Extra16South,

While I can understand your frustration in trying to abide by company rules and keeping the "scoop" exclusive for your organization's own media, I have a couple of comments.

First off, the "witchhunt" look isn't very becoming and reflects badly upon yourself and the railroad that you represent. When unfortunate things like this happen, handle it internally or take it on the chin. Make the best out of it. Airing this publicly makes folks think something nefarious is ongoing. Did the EBT truly miss out on the scoop by a low-resolution photo posted on railfan channels?

Secondly, while I respect that the EBT is a private railroad, the cloak of secrecy is off-putting to the casual reader or visitor. I think a huge opportunity has been missed by keeping the restoration off limits to photographers and even your own social media channels. There was a huge opportunity to educate your fan club about various aspects in restoring a locomotive that hasn't run in over half a century and it's been missed. Some regular bullet points with restoration updates would've been welcome to keep interest and encourage more donations at the very least. EBT is a private railroad, but the secret squirrel stuff really amazes me. You'd think that government contracted work was at bay. Nope, just an antique steam locomotive for use on a tourist railroad business. Don't take yourselves too seriously in the future. You're running an obsolete narrow gauge railroad that hauls tourists that want to have an enjoyable experience. Have fun and don't miss opportunities to educate and showcase your work to the world along the way!

I'd have to agree with the comments above. The only restoration I've seen in a while that's been remotely under the radar is the Reading 2102. And I'm amazed they kept it so caged up for so long, only providing short, periodic updates. I don't know of any organization that really keeps their steam restoration under wraps. I can understand not letting the public/railfans into shops for photography while the work is going on, but if it's steamed up outside, there's really only so much that can be done to hide that. Look at 2102 (again). The first test runs weren't officially announced, but it was leaked and a few hundred railfans showed up to chase and RBM&N had no issues. It was really good hype and early publicity. I for one actually forgot about the EBT 16 restoration in recent months, given all of the hype about the 2102 returning to operation, the 1309 running every weekend, the UP 3985/5511/RRHMA news, and the unexpected final run of the QJ 6988. All of those larger locomotives can easily overshadow smaller organizations or locomotives, so when I saw the photo on FaceBook I said, "Oh yeah! I forgot about the EBT. I guess when I go to Cass and New Jersey next Spring, I'll have to make a point to pencil in EBT." It put it on my radar again.

Now that I think of it, the restoration of a little 0-6-0 down in Kentucky was kept relatively under the radar and when asked about it, the organization was very shady about answering questions and did not want a lot of public information. It later came to light that some sort of state grant had been wasted and the locomotive was still in pieces with no money left. Now (about 8 years later) that locomotive is still in pieces stored away in a shop. When you ask questions about another start up attempt, you get ignored or blocked. I agree that the publicity should be seen as an opportunity.

An example of the opposite is our restoration of the J&L 58. We make frequent Facebook posts and have uploaded dozens of videos on a Youtube channel that has grown to 10,000 subscribers. You can trace every step in the project from rusty hulk to pulling passengers. We have exposed that locomotive to an audience that would otherwise not be exposed to steam railroading and created a fan base that will pay dividends for years to come.

But it seems that many in our industry would rather keep things under wraps. Don't let anyone know too much about what anyone is doing. And then when something is publicized it is done as a super highly produced video that is heavy on music and fancy shots and light on nuts and bolts and grit. From reading the comments and interactions on our Youtube channel, a sizable number of our audience are people who are not railfans but those who just stumbled across a recommended video. They like watching other people work. They like seeing what goes on behind the scenes and the way I do the videos I bring people along on the journey. People are tired of fancy produced videos.
They want substance. When I get a comment asking about something that I briefly talked about five videos ago, that tells me that not only are people watching, but they are paying attention. They are learning. Isn't that what this entire damn endeavor is supposed to be about????

Why any group out there would choose to not mine the acres of diamonds beneath their feet by refusing to tap into the easiest way to build an audience is beyond me.

I fully agree. The Strasburg RR starting shop tours has worked out great. Generally, the larger and more corporation backed the project, the more secretive they want to be about it. SRC having a couple of prominent contract jobs in the shop that demanded secrecy is why photography became prohibited on the shop tours, but the tours did continue.

I assume that the legal departments are behind the secrecy in those cases, though often I could still post photos of the work as long as I didn't mention any names (yes, these eight super heavy 68" driving wheel sets are just from some unnamed run of the mill steam locomotive, nothing special, just move along you lookee loos). Meanwhile, most tourist railroads were more than happy to snag any tiny bit of free publicity.

Kelly nailed it square on the head. While I'm not positive, I'll wager that the Foundation is represented by consul, and whoever is in charge of liability told them to keep the number of photos and video of work on the locomotives to a mild roar.
A number of years ago a large well known theme park in the Midwest with sizable steam railroad had some boiler work done on one of their locomotives. Nothing out of the ordinary, the work done by a reputable boiler works One of the railroad's employees photographed the procedure and posted them on a website that he had. It didn't take twenty four hours before he was personally approached by the parks management to take the photos down immediately, or they would discharge him and sue him. He did so, but he didn't work there too much longer as I recall, although he maintained the website until it got spam attacked to the point where it no longer functioned.
The park's management was so fearful of the photos being used against them in the event that of (gawd forbid) an incident happened on their property even if it didn't involve that or any locomotive. They have people regularly scouring the web looking for any postings that involved their parks, checking to see if they were posted by employees.

(Face palm)

EBTF chooses path A for marketing and social media.

Strasburg choses path B.

Rick chooses path C.

FWRHS (NKP 765) chooses path D.

None of the paths are wrong. I'm not sure any of the above organizations are going to vary the path much based on the armchair discussion here.

Time to call a timeout on this thread?

Wesley

If the goal is to properly raise awareness and support for your organization some of the ways are indeed wrong.

Why a timeout? It’s a good discussion and many good things have been said. Do you not like people discussing things on a discussion board?

Elaborate.

My point exactly in suggesting a timeout. None of the ways I've seen using my path example above are wrong. Each organization listed has determined a different strategy. So far each of the organizations appears successful in raising awareness about their respective events and projects.

I am happy with discussing results with data, just not with the random "beaching."

Wesley

Ok.... what is your data to your claim?

Out of curiosity, what is the overall goal for EBT. I know #16's restoration is almost complete and after they're going to dig into #14. I saw a post from FaceBook saying the end goal is to have all 6 locomotives running, but I don't see that happening. #12 and #17's boilers are in pretty rough shape from what I've heard and #18 hasn't run since '56, so it would be in a similar situation to #16. I could see #15, but not the others.

The goal of the EBTF is over time to restore the entire 31 miles of the railroad from Robertsdale in the South to Mt. Union in the North and to return to fully functioning condition all parts of the Rockhill shop complex so visitors can witness it in a fully working state doing actual repairs that keep the railroad running.

IIRC one of the many parts integral to the plan is to eventually ( operative word eventually) restore all 6 steam locomotives to active service. How many years "eventually" may prove to be is no doubt unknown at this early stage.

Keep in mind that restoring all 31 miles of track ( which includes 2 out of service tunnels) and the full shop complex at Rockhill will cost many millions of dollars. Writing applications for those grants and doing other capital raising exercises takes lots of time & talent.

The great news is they're moving solidly forward and every month brings further progress.

Ross Rowland