Which one--the founding publisher, or the final one?

Perhaps it could be included in Google Books where info would be available to all who need it.

fk

It's definitely the case. When we sought assistance to keep steamlocomotive.info on line, I was contacted by an NRHS officer, who explained their "initiatives" in this area. They thought it would be good to "take over" steamlocomotive.info and incorporate or absorb it into their initiative. They're planning an online presence with a database of US and Canadian locomotives, rolling stock, structures, artifacts, etc. And they're sure they're going to have this up and running by early 2012.

Though my opinion of NRHS and their efforts is pretty low, after some thought I agreed to provide a snapshot of our database tailored to their needs (at least the U.S. and Canadian locomotives). They are free to use this in any way they see fit.

There are funny things about their initiative, I guess. Wes Barris' steamlocomotive.com does, for locomotives, exactly what they are planning. So does steamlocomotive.info. So now we're going to have a third variant available on the web. More power to them.

The fact that they're going to try to store information on rolling stock, preserved steam locomotives, preserved diesels, structures and other artifacts is an admirable idea, I guess. I seriously doubt whether they have the time, the interest and the willingness to undertake the massive amount of work it will entail to maintain and update this initiative of theirs.

It's one of those things that sounds good, on paper. I'm hopeful they do get it on line for a very selfish reason. I hope that it and they will absorb some of the vitriole that a few "preservationists" direct at steamlocomotive.info.

Until we sought donations to keep the site alive, I wasn't aware that there were more than three or four people who actually enjoyed the thing. Maybe five, now that I think about it. The incredible generosity of RyPN visitors insured the website's future for years to come and enhanced my desire to upgrade and improve the site.

That is very interesting. At one of their "meet the officers" sessions at a chapter meeting a few years ago I asked the "officer" why the national did not host default websites for the chapters that did not have them, so that there was at least something on the internet to tell when and where those chapters held their meetings, whether they still existed, and how to contact them. I notice that now they have greatly improved that information on their main website. Maybe their view of the usefulness of the internet has changed at the NRHS since then.

PC

The combined Railway Museum Quarterly/Trainline has been published since Summer 2010. If you haven't read it lately, go to Traininc.org and check out the last few issues. They're all posted online. The magazine will get a new identity this winter as part of the ARM/TRAIN merger, so send in your ideas for names.

We're doing exactly what everyone in this thread has described, and we can do it even better with your help. I would welcome articles on preservation from any RyPN contributor.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
RMQ/Trainline

I would add to Sandy's list of practical topics the #1 most requested technical concern that generates questions from operating museums and shortline railroads that have pre-1980s equipment in service - information on the interpretation of the wiring schematic drawing conventions used by the various locomotive and passenger car builders and the troubleshooting of relay logic switchgear systems.

Relay logic switchgear is rapidly disappearing from the Class One railroads and will also soon be gone from the Commuter Rail agencies. Microprocessor technology along with integrated event recorders and remote reporting are the standard in current equipment building. Relay logic switchgear will still be out there for many years in older equipment operated by museums and shortlines, but don't expect the new volunteers showing up at the museum to have any experience with the technology. As the years go by there will be an increasing need for all of your organizations to locally educate your staff and volunteers on these old systems in order to maintain and troubleshoot them. There will be no operators left in the Class 1 or Commuter industry doing this for you.

By the way: How many museums have you visited that display, interpret, or mention any examples of microprocessor controls? It is approaching three decades that they have been in use in the railroad industry.

PC

Not to sound too snarky about this, but I don't even see that many steam-related museums that have an effective display about how a steam locomotive burns fuels and moves. Or, for that matter, electric traction museums that effectively explain just how the electricity drives the wheels, let alone how the controller works.

Before you throw them a 300- or 400-level college course, shouldn't you at least attend to your 100-level courses, or more likely these days the "remedial" courses some of your visitors (the type that think all trains are obsolete or gone, in spite of the train that held them up at the crossing en route to the museum, or the kind that thinks the government runs all the railroads...) may well need?

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a major RR museum having a "Technology Hall" exhibit explaining signalling, braking technology, dynamic braking, AC-versus-DC locomotives, CTC/PTC, and the like. But you've just as much said we don't know what we're doing with the stuff or don't know how to handle it. Who's volunteering their services and money to set up this exhibit? Are GE, EMD, WABCO, or the like feeling particularly benevolent lately?

"But you've just as much said we don't know what we're doing with the stuff or don't know how to handle it."

Not the point of my posting and not worth arguing with you Sandy.

PC

I think RYPN has loads of potential to be brought back to the forefront of railways preservation, but it'll require a fair amount of buy-in from multiple sources, not another round of 3 or 4 people spending too much of their personal time keeping it afloat. New articles would be great. Getting people to share the knowledge and experiences, while not always easy, is in my opinion the best thing RYPN can offer.

But perhaps we should start by looking at RYPN from a high level. Does the 501c3 still exist? Who is currently responsible for it?

Where did the previous board members come from? Volunteer? Some sort of vote?

I would be willing to help out with this, but I'd like to better understand where RYPN currently stands first. Also, you lawyers, what amount of liability does RYPN, and thus its board members, carry if the aforementioned lawsuit stupidity pops up again?

When RYPN was re-activated after the threatened litigation, this thread was posted:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22868&hilit=lawsuit
(hoping that link is good, it's from searching the word "lawsuit", which yields a depressingly large amount of hits...)

Mark Bassett, are you still out there?

Who else is interested in seriously pursuing this?

Not always easy? More like pulling teeth, I'd say.

501c3 is the registration, not the actual corporation. The 501c3 can, under most circumstances be transferred from one corporation to another. The corporation, whose name escaped me, was incorporated in Texas, and was dissolved by the state sometime in 2007 or 2008. The original board of directors of the 501C3 included Hume Kading, Erik Ledbetter, and someone else whose name escapes me. When Hume left the organization there were several iterations of board memberships (which at one time even included me).

So anyway, the corporation evaporated. In 2009 David Collison said that he was in the process of re-incorporating it in Virginia, and stated that he, Howard Pincus and a couple of other people were the new board of directors.

The registration of rypn.org and its contacts are all David Collison and in fact he has arranged for the free hosting the site currently enjoys. So in all likelihood, if anything were to get done, David would need to be pivotal in getting it done.

To my knowledge they were appointed. There is no "membership" so no "elected" board members in that sense.


"Director's Insurance" to protect board members from the effects of lawsuits is astoundingly expensive and far beyond the means of a small 501C3. Even if the board and the 501C3 are in the right, it can be frighteningly expensive to defend yourself from a frivolous lawsuit.



Mark resigned, for some reason, and I certainly don't blame him even though I cannot remember why. Your last question needs to be rethought. It is absolutely and utterly irrelevant who might be interested in seriously pursuing this (whatever this may be). The only buy-in you need is from David Collison and/or the most recent board if it still exists.

Point duly noted, steaminfo.

Excellent string of questions, excellent answers. That really sketches in the landscape surrounding RYPN. But in the end the authors are the ones who get to "vote" by where they send their articles. RYPN, ARM, NRHS, Kalmbach, Carstens, Paired Rail, etc.

PC

That's a mistake. When you dissolve a corporation you also dissolve the liability protection that comes with a corporation, leaving individuals personally liable for the corporation's debt. Dissolution is not bankruptcy. Let the corporation stand as a zombie til all the statutes of limitations burn down. Til then, it's rather valuable as a "shelf nonprofit" in the fashion of a "shelf LLC".



Freedom isn't free. Given the price that millions of other Americans have been asked to pay, consider yourself lucky that you can pay with a cheque.

Frivolous lawsuits are absolutely winnable. You just have to treat them LIKE a frivolous lawsuit, which is fundamentally different from a conventional one. In a frivolous suit, settling is suicide. It'll just bring more frivolous suits (because they work on you). The only winning play is to defend yourself vigorously and ask for justice. Judges hate frivolous suers but can't award what you don't ask for. I asked for legal fees, my co-defendants did not; I got em, they didn't.



It is perfectly correct to structure your nonprofit so that these risks are minimized. For instance, California has top notch anti-frivolous-lawsuit law, and SLAPPback laws that let you deter such behavior, and special protection for nonprofit volunteers. It also has the 9th Circuit, a liberal, activist circuit court. (heh, bet you thought liberal was bad.) Of course the Volunteer Protection Act applies everywhere, don't forget that. Also, some web sites have specific provisions in their terms of use which place any dispute in the court of the site's choice. That gets rid of a lot of "haling you into a foreign jurisdiction" etc.


Huh? What lawsuit stupidity?

Oh, that. That's not a lawsuit. That's an idle empty threat.

It is a mark of impotent frustration. If you respond to it with even more impotence and frustration, then you lose too. Somehow the RyPN board managed to lose that one. The correct response is either listen to their frustration and defuse it, or call their bluff. It's not a lawsuit until you're actually served.

As for the particulars, that's the power of jurisdiction. If RyPN had been able to fix a California jurisdiction for that dispute, it could have been quite different.

I still have my collection of L&RP and in fact they have a place honor on my bookshelf, rather than being stored in the garage like most of my other magazines. I didn't realize the perceived value had dropped, I'll have to snag the issue or two I'm missing and complete my collection. (I've got one or two where I bought the photocopied reprints.)

As for format, I'd certainly suggest going web/iPad. It eliminates all the problems of printing and most of the distribution hassles. You never run out of a popular issue, and you're not left with 8,000 copies of a dud either.

What should it be about? I wouldn't worry too much about news and info, people can get that from the tubes on the interweb that Al Gore invented. I'd cover the stuff the old L&RP did that nobody else covered. Things like Jack Anderson's series on boiler. There were articles on car bodies and working with wood, and various options for roofing on cars. Hands on valuable information that you just don't see in Trains or R&R.

Make it useful, informative and detailed. Forget the 2 page "sound bytes" that seem to be popular in current magazines. Go in depth and provide lots of information.

That's another big advantage of going digital. You don't have to try and balance the page count to accomodate the printing press, and a 100 page issue cost pretty much the same as a 10 page issue to "print" and "mail", since you're not doing either. Production costs will increase for more pages of course, but only on the editing end of things.

[quote="PCook"]"But you've just as much said we don't know what we're doing with the stuff or don't know how to handle it."

Not the point of my posting and not worth arguing with you Sandy./quote]

Then back to your point:

Do you know anyone with the background and expertise willing and able to VOLUNTEER his/her services towards such an exhibit? Scrounge up examples from private collections, donations, or by raiding the deadlines with permission? Write it up in a nicely educational format? For free?

The guys who started with this stuff in the 1970s, who will forget more than we'll ever know, are just starting to hit retirement. Who's picking their brains, or asking politely for their manuals, tools, catalogs, etc.? The last couple railroadiana auction catalogs I just went through all seem to indicate that railroad technology stopped dead in 1950-1955.

True semi-related story: A group with which I'm involved asked a transit agency if they happened to have any of a certain now-redundant piece of mass transit that they could remove a few parts from for a to-be-preserved example from elsewhere. The next thing we know, an entire vehicle shows up on the property on a truck, loaded up with redundant parts, manuals, and even training computer programs! "Ummm, we just wanted the [axles/motors/whatever], but thanks....." I'm busy searching through the old computers (yes, they threw computers in there!) for training programs besides "How to Use MS Word/Excel" and "Practice your Typing"........... and so far, I've found a couple CDs of maintenance manuals, which may or may not be useful...... Okay, now what's on these floppies?......