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Re: Track Work-Track Workers, Volunteers, and Reality.........
Author: BOB2
Date: 07-29-2017 - 10:26
Bob,
I started my RR/Transportation career laying track with Stan Garner and Bill Oden, on their original lease up in Alta Loma, where they kept the early collection pieces that became the Movie Train, at the tender age of 17.
And, one of last planning projects I worked on with Dave and Ginger, was the Santa Paula Branch upgrade and reconnect to Santa Clarita, and hanging out in my later years with Rogue River #! from time to time..... There was even a newspaper clipping in Stan's (by then part time) office, of us all raising money to save the Santa Anita Deport (now at the Arboretum in Arcadia).
Track work is the hardest work I ever did, except for the week I spent with 2nd graders, as a substitute teacher while going to grad school..... not for the weak, the slow, the infirm, the elderly, or the timid, which eliminates and you can get hurt, and even seriously hurt, if you don't know what you're doing, or are working with people in the above listed categories, which eliminates 90% of the folks on Altamont, as best as I can figure.
So sometimes, if you need these things done at places like OERM (like laying track, installing crossings, etc....)you are going to have to get a lot more young folks and train them. Or, you are going to have to figure out how to pay for and hire folks who "do this for a living", who are young healthy and fit, have the proper and safe equipment, are properly trained, are insured, and, as necessary, properly licensed to do some of these harder things. That's a lot to ask of an averaged age 73 year old retiree volunteer, even of those of us who've actually done this very hard work.
What these museums and collection's really need is money. That can come from admissions, rides, events, film shoots, from advertisers and corporate sponsors, from grants both public and private, and long term things like establishing charitable trusts and endowments, established from estates people leave to these institutions, and from large donors. In the long run, this is the most critical need in order to maintain and operate these collections for future generations.
Bob
I started my RR/Transportation career laying track with Stan Garner and Bill Oden, on their original lease up in Alta Loma, where they kept the early collection pieces that became the Movie Train, at the tender age of 17.
And, one of last planning projects I worked on with Dave and Ginger, was the Santa Paula Branch upgrade and reconnect to Santa Clarita, and hanging out in my later years with Rogue River #! from time to time..... There was even a newspaper clipping in Stan's (by then part time) office, of us all raising money to save the Santa Anita Deport (now at the Arboretum in Arcadia).
Track work is the hardest work I ever did, except for the week I spent with 2nd graders, as a substitute teacher while going to grad school..... not for the weak, the slow, the infirm, the elderly, or the timid, which eliminates and you can get hurt, and even seriously hurt, if you don't know what you're doing, or are working with people in the above listed categories, which eliminates 90% of the folks on Altamont, as best as I can figure.
So sometimes, if you need these things done at places like OERM (like laying track, installing crossings, etc....)you are going to have to get a lot more young folks and train them. Or, you are going to have to figure out how to pay for and hire folks who "do this for a living", who are young healthy and fit, have the proper and safe equipment, are properly trained, are insured, and, as necessary, properly licensed to do some of these harder things. That's a lot to ask of an averaged age 73 year old retiree volunteer, even of those of us who've actually done this very hard work.
What these museums and collection's really need is money. That can come from admissions, rides, events, film shoots, from advertisers and corporate sponsors, from grants both public and private, and long term things like establishing charitable trusts and endowments, established from estates people leave to these institutions, and from large donors. In the long run, this is the most critical need in order to maintain and operate these collections for future generations.
Bob
