[Dr Rivet]

ALL

First, to “all terrain” in Silver Spring... The last time I attended a WVMGRS meeting at Scott and Judy Loomer's, I invited the members of the WVMGRS to attend my next steamup. Although great interest was expressed, the number of members who were not steamers in attendance was exactly ONE. For the record, I was the Chairman of the 1992 NGRC in Reston, VA hosted by the WVMGRS. The reason the layout was on the top deck of the Hyatt parking garage was because the Reston Town Center Business Alliance required 24 hour security on the layout and a TWO MILLION dollar liability policy funded by the convention, if we had the layout in ANY space accessible to the general public. $2M was a lot of insurance in 1992 and was considered an unreasonable financial burden with no reasonable demonstrated benefit.

I guess I am in the minority in thinking that we have an obligation to try to expand the number of live steamers. I believe that (as was stated in some previous posts) it has appeal for tinkerers and builders. It is kind of like high performance sports cars; you either want to tune it yourself, or you have the money to pay a skilled mechanic. We are not elitists, we are just in a niche in the hobby that is NOT for everyone. I would NEVER try to convert an individual who has a short attention span, is uninterested in detail, and lacks patience. In general, these people are a hazard around machinery. My events are by “invitation only” because of Loudoun County ordinances that prohibit hosting public gatherings of more than 50 people at a personal residence without a county PERMIT ($$$$), personal liability, and a desire to know who is at my home. I have only turned away ONE person in the 14 years we have hosted these meets. I will say that people have to be invited, and some who have been told by others to contact me have just complained later that they were not invited.

I recently attended a “battery and live steam” meet in which some steamers (and others) disregarded the host’s “house rules” for operation. He has nice structures and lots of professionally painted and weathered rolling stock and structures. He wanted to protect some of this from the ravages of steam oil and asked the steamers to follow certain procedures. These were largely ignored and he now is spending a lot of time trying to clean steam oil off of his highly detailed models. The point of the previous comment is to show that scenic and detailed model railroading does not always mix well with operational live steam.

My track has been labeled a “glorified locomotive test track” by some, and not without reason. But it was built for running live steam locomotives hauling trains with the emphasis on locomotive driver convenience and safety. It was never intended as a “scenic line” with a collection of obstructions that would be destroyed on a moment’s notice if someone was trying to keep their engine under control.

In UK public venues operated by G1MRA, the public is actively discouraged from engaging a loco driver while he is running a train. Other individuals are tasked to be outside the layout to answer questions about all the various activities that are taking place. I know from experience that some steamers would just as soon ignore the public, so the task of public interaction often falls on the same small group of people at each show. Even they tire of being the “public face” after a while.

My suggestion relative to live steam and the public: Set up where the organizers allow, enjoy yourselves running locos and trains, explain what is happening, DON’T bother to try to SELL anything. Those that are truly interested will gravitate to this aspect of the hobby, let the others enjoy their electron powered railroads.

Dr Rivet

 

[Dr Rivet]

212 degrees

One of the main reasons that steamers gravitate to the public venues (at least in this area) is that many have room for locomotives; they don't have space for a track. In addition, several of my live steam friends have pointed out that building and maintaining a track simply decreases the funds for acquisition of new locomotives and reduces the time for building / maintaining (tinkering) with their engines. Besides, Diamondhead, Cabin Fever, President's Weekend at the Trolley Museum in Scranton, PA, and the East Coast LSTS all provide indoor venues during a period when outside running is "less enjoyable" in this part of the country. The loco drivers are not there to convince one more person to join them; they are there to run THEIR stuff and have a good time. The building could be completely empty except for the steaming track and they would not care one wit.

I have an elevated track; if someone else wants to be like Jack Verducci and run on the ground complete with train orders and time tables, that is ok by me. The Ga 1 track at PA Live Steamers is mostly at ground level, as are lots of garden lines in the UK. We are actually VERY tolerant of other's personal choices, as long as they DON'T tell us how we need to enjoy OUR hobby.

It is NOT an ambivalence or perhaps hopelessness, it is a desire to keep people who live for "instant gratification" and represent in my mind a risk to the live steam hobby AWAY. They are the ones who will KILL the live steam hobby after the second lawsuit because they expected everything to work "out of the box" like an LGB or Aristo or USA Trains electric locomotive. they are the ones who will not appreciate the level of personal responsibility that comes with "playing with fire". I know this sounds ELITIST, but it is a fact of life. Small mistakes with electric trains lead to minor mishaps like cars on the ground; small mistakes with live steam can lead to big fires consuming wooden rolling stock, melt or burn lots of track, or dump a $20K C&O 2-6-6-6 on its side and nearly off the layout. The scariest "screw up" at one of my meets was when someone opened the blower on their engine while the draft fan was still on the stack. The water came up into the fan and shattered the impeller. Pieces of shrapnel everywhere. Bad fan design (cast fan impeller) coupled with bad judgement on the part of the loco driver. In general, the highest risk to an individual is getting burned because they put personal body parts, typically face or hands, in places they did not belong without proper protection. But in this day and age, many people would blame the track owner or the loccmotive manufacturer for not preventing them from a failure to exercise common sense or good judgement. I don't really want people in this segment of the hobby because they think "it might be cool"; I want people here because they have an interest in steam propulsion and a desire to run models that are powered in a manner SIMILAR to their 1:1 counterparts.

Unfortunately, in the last couple of years, as the hobby has expanded, so have the number of runners who regularly fail to exercise common courtesy towards other runners, show disregard for the value of other's equipment, and generally act as if the world is revoving around them and everone else needs to accede to their personal whims. The most glaring examples are total disregard to observing scheduled track time slots when at event where the available track time is eceeded by the number of people wanting to run. The two best excuses lateley are, I'm not out of water yet, or I've still got a lot of fire in this coal burner. SORRY, time's up; let the next guy on the track!!!


End RANT

Dr Rivet

 

[Dr Rivet]

ALL

Since I "threw the rock in the water", I would like to respond to the comments. BTW "Dougald", "vociferously" is an interesting choice of words. You are not the first to use it to describe my behavior; it was used by the rating Officer on one of my Senior Enlisted Evaluation Reports back when I was an E7 in the 1970s.

"Chooch" points out my most basic concern with running steam ion a layout with backdrops or lots of structures, control of the engine and safety. In these situations, I feel much more comfortable when R/C is in use. I agree with Doug that if you are running a geared loco, those issues are minimized because high speed is not usually a factor and the driver can usually get to the loco before much of anything happens.

G1MRA actually owns two or three portable tracks that are very detailed and are fully sceniced. They are a wonder to behold in operation. It also takes a small army to transport, unload, set up, and maintain. They figure their primary display layout costs about $2,000 per year to maintain, not including storage costs. It takes about 75 man-hours to assemble. Given many of our events are one or two days with a total operating time of 12 hours, this is a pretty hard ratio to swallow. Mike Moore and Charles usually have about four hours to get a track set up so they have adopted the "minimalist" approach. I don't know how long it takes for the guys to set up Clem's Warrior Run sectional layout with all the buildings and stuff. I have 12 feet of O scale modules that are fully sceniced and it takes me about 2 hours to set them up and install all the scenic elements. If the scenery was integrated with the base I would need a trailer just to haul them around. I agree with "Chooch" though, Doug should build a portable track with all the cool stuff on it, let us know where it will be set up, and some us will be willing to take it for a test drive.

Dwight, I reread everything from the beginning. You are absolutely correct. If we want the general interest attendee at an event to see our stuff, it needs to be in the area of primary traffic flow. Otherwise, most will not seek us out. AT ECLSTS, Mike's track is there with all the "G" sparkie tracks, so we get lots of visitors as they go from layout to layout. As Charles says, we get to talk to lots of folks when set up like that. Sorry I dragged your post in a different direction.

Dr Rivet