Replying to Holly Gibson & George Andrews...

Thank you for the suggestion regarding Winterail, and for the offer regarding same.

I have heard of winterail but am not familiar with it. From your note (George), it appears that it is held in Stockton. And someone has just told me that their next event is in a few days--March 12th, I believe. Do they meet once a year? What is the usual format and content of their show? Would a presentation of a 1962 accident fit their area of interest, or are they more focused on modern-day railroading?

So....my tentative answer is "yes." I would be glad to offer this "Granite" presentation. The biggest obstacle on my side of it would be schedule. I never take vacation in March (if that is the month they always meet), so would have to arrange for sufficient time off to cover travel time, etc. This is much easier said than done on my job, given the way we bid for trips on a monthly basis. I never know of my availability on any given date until late in the month prior to that date. Bottom line: Even if they would accept my offer, they would have to have a "back-up" presentation or activity to fill a hole left by a last-minute no-show on my part. (Even if I have the time off, getting there is tricky and things could make the whole plan go south at the last minute...)

Another issue to consider: The presentation requires 90 minutes, as there is just too much material to cover even to do the bare-minimum treatment. Most presentations at these railroad shows, in my experience, have been 60 minutes. There's no way possible to "condense" this story into a 60-minute block. It would do more harm than good for the audience, and as an historian, I would not want to do that. As for attention span for such a long presentation, that's never been in issue. I used 95 minutes at the White River Museum last Saturday, and about 90 minutes in the NPRHA convention at Spokane last July, and some people in the audience at each venue said the thing seemed like it was only ten minutes long. I also gave this at the University of Minnesota's rail group, "Gopher Rail," a couple of weeks ago. As the presentation extended into their lunch-break time, I offered to quit and turn them loose--and they insisted that I keep going as they were "on the edge of their chairs." (Yikes!) So there you have it.

Anyway, there are some limitations associated with this thing, but again, I'd be more than glad to offer this, if they can live with these limitations. If not, I would certainly understand. I DON'T expect others to move mountains on my behalf.

Perhaps someone could put the right people at Winterail in touch with me. If someone in charge of Winterail would like to contact me here, on this list (altamontpress) and offer their email contact, I'd be glad to proceed from there by contacting them off-list. For now I'd prefer not to publish my email address here, though, as I'm not familiar enough with the audience and am already getting an awful lot of email traffic (with legitimate questions about the NP, that is, not junk mail).

Thanks much to all for your kind words. It's refreshing to see such interest in this sort of topic these days.

Bill Kuebler