This is from Railspot and concerns a set of trailers full of Katy
employee records that is up for sale. Seems worth passing on (for those
not on the MKT list).
Terry
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barton Jennings <bjennin1@u...>
In industry, there is a theory that says 80% of the sales/work/value/etc.
comes from 20% of the customers/products/employees/etc. This rule has
been
used for hundreds of years and is a good estimater. However, in the
railfan
hobby, I find that the number is very generous. Talking to railroad
museums
across the country at organizations like TRAIN, RPCA, NRHS, and others, I
find that most museums say that a core of 10 to 20 people do almost all
of
the work. With about 400 active museums and organizations in the US,
that
means 4-8000 railfans are doing the vast majority of the collecting,
restoration work, operating, running excursions, etc. Since polls and
magazine subscriptions seem to indicate that there are about 250-500,000
railfans, this means that only 2 to 3 percent of the total are doing
almost
all of the serious work, thus the other 97-98% are coasting on their
work.
Since I do a great deal including organizing excursions (an average of 2
days of trips per year since 1992), starting up a tourist line (Secret
City
Scenic Excursion Train in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -
www.techscribes.com/sarm),
acquiring equipment through purchase or donation (everything from paying
$35,000 to acquire a car to providing mechanical and track work in
exchange
for locomotives), restoring equipment (ever use a hand grinder on an
entire
diesel locomotive in preperation for painting - sandblasting sand can get
in
some opening of oder locomotives, or hand sanding an 80' dining car?),
acquiring document collections (try offering to buy a house full of ICC
documents by the hundredweight), etc., I get very tired when I see some
say
flat out that others should do something that will cost them time and
money
while the original person doesn't step forward with their own time and
money.
This happened on Railspot a few years ago when the Hugo Heritage Railroad
was threatened, yet I didn't see many of those complaining about the
closure
step forward and provide money for the line's insurance, to help raise
funds
by chartering trips or selling tickets (I did, I did a charter over most
of
the Kiamichi and then used their cars on the DeQueen & Eastern
anniversary
trips, both made them money to help keep going - and I'm over here in
east
Tennessee!), or whatever.
In my years of doing such activities, I have found that there is a very
large and vocal part of this hobby that wants everything given to them.
Somehow they think that because they take pictures or whatever they
should
have full access to the right-of-way and the right to collect or be given
anything railroad-related that they want. However, in my dealings with
the
railroads (I worked in the industry for both Class 1s and shortlines and
today head up the rail training and research office at the University of
Tennessee) I have determined that this type of railfan does tremendous
harm
to the hobby. To many, they are the hobby.
I have run photo and mileage trips where the freeloading chasers have
outnumbered those that paid for the trip. I have worked on equipment or
material acquisitions where railfans suddenly show up making demands and
the
owner of the materials suddenly decides that raifans can't be worked with
and just destroys the materials to end the stress. I have seen pieces of
equipment go to groups that had no plans after their demand for a
donation,
with the equipment soon scrapped because it isn't moved on time.
I think that it is about time to realize that this hobby in many ways is
a
business that we are in because we enjoy it and have a number of goals.
It
is fine to have people make suggestions about what should be saved or
done,
but I feel that they then have a responsibility to help do so. This can
range from simply making an introduction (many things are not saved
because
someone knows about it and wants it but can't handle it but still won't
let
anyone else know about it), to providing financing, to buying a ticket
(ask
yourself how many museums and excursion trains you buy a ticket at each
year
- I average about 20 a year - as most museums depend upon these ticket
sales
as their main source of revenue since most grants cost a great deal just
to
apply for).
I'm almost off my soap box now but I will continue to attack those that
are
demanding of others and not themselves.
Bart Jennings
(running fall trips over Farmrail/Grainbelt/Hollis & Eastern/ and
possibly
Wichita, Tillman & Jackson - contact me if you are interested)
At 06:39 AM 3/23/02 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Bart:
>
> I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I hesitated
>to be the first to express the sentiment because
>everyone seemed to think it was terrible not to get
>something for nothing.
>
>
>Wes Leatherock
>wleathus@y...
>wleath@o...
>
>
>--- bjennin1 <bjennin1@u...> wrote:
>> Ah, someone else with an opinion on how someone else
>> should spend their money
>> and time. If this person acquired the documents
>> legally, and has spent money
>> holding on to them, he deserves the opportunity to
>> try to earn a return on
>> this time and effort. To state that he should give
>> them away seems a bit
>> communistic to me. How about if I say that you
>> should use your money to buy
>> (note I said B-U-Y) the documents to save them.
>> There is absolutely no
>> difference between the two ideas, each is someone
>> else telling someone how
>> they should spend their money. And the idea that a
>> person can write them off
>> their taxes is a statement made by someone who
>> obviously has never tried to do
>> it. Before you can write off a contribution, the
>> value must be a significant
>> part of the annual income. There are minimum
>> limits. Furthermore, most
>> people find that to itemize donations actually
>> results in less of a deduction
>> on their taxes.
>>
>> As long as these documents have been around and
>> available, and as few people
>> have actually attempted to acquire them for a
>> museum, not too many people have
>> room to talk. By the way, I have spent tens of
>> thousands of dollars over the
>> years buying such documents and many of them are
>> eventually donated to museums
>> for preservation, so I have room to talk. Do you?
>>
>> Bart Jennings
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards®
>http://movies.yahoo.com/
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|