Rather than let a dozen or more threads on the topic take over the board, consolidate any RELEVANT discussions here.

DO NOT devolve into discussions about the general precautions, conspiracy theories, blame games, or politics, please.

The cancellation notices have started rolling in within the past hour on my feeds.



In addition, the events connected to the Spring Directors Meeting of the NRHS in Cincinnati at the end of the month are now cancelled, but not the Conference Meeting. (Steve Barry: "Don't they know Skyline Chili is a known coronavirus repellent?")

Colleges across the nation are shifting to online classes after spring break--including Harvard.

The CDC has issued a travel advisory to those over 70--start all the jokes about rail museum membership and volunteerism now.........

Has anyone yet seen bookings drop on train rides, or attendance fall off at advertised events? The crowds were very strong and healthy at the Arizona Railway Museum's annual Railroad Day, but that was ten days ago and a big open yard. Has your museum cancelled rides/events or run short of (older) crews yet?

I understand Winterail in Oregon is still on

I'm spooked to see what will happen if my classes go all online. I am in some pretty intense engineering classes, and while some of them are do-able online (my writing classes, my gen-ed class) others like my Dynamics will be a pain without access to the tutoring center and the help lab for homework, at least all the homework in Dynamics is already online and won't need to change for that.

My Electronics class has a professor who has refused to use Canvas (our university's online platform choice) and has a heavily involved in person lab class that involves oscilloscopes, wave form generators and all sorts of specialized equipment. His only online component to his class is an aging website that houses all the in class print outs and homework assignments, so we can do it on paper and turn it in on paper to a lockbox on campus. I can't imagine how his class would work online since so much of his teaching style is focused on in person teaching.

As for railroading... I dunno we have a museum board meeting coming up here soon. If the virus gets bad, I might need to talk to our museum coordinator about cancelling the meeting. Our opening is still set for roughly post-Memorial Day time, so hopefully the virus is died down before our opening date is set.

My job is at a hospital too. I can't say much about that because of privacy rules, but needless to say the effects of the virus will be visible there too.

In the last day I have received multiple notifications from transit agencies that they are cancelling pre-bid meetings and site inspections originally scheduled for this week. None of the organizations have specified rescheduling the activities to a future date.

PC

Side topic:

Have any of "our" organizations with diverse membership done important meetings by online meeting software or Skype? Is this something that should be pursued?

I've Skyped into two meetings (both non-rail) and called into another where my participation was "needed" and I was basically the only one that had to be AWOL. Online meetings are something the business world takes for granted now, but I could pass on the ageist stereotype of railroad-museum board members still trying to figure out a cell phone, let alone a smartphone.

Covad-19 is especially devastating for older people:

Data from: The Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Emergency Response Epidemiology Team. The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) — China, 2020[J]. China CDC Weekly, 2020, 2(8): 113-122

If it came down to necessity and importance, enough of us are tech-savvy enough to Skype. Others can be added in by conference call. Even FaceTime could work in a dire pinch. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that....

Has anyone considered closing temporarily?

At the Arkansas Railroad Museum, we were due to have our annual railroadianna show and sale in April, however it was cancelled for unrelated reasons. Looks like it might have been a good decision for other reasons.

Im curious to see how this affects White Pass. Their major traffic is cruise ships. They are having new locomotives delivered this year. Might be an off year for them.

Colorado's lines may also be affected, but it will depend on how the Ski Area's handle things in the coming weeks. I sense changes may happen soon.

I have not been doing much or plan to do much until we know more about this virus or until things calm down. I have several excursions planned for this Summer but if this is still going strong I am going to stay home. From what I have read this virus does not do well in warmer weather. Hopefully by Summer it will be a low risk.

I am also skeptical that we have the full truth about this virus. Entire countries have been shut down losing billions of dollars. You are not going to do something that drastic over a virus that is the equivalent of the flu. I also recently read a woman that had the virus and was cured now has it again. Stay at home and take it easy for a few weeks.

I don't think we know enough to have a real "truth" about it yet. Once we do, then we can take real steps rather than run around with our hands waving in the air trying everything that sounds sensible and hoping.......

OSU and most of the local campuses are down for the count. Engineering, nursing/allied med and plant and animal labs can’t be handled remotely, but figuring out how to handle them may be tricky. Friends teach at a nursing school and graduating seniors may not get their clinical hours in. It’s not as foolish as it sounds, because young healthy people are most likely to have such mild cases that they could be vectors without knowing they have it.

A lot of organizations have pre-season fish fries, bake sales, dinners, etc. that might have to shut down, and not everyone can do Appalachian Outreach’s creative and funny “non-steak fry” fundraiser. Those may sound trivial, but it’s not uncommon for a well-attended casual event to raise several thousand dollars and some places need that opening day money to help until the ticket money starts.

At least locomotives can’t catch COVID and won’t need much tending if they’re sitting still. Pre-season volunteer meetings are going to have to move online. Cleveland NWS already canceled SKYWARN physical meetings (fortunately there’s a good online version already available, but topics specific to an area are left out.) With luck, if this acts like a regular cold virus, it’ll attenuate and/or be affected by warmer spring weather, so by summer it should be behind us. In the meantime, all we can do is use the forced downtime to take care of any annoying solo or small group projects we’ve been putting off.

This may be a perfect storm for the state of Alaska. Two major industries are tourism, accessed by cruise ships or airplane, and royalties from oil production. It is appearing that both will be severely impacted. Much of the Alaska Railroad's income comes from summer passenger travel, i,e., tourists, many of whom have tour packages including a cruise and rail travel. Additionally, Anchorage is a major hub and sorting center for FEDEX and UPS and a refueling point for other air cargo originating in China and other parts of Asia.

Hi All
Because of the Coronavirus, the Railroad club that I belong to has cancelled its monthly business meeting. Our Railroad club usually holds about 6 events during the season. Our Biggest event is our Annual Meet, in August, which is our biggest get together, of Live Steamers in Holliston, Mass.
Because of the Virus, I have my doubts, about this event being Held.
Also, the Mass Bay RRE has not cancelled its upcoming train trip in New Hampshire yet, The Lochmere Limited, scheduled for May 16th, 2020. The Mass Bay RRE will be taking all precautions before the trip happens, That is IF the trip happens???
If the Mass Bay RRE does decide to cancel to the trip, it is because they want all persons that would be riding the trip, to be safe.
This virus is going to affect all, organizations, in one way or another, until a cure is found, all I can say is BE SAFE.
Please be safe, and keep your hands washed, A life is more important than a monthly meeting, or a train trip.

It is a sensible precaution to limit contact with other people over the next couple of months. It is coming and we had better prepare for it. Fortunately most of our seasons don't start in earnest until schools is out in June and by then hopefully the infection rate will have reached the top of the bell curve and started down the other side.