For the record I forwarded notice of this thread to a few NRHS and non-NRHS "big names" just to give them the heads-up. This is what I received:

*A well-formulated response from a former NRHS officer who pointed out that there is indeed an effort being made from the top of the NRHS (President Greg Molloy and underlings) to address these very problems, supposedly almost with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. He witnessed the address in question at this year's meeting. I'm waiting for more reports on same.

*A scathing "shoot the messenger" response and dialogue from a certain well-known NRHS name, demanding to know why I was criticizing the NRHS, with a lot of names like "loose cannon", "troublemaker," and "desperate wannabe" dropped liberally at me throughout the dialogue. He claimed that all sorts of NRHS folks saw the thread and castigated me, and because I am who I am, they refuse to dignify my comments with a response--so I have no way to tell if he's creating them out of thin air or not.

Never mind that I did not directly criticize the NRHS or its convention in my posts. I offered up the presumption (made by others in an earlier thread) that the NRHS was failing (quote: "Suppose we presume... that the NRHS is going to heck in a handbasket...").

In ALL the e-mails offered by this individual, there was NOT ONE counter-proposal, NOT ONE piece of constructive criticism, NOT ONE answer to my replies/queries about what he would do or how he would address declining membership, declining participation, and aging demographics, and NOT ONE attempt at rebuttal. Every ounce of his energy was spent lambasting me and my past commentary on RyPN on just about any controversial subject. To quote him: "I think you'd love to call the FRA and report some minor problems on the EBT to them and see the EBT shut down just so you could get onto RyPN and post crap like "See, I told you so" and have your 15 seconds of fame. Seeing your name in print in such a situation is more important to you than ruining a most interesting attraction for thousands of people."

The fact that this is the only response I've received from any NRHS officer of any ilk so far has driven me as close as anything to tearing up my membership cards.

*Lots of supportive feedback and constructive criticism, both on this forum and off-list, from a large number of RyPN types and ex-NRHS members. A sadly recurring theme among the former NRHS members was "I left that foolishness ten years ago and never looked back. See if I care."


In conclusion, I'm forced to have faith in Greg Molloy, Barry Smith, and Jeff Smith (as well as a bunch of others) that the NRHS still stands a chance of survival. No one likes to be the doctor telling the parents their kid is 50 pounds overweight and in need of both diet and psychological therapy. But ignoring a demonstrable problem doesn't make it go away. If the rank and file isn't willing to move forward into the 21st century, they're just fiddling while Rome burns.

Having worked with Greg and Barry, I'm can assure you that you're correct in your placement of faith.

On a side note, I hope I'm not the only one to realize that this has been an incredibly informative, dialouge driven, mature preservation thread, very much unlike the response Mr. Mitchell recieved from whomever deemed their time worthy enough to waste in his reply.

It is true that our concerns for the NRHS are the same concerns we have for the rest of the railroad preservation community. There is a growing awareness that whatever fate besets our brethern affects us all in the same regard and we have the responsibililty to look out for each other, even if we can't agree on everything.

Kelly Lynch

With respect Gary, "Luck" isn't how i would define it if the object is making money. Working for private nonprofits is akin to taking the vow of poverty compared to choosing a career in a profitable enterprise using the same skill set. I'm not saying that volunteers can't obtain such skills, but volunteers that have priorities such as paying their own bills and feeding their own families (which is as it should be) must devote less of their time to maintaining as high a standard in their volunteer work as those who combine both. To choose to work for the lower salary and minimal benefits (if any) in the private nonprofit sector assumes a specific interest and care for the work - either that, or a level of incompetence which renders work for a profitable enterprise impossible, in which case it is a different issue that needs to be considered.

It is my hope that newly retired professionals in fields such as management, marketing, finance, etc will choose to volunteer in our industry so we can have more of the best of both worlds. Even so, I'd rather pay them a small honorarium and cover the costs of continuing professional organization / meetings / memberships such that their skills level can be maintained as professional standards evolve.

dave

Only as a point of information germaine to part of this very constructive thread, I just checked the NRHS website and the "Daily Coverage" section from this years convention has yet to be completed for most days of the event. Again, if you're going to do something-do it right!!
Sure hope that those who have reported an enlightened attitude on the part of Pres. Mallory and his team are proven correct! It's important to all of us that the NRHS be able to do what's necessary to again become a growing vital part of our industry.
Ross Rowland

This has been a very long thread and I hesitate to comment, but wouldn't it be something if the REAL common carrier railroad industry (perhaps through the AAR) lent a hand or a few dollars to things like Railcamp? As a longtime railroad employee, I know it will never happen, but at times I get a bit tired of being an advocate for an industry that does so little to expose its obvious societal benefits to the public and spends more money trying to destroy its infrastructure than building it up.

As previously stated in this "long thread," (what's wrong with those?)Canadian Pacific "sponsors" a day at their yard in Binghamton, NY. While they offer no monetary support, they do allow outsider access, are given a tour of the shop, yard, and yard office and have a very fruitful Q&A conversation with employees. This has been going on since RailCamp started and with CP policies going so far as to ask employees to not be on the property unless they're on the clock, it is pretty extraordinary.

I know Barry's looking into getting more Class 1 support and involvement, and it may be in the form of scholarships.

Lynch

Dave, You're right, "luck" is probably the wrong word. Your comments about level of competence is probably a more accurate description of how some of the people I was refering to ended up with the jobs they had. One museum "Executive Director" I was exposed to had a degree in theater science, and previously had only worked as a secretary. Another, whose "credentials" included a "management position" at a "National" institution, was a gift shop supervisor there. Needless to say, neither one built a positive reputation in the field. I think that many Boards of Directors need to take an in depth look at the actual experience and qualifications of people they hire, and not just go off of a puffed up resume and favorable first impression.

Amen Gary.

dave

There are a few retirees around who worked all their careers in engineering and service related jobs with railroad equipment manufacturers. Some of them participated in the design and construction of a variety of equipment and would seem like ideal choices for jobs in the railway preservation field, if they desired to keep working. But I am unaware of any of them (that I know) who have ever been approached regarding job openings in railway preservation. This kind of crossover from the manufacturers to the museums does not seem to happen very often. A few retired people from the locomotive builders (Chris MacDermott comes to mind) have served as consultants to museums short term on specific projects.

I have mentioned before one famous restoration (alteration?) project that needed badly to have an experienced person from the equipment builder on the staff from the beginning. They spent more than a decade and an incredible amount of money to arrive at conclusions that exactly matched the advice a manufacturer's local service engineer had given them for free prior to the start of the restoration. Of course the people running the show at that time didn't want to listen to him because what he had to say was not what they wanted to hear. The money that was wasted might have been enough to construct a new display building for the equipment.

Going back to the RailCamp discussion, the ability of major railroads to host campers can be severely restricted by their union agreements, safety rules, and often by insurance provisions as well. Giving groups a tour of the facilities and providing demonstrations of some of the skills involved in maintaining the equipment is one thing, letting an outside person who is not a member of the workforce operate equipment can be a real problem in some shops.

I might add that any time you are setting up a tour of a facility on a major railroad, if the host is willing to put an employee with you as a tour guide, you are best off requesting one of the training instructors. They normally deal with a wide spectrum of the equipment and operations and have the experience of doing presentations, handling questions, and guiding tours. Other staff and administrators may have greater involvement in specific aspects of the operations, but can sometimes be a disappointment as tour guides.

PC

Again, bringing this topic up for Steven. See my comments on page 4 regarding qualifactions (in particular, gift shop manager)

From time to time my organizaton involves itself with model-railroading events, but after quite a few years' experience, I have come not to expect to drum up much interest in rail preservation from this sector. A large fraction of our volunteers have some interest in model railroading, but the proportion doesn't seem to work in reverse.

I have the feeling that the modeling impulse is different from the preservation impulse. The urge is to replicate something, or manipulate a system in minature. (It's no coincidence that the videogame industry traces its intellectual roots back to the MIT model-railroad club, or so I've read.) Not too many young people are attracted to model railroading these days, and among the adults, it seems to be a way to retreat for a while from big problems. Unlike railroad museums, which ARE big problems.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't try to interest modelers, because there are always a few who are bored with models and want to take on something big. Just be prepared to find that they're few and far between.

There are other avenues. After model trains, our active members seem to have unusual levels of interest in antique cars, boats, live-steam modeling and machining, real railroading, motorcycles, an inordinate number of black-powder weapons and, as the phrase goes, "poisonous junk, stuff that blows up, and large dangerous things that go fast."

And really avoid Lionel/Train Collector events. I did one a few years ago after the sponsors pestered us to take a table. Not only did we sell next to nothing, some of the customers were angry that we were "taking" space away from more Lionel dealers.

The best places I have found to attract new people are community events. I was set up in a local community for an "old fashioned" 4th of July celebration and got quite a lot of interest, new members and some nice donations as well.

Don't forget "loud" as well. In another forum, organs (including steam calliopes) were mentioned; I think airplanes of all kinds for the same reasons.

"Huh, what did you say..." :)

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

An unusual combination of business and personal travel this month allowed me to attend the meetings of a couple of NRHS chapters. I was curious whether the discussion in this string might have had any effect on the way the chapters were doing things.

Sorry to report that nothing appears to have changed at all. I started out by going to all the chapters websites (those that have one) to check the meeting nights and directions to the meeting locations, and find out what the program was going to be. In all examples I looked at, the website was not up to date or the program was not identified. In each case, I had to go through members I know to find out what the program was going to be.

It seems that the NRHS is still suffering from an inability to promote their own activities, which is a real shame, because in a couple cases the programs were superb presentations by folks well known in the railroad enthusiast community and their presence could have provided opportunities to attract new members and attention for the chapters if they took advantage of it. Looking beyond that though, it is really rather insulting to presenters who might come long distances, when the group makes no effort at all to promote their programs. This is an area where the national organization really needs to provide some good advice and guidance to the chapters, if the national is to be of any use at all.

If you don't make any effort to promote your meetings and activities, you might as well expect that new people will seldom show up, and the membership will continue to decline. At many of the meetings, I was one of the youngest people in the audience, and I am really getting up there in years. However, I did see one teenager attending one group's meeting, the only person I could be sure was in the age range between teenage and the 30s, in all the audiences.

When you see the age distribution of the people attending the meetings it becomes pretty obvious that this group is going to be self-terminating. Where are the people in their 20s and 30s? I see far more of them at NMRA (National Model Railroad Association) events and single-railroad historical society meetings. It is pretty obvious the NRHS is not catering to the interests of their age group.

Does all this matter? Possibly not. The NRHS never did have a monopoly on railroad enthusiast activities, and their meetings cater more to slide showing, debating, and socializing than presentation and study of railroad history. The vacuum they have left by their lack of interest in many aspects of the hobby and the industry is being filled by other groups. If the NRHS membership is shrinking and the organization is dying, the wounds that caused it are largely self inflicted. Other groups will pick up the slack, and if they offer activities that interest people they will be more successful and prevail.

I'd say the prognosis is not at all good. Seems to me that the patient is not responding to any stimuli(constructive suggestions etc.) and with the median age of the Chapters what it is, many more will cease to exist in a few years.
The good news is that nature abhors a vacumn and other outfits more savy will fill the void.
IMHO-Ross Rowland