We all know it is just a matter of time...
Even now we can see it on the horizon, and some organizations are already feeling the effects. The great generation who worked to preserve nearly everything we have to cherish now is aging. They need to teach what they know so it is not lost. Problem is, who are they to teach to?
It is in many cases, not uncommon for railfanning and rail enthusism to become the ridicule of peers. And not many teens have friends their age who share the same interests.
How are we as a community to focus on keeping our ranks filled?
How are we to get teenagers interested?
How can we reinforce their interests, and encourage them to pursue them?
How are we to get the ones that are interested started?
How are we to keep them engaged?
There are some organizations that do this well. The FWHS has teenagers restoring a former Wabash 0-6-0.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1rXsQ_4-g
These teens are not only working on the engine but were the ones who started the project!
What does your organization do? What have your expiriences been?
Please let your voice be heard! This affects us all!
Give a young teen, boy or girl, a little throttle or controller experiences and he or she will be hooked for life.
A noted in a survey on the MR forums and in my experiences chatting with others, there tends to be a period of interest in trains from about age 5 to about age 14, which then dies out until about age 30. This is not always true, however.
What my local museum has done is put in a play area with G scale and "W" scale trains that kids can have fun with.
I've never seen a steam loco run but I'm saddened to see the older diesels from my boyhood cut up for scrap so times change according to our memories so I value trains but different ones than others. My kids are getting to run the model trains so hopefully they keep on when they get older.
NorthWest A noted in a survey on the MR forums and in my experiences chatting with others, there tends to be a period of interest in trains from about age 5 to about age 14, which then dies out until about age 30. This is not always true, however. What my local museum has done is put in a play area with G scale and "W" scale trains that kids can have fun with.
This has been my own experience with my younger stepson. I asked him about it once and he replied that he noticed my interest in virtually all facets of railroading over the years. He thought that if I was still that interested then there has to be something to it.
When I was 17, back in 19*#, my friend "Ski" and I joined the IRM and wanted to volunteer. The president at the time seemed to not take us seriously. But we were already railfans since early childhood and were undaunted by the lack of interest in our participation. We both not only volunteered but we both got jobs with the C&NW. The point here is that we do indeed need to raise up some young people and teach them everything we can while we can. I'm an active member of a warbird group that is restoring a B17, and their is a parallel here in that we again need to include young folks in the process. The experimental aircraft ascociation has a great program to involve young people. I hope the railfans and railroad museums around the country can do more to encourage the younger generations, if we don't, it will all just be static display. The first time I took my wife, not a railfan, on a locomotive chase, NKP 765, she was so impressed she literally had tears running down her face. She had never seen a locomotive running at speed and under power. When someone asked Ross Rowland, who flew jet fighters in the Air Force, what was the greatest thrill in his life, he didn't mention flying jets, but he did mention driving C&O 614 on the main line. Let's keep the "dream of steam" alive and well for future generations to appreciate.
locojacket When I was 17, back in 19*#, my friend "Ski" and I joined the IRM and wanted to volunteer. The president at the time seemed to not take us seriously. But we were already railfans since early childhood and were undaunted by the lack of interest in our participation. We both not only volunteered but we both got jobs with the C&NW. The point here is that we do indeed need to raise up some young people and teach them everything we can while we can. I'm an active member of a warbird group that is restoring a B17, and their is a parallel here in that we again need to include young folks in the process. The experimental aircraft ascociation has a great program to involve young people. I hope the railfans and railroad museums around the country can do more to encourage the younger generations, if we don't, it will all just be static display. The first time I took my wife, not a railfan, on a locomotive chase, NKP 765, she was so impressed she literally had tears running down her face. She had never seen a locomotive running at speed and under power. When someone asked Ross Rowland, who flew jet fighters in the Air Force, what was the greatest thrill in his life, he didn't mention flying jets, but he did mention driving C&O 614 on the main line. Let's keep the "dream of steam" alive and well for future generations to appreciate.
Amen.
I am by no means a frequent poster here (or really any other train forum), but, as a 13 year old, I’m among the few of my friends who really enjoys trains.
In my belief, there are two key problems here. 1. The vast majority of kids, while they appreciate trains, aren’t really deeply involved in them. There are so many activities and hobbies out there that trains have fallen a bit to the wayside. 2. It’s difficult to start working and helping, even if you are interested in trains. Part of this is simply a lack of real want to do so on the kids’ end, but the other part is that the community, as welcoming as it is, makes it difficult to really get involved in actively helping. I would happily go and work down at ORHS, but I can’t really find a way to simply work, persay, every other week. Honestly, I simply haven’t really felt the compelling need to spend hours and hours figuring it out. If it were easier for me to do so, I think I probably would have already.
While I don’t really think there’s anything we, as a community, can do about the first problem, making it easier for young people to get involved in the community is something that I think could be improved.
This will be the theme of the Railroad Passenger Car Alliance conference next January in Tyler Texas. Acknowledgment of the importance of getting young people involved is nearly universal. The challenge is in "getting our arms around it" and boiling it down to concrete action. The RPCA has been looking for ways to become engaged for years. The organization supports the NRHS Rail Camp program with its Luebke-Caldwell Scholarship program. They have also set up the Fuehring Fund for Future Leaders, a scholarship program that brings someone under 30 for an all expenses paid trip to the RPCA conference each year. Often, the organization has been challenged in getting the word out to young people. Virtually all of the candidates are well-qualified, but there do not seem to be many of them out there that can be reached.In an era where there are no station agents or tower operators for kids to hang out and where the regulations and cameras make it imprudent for anyone on a class one railroad to provide a cab ride, the railroad industry has a bigger disconnect than most. Museums and tourist railroads have the potential to be more accessible, but many are still struggling to be family-friendly, much less focused on attracting young people to be more than passengers.
As mentioned in an earlier post, there are number of issues to be addressed. Since everyone seems to agree on the importance of reaching out, the next step is figuring out how to actually do it.
Another factor that is hardly ever mentioned:
It has been pretty easy to get a job with a major railroad in the past 10 years or so. Let's say you have a 18 year old with an interest in railroading. He/she can either get a job in another industry and try to volunteer with restoring trains (never enough time), or he/she can hire out with a railroad and get paid a pretty decent wage while working full time with trains (and at the same time, most likely losing any interest he had in them to begin with). And the railroad allows very little predictable free time to help in any restorative capacities. Compare that to the 70s-90s when the railroads were not hiring many at all, and mostly laying off people as manpower needs shrunk.
And getting teens involved isn't going to help much. Once those teens become adults with all the responsibilities, family, and necessary jobs, good luck on keeping them. All organizations are suffering.
One more factor - many younger adults do not have the basic tool and workmanship skills of the older generations. Schools don’t' have shop classes and few have workbenches in their homes anymore. Sure anyone can learn, but it's that initial embarrassment hurdle that may keep people away. "How can I restore a steam engine when I don't even own or know how to use a socket set?"
(or course restoring that city park steam engine isn't going to attract many younger people. Now if you set your sights on a SD40-2...)
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
I am 22. I have been interested with trains since I was 4. I am mostly very knowledgeable about steam locomotive's. I love them. I can impress my friends about a certain locomotive and match it word for word in a book. Like a computer. But anyway,s. I agree. Not all but a lot of people my age are either interested with tablets phones or etc. But I am glad to see that me and others are going to be helping fix and run these thing,s. Me in particular.... I wanna run and restore these thing,s. I personally wanna work for the up steam programe. But I at least wanna get my feet wet. I am moveing from south Dakota to Oregon. I know there is allot of steam opportunity,s. And I really hope I can get my feet wet there. I wanna work with Doyle McCormick and the three steamers they got. But I am really excited about this new possibility. The people that are doing this already have given us the biggest opportunity. It is our chance to pass on the touch and join them in keeping the spirit of steam alive. We deserve to let the next generation what it feels, smell,s and sound,s like. And I know we can do that.
Best of luck in Oregon Joseph, I hope you're at the beginning of a great adventure!
Take care Joseph, and have fun! Best of luck! I wish I had the chance to work with steam... One day, I swear by my word, I'll help bring Frisco 1522 back...
...Back in the topic of this thread I'll share my own expiriences. I think this is common among many kids and teens.
I first got into railroading/railfanning/railhistory when I was 13. At the time I couldn't tell whether a locomotive was a switcher or road engine. I went to my local museum and must have taken the same tour better than 20 times. I was hooked! I slowly learned more on my own, and followed different restorations and overhauls on steamers. I went off railfanning and learning, swapping stories with the volunteers back at the museum.
Eventually I began volunteering at my local rail museum. From the other tour guides I learned of NMRA and NRHS. I became involved with them and am now imersed in this way of life.
But there was one problem. I didn't know a single person my age who was into railroading. In fact, I didn't know anyone under the age of 40 who was a railfan.
I was picked on in highschool for it, because, lets face it, not many people "get it". This was a major turn off for me, and I'm sure is a major turn off for many other kids as well, not having someone their age to share the passion with. I even came close to leaving the hobby.
It is my observation and expirience that it is important to have like-aged peers supportive of a young railbuff's interests.
It is all in the support one recieves when under pressure.
But that is just me,
S. Connor.
Thanks for the best wishes forelock and s conner.
I really hope it goes well I,m in tigard, Oregon.
S conner. If you get a team to get 1522 running..... Count me in!!!!!!!
I have been hearing this for the twenty years that I have been involved with rail and industrial preservation. Yet my Facebook friends list is made up mostly of railfans and people working at tourist railways and museums who are younger than I am.
Its always going to be hard to get young fans involved with restoration projects, as some of the skills needed only come with experience, and then there is the short attention spans of young people. In a society that values immediate results, working on a restoration project that measures progress over months is quickly going to become boring to a young person. But as they mature, their skills increase and their ability to accomodate slow rates of progress improve.
So the key is to plant the seed when they are young, and hopefully they will find the time to come back to volunteer later on in life.
Rick Rowlands
J&L Narrow Gauge Railroad
Youngstown, OH
I was surprised by how many young railfans there are when we connected up on Facebook. A couple of them have just started working as conductors on NS and BNSF, lifelong dream for them. Many do volunteer work at various museums or help run rail excursions. I was happy to see this, because figured a lot of younger people would think a train was something old like an antique. But pleased to find out that is not true. I know organizations like NRHS have a problem attracting younger members but they are out there, just not joiners. Every time I go to Amtrak's Kirkwood, MO station, I will see people of all ages taking pics, many with tripods. It came to me naturally being raised in a rail family, so it's good that so many still love trains.
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