I chuckled at the "photo peacock" phrase, but ya' know, those peacocks can put money in the coffers.

I am spending a truck load of money to join a photo freight behind steam this year. Why? Part of it is to get the experience minus the daisypickers and part of it is - gasp - to take me some snapshots that I might even post online.

Like any audience segment, peacocks can be seen as an annoyance or they can be cultivated into a customer. I am sure the operators of railroads who do photo charters find peacocks' money to be as green as anyone's.

That's not to say I want RYPN to be a photo forum. Not at all.

What I would be interested in hearing about here is how railroads deal with groups like the peacocks, and who has monetized them well.

There was an online rumor that the Reading & Northern intentionally ran 4-6-2 #425 in between her two SD helpers on a ferry move last week to irritate chasers. Tactics like that have been used on an off in the excursion era. Was it true? And to what benefit if it was?

WIth the decline of the photo run-by, photo charters seem to be only reasonably common way to get peacocks to pay up. True? No?

Rob

There's an entymological legend that, in order to get the absolutely perfect shot of 4449 steaming up Mount Shasta, several enterprising photographers dragged their tripods into knee-deep churning white water and stood there in the foam. These bravest of the brave came to be called "foamers". And that's how I use the term.

Go to www.practicalmachinist.com . Look at the number of forums and the accumulated number of threads on that site. There is always heated debate in a couple of the forums, but overall everyone stays civil to each other. So why is it that thousands of metalworkers/machinists/welders/business owners can coexist peacefully and a few dozen rail preservationists/railfans have so much trouble?

As a lurker over on the Practical Machinist Board, I can say with certainty that it is moderated, sometimes brashly and very unapologeticly. There are rants against the site owner. Of course it has a sort of political forum where there is a lot of wasted bandwidth that will clutter cyberspace for years to come.

Actually I am on a completely unmoderated list (LETTPRESS@UNB.CA) and amazingly, it functions pretty well, but there it is more of a community and the rabblerousers tend to not get responses. Of course there are some who are annoying, but by and large it does pretty well (though rather small with only 1100 members).

Railroads certainly do bring out the egos in people and when those are out, rational thought is out the window. Oh well.


Michael Seitz

That reminds me of British Railway photographer Colin Garrett, who stood ankle-deep in an icy stream to capture a picture of a Finish steam locomotive crossing the bridge above.

Which brings to mind another aspect of railway photography that is getting overlooked here. It was the pictures taken by Colin Garrett and Don Ball of steam in decline the world over that fired up my interest in surviving world steam over a decade ago, and inspired me to embark on what later became the "Surviving World Steam Project."

Just this weekend, my daughter was forwarded an e-mail from another family in church. Titled "Old Cars & Steam Classics"; most of them looked like pictures from some of John Craft's photo ops; featuring authentic looking steam trains with antique cars in the foreground.

The e-mail gave the locations (Heber Valley, Nevada Northern, New Hope and Ivyland, Owosso, and a TVRM excursion with Southern 610 in Rock Spring Georgia.) But it does not state who the photographer(s) is.

Neither the party who sent the e-mail; nor my daughter, are railfans; though they may have known that I am. I have no idea where it came from, so I don't know if they were railfans or not.

So not all railway photography is an ego trip. Some of it has inspired others to be involved themselves. And, it can be a source of free publicity.

Regarding the art of expressing oneself online without starting a flame war; while I understand the reasons this board banned smilies; they are a big help in conveying the emotion with which something is being offered, and by doing so, help prevent miss-understandings. I noticed several folks using "ASCII smilies" in this very thread.

As someone who actually crawled out over slippery rocks into the frigid currents of Red Clay Creek to set up his tripod during a NIGHT photo charter of PRR 4662 years ago, I shall point out that we all know "foamer" actually refers to the expression railroaders used to refer to those idiotic, crazed railfans who "foam at the mouth" at the sight/news of a rare diesel/train/paint scheme..........

Rail photography in and of itself is not anything worth denigrating in my opinion, as a perusal of the many, many photo collections on my railroad shelves will attest--Link, Hastings, McDonnell, Boyd, Eagleson/Ziel, Benson, Steinheimer........ The problem became that with the incredible ease of self-dissemination of photography, many feel compelled, even obligated, to "share" as much as they can with others online--sometimes seemingly as OFTEN as they can. Whereas this practice has indeed brought out many "stars" that otherwise might have stayed hidden (some rail magazines have approached photographers to republish their work based on their online postings), it still does much to worsen the "signal-to-noise" ratio described earlier. At times, something like the restoration to service of AT&SF 3415 can get drowned out in the cacophony of yet more 4449 or 425 photos.

Sandy makes several excellent points in his posting above. I would get into discussing them, but I am too busy right now scanning and uploading my photos to the internet (under a pseudonym of course). <:-)

PC

Fair enough. We all wear multiple hats, we're all railfans by definition. That doesn't annoy me. But preservationists and railfans have different kinds of conversations. And the conversations on RyPN tend to resemble railfan conversations and not preservationist conversations.

Case in point the recent monster threads on Steamtown, MoT, EBT and the like. As compared to the COMPLETELY DEAD thread on epoxy primer. The guy asked a real preservation question and it was as if he posted in the wrong forum.

Who do you know that actually turns wrenches on preserved equipment or is involved in this work? How many post on RyPN actively? I know a bunch who have accounts but almost never post. Why?

That's the problem IMO.

Probably because there are more railfans that aren't practicing preservationists than practicing preservationists that are also railfans. Given the choice, I'd rather converse with the preservationist and crossover groups on RyPN than the nonpracticing railfans - other lists can serve that purpose. I'm also very interested in threads that explore in unemotional terms the realities of operating our businesses.

The epoxy primer thread is a great example, the Steamtown thread - could have been, but now not so much. Rob's list of current steam events is wonderful concise information. The Birney truck thread very useful and practical as well. I like the way the thread about the Ohio car collection being scattered is shaping up - based on what is really possible, not impractically idealized.

dave

And "truth in labeling" really does not apply in the railroad preservation and historical worlds. There are some nominally described railroad "historical" groups that really are not. Sometimes you find that out rather quickly if you suggest that they host a program that actually is about railroad history.

PC

Reading through the various posts about what RYPN should be, I've come to the conclusion that it will never be everything to everybody. In reality, I don't think we'll ever agree on what the "perfect" preservation forum would be. There are just too many varying views on what railroad preservation is all about.

Personally, I spent 17-1/2 years of my life working with museum steam and have been interested in steam railroading for over 50 years. I look to RYPN to keep me informed on what's going on in the steam railroading world today. I like the progress reports on various steam restoration projects. I like to hear about the problems steam restorationists are facing today versus what those faced 20 or 30 years ago. And, yes, I even like to hear about those unfortunate situations where a restoration project goes wrong or even fails. In the preservation world, sometimes failure is as much a learning experience as success. Each restoration project is a story in itself, and I believe we can all learn something from each one if the people behind them are willing to share their stories.

I'll readily admit that I do not read every topic that appears on RYPN. I think its the choice of each individual reader to decide what he or she deems important. However, I do not discorage anyone from posting their views on anything that has to do with railway preservation of this forum. Though I personally may not be interested in some posts, that doesn't mean that there aren't others out in the audience who are.

Frederick G. Bailey

Mr. Cook:

I beg of you, for the love of George Stephenson, please stop turning every last topic in which you post into a "people won't pay me to present my wonderful programs" post.

It got tiresome quite a spell back.

Sandy, thank you for your comment. It is interesting to see how others in preservation view your participation in the industry and the hobby, and in this discussion.

I discontinued work on developing any more railroad industry related technical programs back in 2007 to concentrate on writing articles for publication. Any opinions I have offered regarding presentations are based on past experience. Preserving information is presently a higher priority than programs and discussions.

PC