HP's brief on moving #103 describes the Naugatuck Railroad as an "operating heritage railroad." That is a description I'd love to see become a standard in the US (it seems to be common in the UK). It is much more descriptive than "tourist railroad" and certainly more professional than "recreational railroading." Rob

I have seen some use "Heritage streetcar line" to identify the lines which are not really streetcar museums, but use either older cars or replicas, for example San Francisco's F line running PCC's, Italian Peter Witts, and a few original San Francisco cars, the Tampa Yabor city line with it's replica double truck Birneys or the occasional operation of in San Jose which uses old car bodies restored to operate, but not with historic mechanical parts.

As such "Heritage" seems to say we are inspired by history, and use some old stuff, but is focused on preservation for operation rather than preservation as in a museum (assuming museum guidelines for care and collection choices.)

Founder Henry Luna often describes Niles Canyon Railway as a museum railroad, which is quite different than a tourist railroad (where historical authenticity is not necessarily much of a priority) or a railroad museum (which normally consists of "stuff and mount" static exhibits).

That said, "operating heritage railroad" is an excellent description.
- Doug Debs
_________________________________________

P.S.: From http://www.ncry.org website "About Us":

The Niles Canyon Railway
A railroad museum where the exhibits come to life

The Pacific Locomotive Association, Inc. operates the Niles Canyon Railway as a living history museum interpreting the importance of our heritage railroads in the development of California and the nation.

The museum is designed to increase public education, enjoyment, and appreciation of the significance of America’s western railroads by:
* Operating historic railroad equipment using standard railroad practices for train crews, signaling, block operations, and equipment maintenance.

* Preserving the atmosphere of railroads in small-town America before the 1960s by connecting the historic communities of Sunol, the Niles District of Fremont, and eventually Pleasanton.

* Providing educational programs for schools, civic organizations, and community events.

* Instructing the public in railroad history, tradition, and the evolution of rail transportation technology.

I'm a bit more stringent - no denying Keighley and Worth Valley is a heritage railway, given they have preserved the entire infrastructure including stations, trackwork, etc. and operate steam commuter schedules as a "real" railroad did decades ago. you can take a snapshot today and apart from clothing it will excatly resemble one from 1930.

I'm ignorant about the Naugy - maybe it is similar or has it lost a lot of its infrastructure? Operations as intensive as historically correct?

For me, just running old stuff occasionally through modern scenery doesn't meet "heritage" standards. I like the whole time machine experience. EBT might come very close.

Streetscapes are the issue with most heritage trolley lines, even if they run appropriate equipment and schedules, and truly move people like trolley lines did in the "old days". For some reason, I'm more willing to cut them slack about context. Don't really know why, just seems right to me.

dave

I have heard a lot of terms lately; the term tourist railroad seems to be the only one that is general is for a Tourist Railroad- a profit making line that uses old time equipment but most likely takes short cuts and probably has a train robbery some where along the line.

So where does that leave the museums? I am most fermilier with the traction museums which can be devided into groups that use historic right of way such as the Shoreline Trolley Museum or my own Western Railway Museum.

Then there are groups that have put down some rails like they did in the San Jose Historical Society in Kelly Park.

I think heritage railroad works as long as the line that the museum is running is in fact historic right of way and better yet has historic rails on the ground.

What complicates matters is that operations like the "F Line" here in San francisco is piling them in at about 22,000 riders a day and the Muni built all new tracks there. Or how about the Cable Cars? Their system only dates to about 1954 as it is currently in use.
The Y shaped system of today is a patch work of historic lines.

One thing I do not care for is the term "Demonstration Railroad"
Weather it is steam or traction or Diesel is is a railroad not a demonstration-- that is something you do with a model perhaps in O gauge.

I would like to hear what others think about there names.

Ted Miles

I think the term "demonstration railway" originated to let the public (and possibly regulatory authorities) know that this was not a "common carrier" or "public transit operator", and that because it uses vintage equipment run by volunteers, is run to "demonstrate" operation of the historic cars and locomotives. The term would also indicate that the nature of the line is such that it cannot be expected to run on a schedule (although many can and do so). I am reminded of the "bad old days", when Orange Empire's only source of traction power was an elderly Cummins-GE diesel generator, which failed a number of times, putting the "demonstration railway" out of service for several weeks at a time.
A term I use for the San Francisco Muni PCCs in their many paint jobs is "Tribute Trolley", because their color schemes honor many systems, but the cars are all from SF, Philly or Newark. My favorite is Muni 1061, the "Pacific Electric" car. Although it's painted red, with the yellow-orange decorative striping worn by many PE cars, it's a single-end, single-unit, all-electric St. Louis Car Co. product. PE streamliners were double-end, MU, air-electric and built by Pullman (and none still exist). These details aside, I still enjoy seeing and riding this car. (in popular music, a "tribute band" plays music of, and usually dresses like, a certain no longer existing group, such as the Beatles or the Doors). A San Diego area museum has an Alco RS-2 or 3 numbered ATSF 2098. The only RS-2 (or 3) on Santa Fe was 2099, which was scrapped a long time ago. I think "2098" came from a short line in Utah, and never really worked on Santa Fe, so it's a "tribute" to 2099.

I think "railroad museum" is just fine, and does not bear any connotation about being "stuffed & mounted". Because such a large fraction of railroad museums operate something.

"Air museum" is something else. Nobody expects to visit an air museum and see the P-51 or C-130 or SR-71 make flights on the hour.

I think "demonstration railroad" fits a case where the museum railroad is not intended to replicate what was historically on that right-of-way. The Rockhill Trolley Museum is the apocryphal example, putting a Pennsylvania gauge trolley line on a narrow gauge mining road RoW. Arguably IRM, where Little Joes and U-boats thunder where interurbans once bounced.

There are a fair number of places where the historic landscape hasn't been significantly altered. The entire Western Railway Museum mainline, from Dozier to Montezuma, looks much like it did in 1930. With only two major exceptions:
#1 giant windmills, and only for one section and on one side.
#2 the modern, sprawling campus of the Western Railway Museum.

Don't underestimate the impact of your own museum on "sense of place"...

When Orange Empire runs PE 418 past the housing tract along to north main line, it's remarkably close to a photo from 1958 of that same car on P. 168 of Interurbans Special 60, even to the catenary overhead on the opposite side from the houses. Sometimes we set up "photo ops" with vintage vehicles on "Broadway" with an LARy streetcar completing the scene. Sometimes Mother Nature helps out--like the morning when Perris Valley had a thick fog and SF Muni 171 was our standard-gauge car. Back when we ran New Orleans 913, we had a day of high humidity and a thunderstorm--like one would expect in the Crescent City.
Regarding the terms railway museum and trolley museum: Back in the "OETM" days, when we didn't have many buildings, I think some of our visitors expected a stately edifice with Grecian columns and stone lions in front and "stuffed and mounted" streetcars inside. Nowadays, when they may see the steam engine, one of our diesels, and a PE Red Car in fairly quick succession, they realize that this is a living museum, not a clean, neat place filled with dead things.

Dave said: "I'm ignorant about the Naugy - maybe it is similar or has it lost a lot of its infrastructure? Operations as intensive as historically correct?"

While NAUG is certainly not anything approaching K&WV or Severn Valley, etc., it does operate over a route that is not very much changed since the early 50s. The train passes large brick industrial complexes (brass/copper mills), one in a small factory town and one in a small industrial (it once was, at least) city. In between, the ROW runs through hilly, wooded countryside, crossing the river a few times. It's not the backyards of subdivisions and office parks. The trip gives a very good sense of what the same trip was like in 1940 or 1950.

The route did not have much New Haven Railroad infrastructure 60 years ago; the Thomaston station survives, the freight house lasted until 1993. There are still some signal bases near the south end of the line in Waterbury at Highland Jct., where there was a concrete interlocking tower and the Naugy connected with other NHRR routes.

An occasional locomotive on the train is NH RS-3 #529, which was used on the line between 1950 and 1970. The passenger cars are very close to NHRR cars of the 20s-50s, and there are New Haven cars in the collection slated for restoration for service on the train, including the actual assigned NY-Winsted RPO car, NH 2789 (it had a layover heater for that service).

So, it's not a bad start at a "heritage railway", I think-- even the name was specifically chosen for that reason. The original Naugatuck Railroad Company was chartered by the CT legislature in June 1845; our "new" Naugy was chartered by the legislature in June 1995. And, some occasional freight is handled, as NAUG is a common carrier railroad. Freight was certainly a major reason the line existed for almost 150 years.

Howard P.
MP 6, NAUG

I've always thought that the term 'recreational railroading' was a misnomer or oxymoron. Unlike commons forms of recreation such as softball, motorcycling ,etc., etc. , railroading-in all its disparate forms-is WORK.

'DAVE'

I think "recreational railroading" is meant to apply to the passengers rather than the crew, and means train or streetcar rides that don't have a utilitarian purpose. For example, one can probably drive from Durango to Silverton faster than the narrow gauge train, but (for most people) the whole reason for going to the rather remote town of Durango CO is to ride an old-timey train. One could even categorize many Amtrak trips as "recreational", because the journey can be part of a vacation, not just a means to get to the vacation spot. Also, many volunteers at railway museums know that what they do is hard work, and in the old days, people were paid to do it, but to them it's a change of pace from their "day jobs". For example, if one spends all week dealing with microprocessor-controlled telecomm systems, it can be refreshing to pound spikes with a maul or service a K-35 streetcar controller.

Isn't it Freud who classifies all human endeavour as love or work? If it's an either/or, then I think the choice is obvious for most of us...