I've never had a favorable opinion of the NRHS. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression, and my first impression of a NRHS chapter was off the charts creepy. I was in middle school when my father took me to a local NRHS meeting thinking there may be others my own age I could share my interest with, but it turned out to be a bunch of old men. Without going into detail, let’s just say it was the first and only time I saw my father, a 13 year military veteran who taught others how to land jets on floating postage stamps, get the heebie-jeebies.

I avoided participation with the NRHS ever since.

That was a long time ago, and since then I have seen other NRHS chapters do wonderful and interesting things in support of their mission. I know of two chapters here in NC that do great credit to the NRHS and its goals. But that first impression at the "Creepy Chapter" has always stayed with me, enough to fully support our reorganization from a NRHS Chapter into a Railroad Museum with a NRHS Chapter as a separate and optional division.

This is going a bit off topic but I saw a comment about Facebook, etc. and wanted to give my 2 cents. IMHO those organizations that ignore social media (Facebook, Twitter, Meetup, LinkedIn, Etc..) and computers in general do so at their peril. The number one source of visitors to our web site is a Mommy BLOG. Over 60% (90% at Christmas) of our revenue is from online tickets and 75% of our customers are women. The next time you get a young person interested in your operation, ask them to teach the old folks about teh intarwebs. Your ridership numbers and your young members will thank you.

Cheers,

Mike MacLean
New Hope Valley Railway
North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc.
(Formerly the East Carolina Chapter, NRHS)

I was actually thinking about joining NRHS for this first time this coming year so I could go to the national convention, since it will be held nearby. Thoughts?

There is no easy answer here...

In the Appalachian Region (lower VA, eastern TN, Western NC, Upstate SC) there are 13 chapters. In the past year, officials from 7 of these chapters have been meeting to discuss "secession." The beefs range from the obtuse "I have no interest in western railroading like is always in the National magazine" to micromanaging from the current President to larger things like letting competing chapters be allowed in small towns (eg: Johnson City, TN). Something like 20 grievances of varying degrees were sent to the management of the NRHS, and predictably, of 7 chapters, there were 7 different reactions to how the National addressed the grievances.

The general consensus is that none of the chapters know how things will turn out under the new business and governance models. The reaction of many folks in our region was to form a parallel non-profit organization that people can choose from when it comes to selecting where to put their money. This parallel organization can be a museum, or another club, or whatever type of entity. Want to join the existing chapter? Sure, they'll take the money. Want to join the associated museum and the chapter? That's another fee. Want to join only the museum at a lower cost? That option is available as well.

As for our chapter, several of the members are very, very sympathetic to the cause of our sister chapters. However, as a whole, being part of the "National" has been nothing but a blessing to us. Yeah, the magazine and website and even library resources at the National level mean very little to us. However being able to say that we are part of the NATIONAL Railway Historical Society rather than the Podunk Railroad Club has been invaluable to us approaching people and acquiring equipment.

That's worth a helluva lot in my estimation. The grants we have received from the National have likewise been a god-send, and frankly, there's two very historical pieces of southern Narrow Gauge freight equipment that will now survive because of it.

Is it perfect? No. Is it worth renewing? In my mind, absolutely.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS

Answering Brian's earlier question about joining the NRHS, there is nothing to lose but the dues and it is still a big organization so who knows, your experience may be better than others have had with them.

If you decide to join, I would also encourage reporting back some time in the future with your impressions of the organization.

PC

The key is to develop your own identity and reputation within the community. For years, our museum (R&GVRRM) suffered from an identity crisis: We were the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad Museum, project of the Rochester Chapter NRHS. To make matters worse, our "front door" is at the New York Museum of Transportation. (Visitors arrive at our museum by rail from the other museum.) Overall, it was a difficult thing to describe to potential visitors when advertising at train shows and other events. We actually had three logos between the two museums. (NYMT logo, R&GVRRM logo, Rochester Chapter NRHS logo) By breaking free from the NRHS, we have been able to simplify things and build a better "brand". We are also becoming less "club-like" and are starting to resemble more of an operating railroad museum. In the long run, I feel we will be stronger for this.

However, your mileage may vary. Breaking free made sense to us, but it may not make sense to other groups. Every situation is different. Increasing dues and more restrictive membership rules were the breaking point for us. In fact, we would probably be a chapter today if we could offer our members "museum only" memberships. We were already taking steps to simplify the brand, and I think we could have made that work while remaining a chapter.

I'm glad to hear the NRHS is a viable partner for many groups. As "boblenon" said, we were sad to leave. I wish the remaining chapters the best of luck.

When I was going into my junior year of high school, I was an NRHS member - I was actually one of the kids picked to go to Railcamp in one of the two 1999 sessions. I ended up having my membership for over a year in the Delaware Valley Chapter of the NRHS. But there were no younger people there, my age. It was all older men (and a couple older women), doing slideshow or video presentations every night. No trips, no young people, just boring membership talk. For a high schooler like myself at the time, all the membership talk and business stuff was not really all that exciting, and I was hoping for more. I didn't really have a job or car, yet the group meetings were a few streets away from where I live, so it was easy for me to get there, but not really to do anything else other go to meetings. Which, as stated before, were not very exciting. Needless to say, I did not renew my membership.

It's a shame that there were no younger members at the time, or more interesting things going on - or else I may have kept my NRHS and chapter membership going.

Any time anybody, anywhere, complains about the status quo, the easiest way to stop all discussion of dissent or complaint is to simply say "Okay, propose a viavble alternative."

* * * * * * * * *

For the record, I'm one of those trying to create change from within, as a VP of my local chapter. But the expressions here are my own, and not of the Chapter (and why do I even need to say that?):

I first joined the NRHS in 1987, after some time of a local short line president, a true rail enthusiast who had his line's locos painted in "heritage" paint schemes because that's the kind of guy he is, badgering me to join, and after years of helping at the annual local train show. When I finally joined (as much to keep that short line official from barring me from his property as anything!), they said "What? We thought you were already a member..."

But the NRHS has long had a major identity and mission problem.

The NRHS, for all functional purposes, is not a national organization any more than the railroad preservation movement is a "national" movement. Like the latter, the NRHS is, functionally, a coalition of over 100 railfan clubs, each with a different mission and objective.

Some Chapters own and run a museum. Others work in partnership with another museum, local or railroad. Some own and operate railroad cars or locomotives, as a museum or as a charter fleet. Some are, for all practical purposes, a "private car club." Some are little more than "slide show clubs," of the kind that used to gather monthly or weekly in the back of these now-elusive places called "hobby shops" or "model railroad shops." And some chapters..... well, I'm not even sure the National NRHS leadership could tell you exactly what they're doing. (Seriously--at least a couple chapters have been officially delisted from NRHS membership for lack of communication.)

Excursions were long THE major draw for many chapters. An awful lot of NRHS chapters were formed, in all sincerity, just to offer an excuse for the Southern Railway steam program (and later NS) to operate excursions out of their communities. To this day, the NRHS has a disproportionate number of chapters in SR territory. One could argue that other chapters formed pretty much for similar purposes--Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and other chapters used to have an array of home-town railroads and transit lines with passenger or charter departments eager to sell the use of surplus commuter equipment on the weekends (mind you, we're talking the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s). To this day, I can't help but marvel at the plethora of "Off the Beaten Path" excursions formerly run by the PRR, B&O, WM, and even the Ma & Pa for the Baltimore Chapter and others. Today, it's all but impossible to charter an excursion off of Amtrak or a commuter agency over ANY railroad, and even if you do, the price is often prohibitive for all but the most hard-core rail mileage collectors.

Aside from that, the NRHS seemingly had one, and only one, objective: to hold a national "convention" that, to outsiders, appears to be little more than an excuse to gather and ride occasionally strange trains to admittedly weird places, and pay lots of good money to do so. In the heyday of mainline steam preservation, this, of course, ended up with epic occasions such as the Roanoke 1987 Convention, with steam passenger and freight trains pacing one another side by side, and multi-day excursions to and from the Conventions.

Aside from that, what does the NRHS do, nationally?

Precious little, it seems. We've got Railcamp, which seems at times to be a secret insider's thing. We now have the Preservation Award. But there's no central office anymore, no true central clearing house for information as there used to be with the library in Philadelphia.

One MAJOR problem with not just the NRHS, but all such social organizations in general, is that the average age of membership keeps shifting to somewhere between 70 and death. I can't count the number of groups and organizations I've been to, seen, or helped directly that have exactly the same problem--ham radio groups, county historical societies, model railroad clubs, bicyclist clubs, magicians' clubs, folk music societies, artist societies, antique machinery clubs, ethnic cultural societies, science fiction clubs, even "modern" creations such as computer and video-game-collector clubs. Even the craft beer clubs I belong to--BEER, for cryin' out loud, BEER!--has an increasingly aging membership.

We could sit here and wring our hands for ages about just why that is. Among the operating hypotheses are 1) shorter attention spans and increasing self-absorption of the younger generations (yeah, old folks have been criticizing the young ones for millennia now); 2) a perception--rightly or wrongly--that the older generations have, rightly or wrongly, the spare time and cash to do what the younger ones will never get the chance to, thanks to Social Security, pensions, etc. (hey, stop ridiculing what I just said and actually talk to young people--and not just the ones at Occupy Wall Street!); 3) a general and growing disdain for historical awareness and cultural perspective. (My snide line is that the average young person in the U.S. has the historical awareness of a tree slug--and I'm proven right on an almost-daily basis.)

Instead, I ask: That's the lot we're being dealt. What the hell CAN we do about it, and then what SHOULD we do?

First, we have to acknowledge what we can't change, at least not likely. The glory days of grabbing the commuter train made of old long-distance coaches, buying an insurance policy for a couple quid, and throwing Jensen/Muller/Sandberg/Rowland's steamer on the front and selling tickets are long gone. They don't need to be, but absent NS completely returning to its old program or a RR like CSX or BNSF adopting a much friendlier steam excursion program than UP's at the moment, we have to deal with what we have. In addition, we're competing with the Internet--TrainOrders, Railroad.net, RailPictures.net, Trains.com, Railfan.com, and a host of other such places.

Second, the NRHS must decide if it somehow wants to step up its activity and role with a more concerted and authoritative presence. The National Association of Railroad Passengers, you will notice, isn't a bunch of train joy-riders or mileage collectors--it's a pro-passenger-rail lobbyist organization. If the NRHS wishes to start taking a more "activist" role, it can, but does so at its own peril. Politics, both governmental/philosophical/R-vs.-D style and personal, has killed off more groups than I care to think about. Perhaps the answer is to pursue a more active and productive agenda than just publishing a magazine. It could, for example, align itself with the TRAIN/ARM merged group. It could pursue better "academic" recognition and scholarly work, as pursued by the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society (a group to which I have seen several good NRHS types "defect" as they get older or more mature, or more serious about their research and authorship).

Outreach to the next generation is CRITICAL--and severely lacking. NRHS chapters need to go out to the public, not just at the local train show, but with presentations and exhibits to non-railfans. Libraries and community centers love to get exhibitions for their display cases--properly curated and vetted, of course. The former president of my one NRHS chapter used to do a slide show explaining not only what the NRHS chapter was and what it does, but also what railfans are and why they're interested in trains. He used to go around with this show to groups like the Moose, Rotary, county historical societies, etc. This was critical to our chapter's outreach and mission. If your chapter, or your museum or railroad, isn't marketing itself with a PowerPoint (or other) show of this nature, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Outreach can take many forms. Right now, I have a Facebook page for the Baltimore Chapter NRHS set up. Basically to "fill the pages" between Chapter meeting announcements, I'm posting vintage photos, along with captions with historical background, from the Chapter's quite substantial archives. Of the 23 people "liking" our page so far, I can only verify four as NRHS members, and I'm the only one from this chapter! Websites are a whole different creature, and that's another topic for another time.

All in all, however, it still comes down to two highly introspective questions: Why are you doing what you do, and for whom? Frankly, I'm not sure the national NRHS can present an adequate answer that justifies the membership dues it charges, and frankly I would bet one could say the same thing of half of the chapters out there.

But again: Propose a viable alternative.

I've been a member since 1984 and got my 25-year pin only 2 years ago (at the age of 39 at the time I was given the pin, I think that makes me one of the youngest people ever to be awarded one) and enjoyed most of the 2011 convention. That said, the convention as very close to where I live.
I'm torn on the whole thing. Like most members, I really don't get anything out of it. When I joined a chapter in Florida where I grew up, I made close friends there, one of whom I stay in good contact even though I left Florida for good in 1998. Being in a chapter then, I went to a lot of stuff with the group. There are two large chapters near where I live now, but neither of them seem very welcoming to new members, something I'm told from other people elsewhere is common of chapters in large cities. So I have no motivation to do anything with the chapters near me nor feel welcome at all to try to join, so I don't.
I can't help but wonder if the days of large groups like this are past. I get so much more form the internet and individuals around me that I ever got from the NRHS other than some good field trips (which I no longer do). I thought of resigining right after I got my 25 year pin with a detailed letter as to why I was dropping, but then the convention came up right about the time i would have done that. So Just re-newed, but I wonder if it more out of reflex than anything else, as I've been doing this my early teens...

I am a 51 year NRHS member.
I helped start a chapter, that after 40+ years, just disbanded.
The reasons?
Everything stated in the previous postings.
I, too, question why I am still a member. The local social scene is one reason but any club can fulfill that role.
The National publication does little for me now as the chapter news of other chapters was one of the reason I read it.
The new structure and the disbanding of the Philadelphia office further has disassiociated me from the NRHS.
I will take a serious look when it comes time to renew.

Ira Schreiber

member currently of:
Intermountain chapter
West Jersey chapter
Nebraska Railroad Museum chapter

It seems to be a global issue.

Sloan

http://www.railwaysafrica.com/blog/2011/11/tourism-–-how-to-interest-today’s-young-in-trains/

I am the editor of the NRHS Bulletin. The content balance in the NRHS Bulletin is the result of an editor who publishes the content he receives or can convince people to send in. If anyone has an idea for an eastern based article, please contact me at bulletin@nrhs.com. You need not be a member to get published. The NRHS does pay authors for the right type of content. Please reach out if you are interested, I'm happy to work with you on an article.

Jeff Smith
Editor, NRHS Bulletin

Jeff,

For the record, I think you and Charles Williams do a helluva good job in producing the magazine and bulletin, hence my use of the adjective "obtuse" in describing the complaint. In my mind, that is just not a valid beef, but nonetheless, has been brought up in the overall issue of "national office relevance" to some of the chapters and is germaine to this discussion.

Keep up the good work and continue doing the best you can. I sympathize with your plight about varying subjects and articles and having to run on what is submitted. It can be a real pain in the rear to try and please everyone all of the time when your end product is dictated by the whim of whatever shows up in mailbox.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS

The situation Jeff describes is not limited to the NRHS. Other publishers are also facing the same problem in trying to achieve geographical and interest "balance" in their publications. We have lost a great deal of experienced writing talent lately as older authors have passed away, this is leading to a lot of "searching" for coverage in areas that certain people used to write about. There have been a lot of conversations and inquiries about writing articles circulating, including the long recent discussion on RYPN that produced no volunteers. There is definitely a changing dynamic at work here, whether it is lack of time, an aging author population, declining interest, or more difficult access to the railroads due to security. Parallel with this there has also been an increase in requests from many groups for presenters who work with PowerPoint or ProShow, so apparently there are fewer people with the time available to put into that kind of project now too. I also have heard the NRHS is having some difficulty finding people who want to write content for their website. But these may be more appropriate for a different conversation at some other time than the present NRHS discussion.

PC

Interesting about the complaints about the bulletin being more Western-oriented. When i lived in Florida until the late 90s, I would have said that the focus of the bulletin was the Northeast US. I still think it was so. But now, it seems there is a general overall shift to Western news online and in publications for RR subjects. I don't mind so much because I now live in the West, so personally it's fine. But I can see why it would annoy others, just as I got sick to the gut of seeinf coverage of the Pennsy and NYC in the past...

Having been a past NRHS chapter board member, and dealing with these issues first hand, here are my opinions.

My biggest gripe, was that we were paying all this money to them, and we got nothing out of it. What pushed that was the NRHS grants. It was hell to fill out the paperwork, and the grants should be for NRHS chapters, not museums and other projects, I am sorry. The chapters should always be the priority, especially if they have equipment.

The other thing is Fernly & Fernly, and there entire presence in the NRHS.