until about 1970, the railfan press consisted primarily of Trains, Railroad, R&LHS Bulletin and the NRHS national magazine. There were a few local clubs that ran excursions and some more that had monthly slide shows. The railway museum movement was just gathering steam. Now we have quality magazines from special interest groups for every fallen flag, region of the county, type of motive power, and museum operation. . The NRHS problem may partially be demographic, but it is also representative of the same pressures that the network news shows are having with cable and the internet competition. Why join the NRHS to get a magazine whose quality is exceeded by (for example) the C&NW Historical Society? Why go downtown to see slides that can be easily viewed on-line?

If the underlying problems were wholly driven by a dramatic decline in the number of fans, we would likely see a consolidation within the railfan community. The NRHS would be ideally positioned to capitalize on such a trend. Sadly, that does not seem to be that case. I dropped my membership years ago because I couldn;'t afford to subscribe to and join everything. My guess is that others have the same problem.

Sorry to keep repeating myself, but the NRHS is unfortunately contributing to its own demise. Many of the local chapters have totally lost any focus on railroad history and are simply a group of people who get together to look at the same slide shows by the same small group of members year after year, or watch videos they could just as easily view at home. When they do manage to get a good speaker with an interesting topic, they often fail to promote the event, or in some cases don't get meeting notices out at all. And it seems like there isn't much leadership or guidance from the national level to encourage the local chapters to promote their activities or let the public know that they exist.

The NRHS national convention seems like an attempt to out-do the RRE with fantrips. Only four history-oriented presentations by live speakers in an entire week of activities? The local NMRA group generally has more railroad history oriented topics presented at their regional convention than the NRHS does at their national.

What will happen to NRHS national conventions when the price of fantrip insurance closes out that activity? Will they expect the members to watch day after day of films from the video library that they could just as easily rent and view at home? Or will the NRHS members all join the NMRA, which seems to have a lot less trouble getting people interested in railroad history?

Well Fred, I dropped my membership after the chapter spent over an hour debating what color T shirts the car hosts would wear on an excursion for which we had not yet sold a single ticket.

Here's a thought: what if NRHS stopped trying to attract railfans and instead tried to market to the general public? How would they go about it?

dave

If the NRHS wanted to promote themselves to the public a good way to start would be to study what this non-affiliated railroad enthusiast group (link provided below) does and how they promote their activities. They frequently have as many as 150 people show up for meetings in a town that is quite far from any major city. That is five times as many people as usually show up for one of the NRHS chapters in the same region, which is right in the middle of a metro area of 8 million people.

By the way, notice the link to the ARCHIVE of past programs and presenters, which are still maintained along with the program descriptions. This is one of a very few groups in the country that maintains this kind of an archive, where you can access program descriptions well after the event is over, thus allowing program chairpersons in other groups to see what presentations were hosted by this organization for several previous years. Notice also that they aren't "cheap" about the use of space, they publish the full program description provided by the presenter and leave it in the archive. Some difference from NRHS chapters that post only a few words to describe an event or program, or don't post them on their website at all.

I do not know of any better example of how to run a successful group promoting railroad history oriented activities than this one. The name of this group should seem very familiar to all of you. If you access this discussion through the RyPN home page you see it every time you visit this website.

The Amherst Railway Society

http://www.amherstrail.org/

The NRHS decline goes back to the late 80's, when the Ray Wood regime was in charge. The goal was to have as many chapters signed up as possible. One of the favorite things was to try to siphon members away from the RRE and the R&LHS. Kinda like the TV networks putting their best shows on at the same time against each other to win the ratings war.

Mxdata is right. The NRHS spent 20 years doing nothing but trying to top the previous year's convention. This led to the infamous "Garden State in 88" debacle. Many NRHS Chapters were nothing more than unpaid extensions of the NS steam program. When NS pulled the plug the NRHS looked like ants after you kick over the anthill - a look it still has today.

I believe much of the NRHS leadership is old and really doesn't care what happens to the organization (or railroad history for that matter) once they are gone.

Fredash hits upon the future - the numerous specialty groups that have come into being over the last 25 years. What would be nice would be if all of these groups could participate in some sort of national clearing house or in some other way share common goals concerning railroad history. At a minimum it would be nice for the C&O Historical Society to be able to tap passenger car plans from the UP Historical Society (as an example). Perhaps such a group could someday be a real national voice for railroad history and preservation after the NRHS is gone.

While the older fellows were debating rules and policy politics at the convention, four of the "young guns" got some mainline firing experience during the trips. I might add that two of these fellows attended the NRHS Rail Camp over the past few years. Rail Camp is one area that can really benefit young people with an interest in railroading that is sponsored by the NRHS. Ryan Beck, Tim Botti, Kelly Lynch, and Mike Muldowney all had the chance to fire on the Thursday and Saturday trips. The experience is invaluable and reminded me of learning from Wes Camp, Andy Adams, Al Phillips, Russ Shipman, Charlie Strunk, Joe Karal, and Ross Rowland back in the High Iron Days. These fellows taught me plenty as a young steam volunteer in the early 1970's. It was great to see Tim Sposato, Scott Ziggans, and Jerry Ballard passing the torch to another group of potential steam volunteers!!! My red and white Kromer hat is still a reminder of the High Iron Days!!

I have to chime in with a bit of a differing opinion. If it weren't for a dedicated group of volunteers, mostly from the Horseshoe Curve Chapter of the NRHS in Altoona, we couldn't be getting done half of what we are accomplishing with our rolling stock stabilization/restoration efforts in Altoona. Yes, they have their membership challenges but those issues aren't unique to the NRHS. Ask mainstream church denominations, the Shriners, your local fraternal organizations, and on and on about their current membership challenges. We would all be better off by getting more involved in changing the things we don't appreciate about the NRHS rather than the proverbial "throwing the baby out with the bath water".

Thanks