As the spring tag-team season drifts towards the summer tag-team season, I'd like to offer some of my thoughts about those railroad guys on our forum. For me, participating in this forum is an exercise in recreational learning. I can use my brain to learn things that I really don't need to know, just for fun. What allows me to learn about one of my favorite subjects-trains- is that , real, experienced railroad employees are willing to share their knowledge and experience with me. Some of the railroad guys might be considered gruff. Maybe they're just no-nonsense type folks. I can appreciate that. Some might think I'm a dumby. They may be right, and I can appreciate that as well. I do feel that I need to respect what the railroad guys say, simply because they know their stuff, and I don't know their stuff. I'm grateful for folks that have taken the time to explain things to me. What I can't fathom, is the idea that some folks feel the need to battle with the railroad guys over what they know, and what they see from their perspective. I can't imagine arguing with a nuclear physicist over nuclear fission. One of us would look uninformed and silly. Nor, would I go to a nuclear fission forum, to tell nuclear physicists that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're not doing their jobs correctly. I can understand why some of the railroad guys can get uptight. I'm a salesman. I imagine that if I belonged to a forum about sales and salesmanship, I'd get pretty uptight with folks who wanted to give me what-for, because they felt they knew my trade better than me. I'm willing to cut the railroad guys some slack . I'm willing to deal with some crusty customers. I work in the building industry, I deal with personalities of all kinds- just like this forum. If we allow ourselves to simply joust with the railroad guys, they'll all leave, and we'll have nothing special. If that puts me on the railroad guys' tag team, I guess that's where I want to be. The gist of this forum, in my opinion, is to share a common interest we have in trains. What say, we cut a little slack to those train guys that make the forum what it is, and stop playing tag-team? All kidding aside, I bet there isn't a single one of you on this forum, that I wouldn't find interesting to eat lunch with.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Crusty?
Well, it has been kinda hot down here lately….
Ya know, I have always wanted to go to an airplane forum, and tell pilots how they should fly, and how to build better airplanes.
My best idea so far is to use more glue to hold the paper clip in place….
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I was born crusty. My mom taught us how to barfight at a very young age (4). I never approached her talent for bull riding though. Watching her handle a tire iron in a crowded concert was poetry.
AS far as lunch.. you're buying.
Randy
One of my biggest thrills - have lunch, dinner, breakfast with a railroad family and collect railroad stories. And not one of them has ever been gruff!
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
My computer must auto edit all the posts that beat up on the railroad guys. Seriously, where are they? For the most part all I see is some back forth that occasionally gets a little carried away.. nothing that I would deem offensive.
When you work in the field in the rail industry for longer than a cup of coffee you develop your big boy pants and have watched many that can't hack it go off to pursue other options for their lives. Real world railroading is not for everyone and most wantabe's after they find out the realities can't cut it.
All that being said - bring it on!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
edblysard Crusty? Well, it has been kinda hot down here lately…. Ya know, I have always wanted to go to an airplane forum, and tell pilots how they should fly, and how to build better airplanes. My best idea so far is to use more glue to hold the paper clip in place….
Sometimes, though, an outsider with a fresh perspective and no preconceived notions about "how its always been done" can really shake things up in a positive way. Look at Paul Tellier, the first head of the privatized CN. A career public servant who became head of CN... no career railroader there, not even a railfan.
One thing that is overlooked by 'outsiders' about their new ideas - in the highest majority of the cases, that idea, while it may be new to them, has already been tried and found wanting in the past. There are very few NEW ideas - most are ideas that have been around forever but for a variety of reasons - mostly technological - have not been successful. In the light of advancing technology most 'old' ideas that didn't work get revisited and investigated to see of new technologies can make those ideas successful.
A operation I had a hand in bring into successful operation, had been tried at least 10 documented times previously - however the technology to make it a success had not been invented and they failed.
Technologies, just because they exist, may not be developed to the point that they can be used with the desired level of reliable success and thus are not adopted in the world of dollars and cents railroading.
BaltACD One thing that is overlooked by 'outsiders' about their new ideas - in the highest majority of the cases, that idea, while it may be new to them, has already been tried and found wanting in the past.
One thing that is overlooked by 'outsiders' about their new ideas - in the highest majority of the cases, that idea, while it may be new to them, has already been tried and found wanting in the past.
Maybe so, but when they do work the pay-off is huge. What would a couple of high school drop outs from Dayton, OH know about aviation? Apparently more than the learned experts of the day. Diddo for the entire computer industry where every year or so a new kid comes along and makes a billion.
Ulrich BaltACD One thing that is overlooked by 'outsiders' about their new ideas - in the highest majority of the cases, that idea, while it may be new to them, has already been tried and found wanting in the past. Maybe so, but when they do work the pay-off is huge. What would a couple of high school drop outs from Dayton, OH know about aviation? Apparently more than the learned experts of the day. Diddo for the entire computer industry where every year or so a new kid comes along and makes a billion.
Workable technological improvements allowed those ideas to work - technology is changing daily and it's application can permit a previously failed idea to work.
Any time a person invents a new idea and presents it, he or she will be met with resounding skepticism. It is the nature of innovation. The feeling will be that if the idea were worthwhile, it would have already been invented. New ideas are also frequently rejected due to the personal resentment of “Not invented here.” If the target for a new invention is an industry, the bigger, more long-established, stable, and standardized the industry is, the more it will reject new ideas without reviewing the merits.
The railroad industry is the perfect example of those characteristics. It also has very deep pockets to pay for new ideas. And the standardization holds the promise that a new idea, if accepted, will be applied in vast numbers. The deep pockets and the vast market of the railroad industry attracts inventors. So the railroads have a tradition of being besieged by inventors trying to get the railroads to buy their inventions.
So railroads attract inventors because of the potential for reward, but it is one of the most difficult industries to sell a new idea to. But not only does this thwart the inventors, but it also restricts innovation that could be useful to the industry. But nevertheless, lots of new ideas from outsiders are adopted by the railroad industry.
Yes, containerization, for example, came from the shipping industry.. Malcolm McClean at Sealand.
Methinks that there is also a sense of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" in many industries, not just the railroad industry. And that's often a grassroots feeling. The people doing the job are perfectly happy with the current practice.
There is also going to be some pushback on ideas that may threaten ones job.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Euclid So railroads attract inventors because of the potential for reward, but it is one of the most difficult industries to sell a new idea to. But not only does this thwart the inventors, but it also restricts innovation that could be useful to the industry. But nevertheless, lots of new ideas from outsiders are adopted by the railroad industry.
So, in the Nineteenth Century the railroads thought the horses were doing a fine job of pulling the wagons and they didn't need steam locomotives?
Norm
BaltACD Workable technological improvements allowed those ideas to work - technology is changing daily and it's application can permit a previously failed idea to work.
Norm48327 EuclidSo railroads attract inventors because of the potential for reward, but it is one of the most difficult industries to sell a new idea to. But not only does this thwart the inventors, but it also restricts innovation that could be useful to the industry. But nevertheless, lots of new ideas from outsiders are adopted by the railroad industry. So, in the Nineteenth Century the railroads thought the horses were doing a fine job of pulling the wagons and they didn't need steam locomotives?
EuclidSo railroads attract inventors because of the potential for reward, but it is one of the most difficult industries to sell a new idea to. But not only does this thwart the inventors, but it also restricts innovation that could be useful to the industry. But nevertheless, lots of new ideas from outsiders are adopted by the railroad industry.
Norm,
I cannot imagine how you would draw that conclusion about anything I have said in what you quoted above or in the larger post that you took the quote from.
tree68 There is also going to be some pushback on ideas that may threaten ones job.
Ha ha.. reminds me of Archie Bunker, when Irene Lorenzo suggested they use ramps to drive the forklift directly into the truck, thereby getting rid of the loaders job. Archie said yeah... "great idea except for one small detail.. that one step you eliminate... that's my job!"
Ulrich Yes, containerization, for example, came from the shipping industry.. Malcolm McClean at Sealand.
Note to Ulrich:
Not trying to pick a fight, but only to se the record straight. From one retired trucker to another,still in it. RE; Malcom Purcell McLean A real pioneer in not only the trucking business but Innovation as well.
I'd offer a couple of linked sites: #1 @ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5026.html
"The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping"
and this one: #2 @ http://www.container-transportation.com/malcolm-mclean.html
" Malcolm McLean - the man changed the world "
And a brief look at his Bio [ From Wikipedia website:
@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_McLean
"...With only a high school education, McLean pumped gas at a service station near his hometown and saved enough money by 1934 to buy a second-hand truck for $120. He and his sister, Clara McLean , and brother, Jim McLean, founded McLean Trucking Co . Based out of Red Springs, North Carolina , McLean Trucking started out hauling empty tobacco barrels – with Malcom as one of the drivers.[2]
From that beginning, with his single pickup truck, he built it into the second-largest trucking company in the U.S., with 1770 trucks and 32 terminals. On January 6, 1958 (after McLean had sold his interest in the company), McLean Trucking became the first trucking company in the nation to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Carrying trucks, or carriages, was not new - it had been done on the Dover-Calais trade.."
Please don't get real hung up on my use of adjectives. Even if I had a Roget's thesaurus in my pocket, I'd still need the brainpower to operate it, and sometimes those batteries dim out on me. It's the main idea that I'm more concerned with. Come to think of it. crusty sounds like a description of something on SpongeBob SquarePants. -signed the crusty lumber salesman
Not quite. Either/both PRR and NYC were doing it in the 1930's, until the ICC killed it. Greyhounds has told the story two or three times.
Mac
While PRR & NYC may have been doing containers domestically. McLean and SeaLand brought it to international ocean going commerce as the shipping model at the time was hand loaded break bulk shipping for other than bulk commodities.
Balt,
True, but the claim first made was that McLean invented containerization. That is simply not so, the railroads did. Considering that this thread turned into one about innovation in the rail industry, it seems only appropriate to call out misstatements of fact.
A case can be made that railroads did not invent containerization, as the first intermodal containers were developed for coal moving in horse drawn wagons and canal boats in 1795.
Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in the late 18th century. In 1795, Benjamin Outram opened the Little Eaton Gangway, upon which coal was carried in wagons built at his Butterley Ironwork. The horse-drawn wheeled wagons on the gangway took the form of containers, which, loaded with coal, could be transshipped from canalbarges on the Derby Canal, which Outram had also promoted.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#References
Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in the late 18th century. In 1795, Benjamin Outram opened the Little Eaton Gangway, upon which coal was carried in wagons built at his Butterley Ironwork. The horse-drawn wheeled wagons on the gangway took the form of containers, which, loaded with coal, could be transshipped from canalbarges on the Derby Canal, which Outram had also promoted.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#References
There's a well known aviation forum I like to "lurk" on (in other words I've never joined the forum and thus don't post on it) that has many members who work in the commercial airline industry, including many pilots.
I can assure you that the same type of activity with some(a small minority I surmise) of the "planespotters"(i.e "The Railfans of the Airways") essentially trying to lecture to the folks that do it for a living.
An example of this was a discussion of the economic an operational practicalities of U.S Air Carriers use of predominately narrow body airliners (like the Boeing 737 series) on domestic routes in recent times. One "buff" kept bringing up the fact that in Japan and some other Asian markets airlines use jumbo jets for high density short haul operations and thus Southwest Airlines should be operating Airbus A380 Superjumbos on U.S routes....
The most rabid examples of the "My hobby makes me an expert" mentality I've seen were on forums devoted to the Fire Service.
However, all of these sub-types of fan-dom are not the majority and most people on the various forums seem to genuinely want to hear and learn from the professionals.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 The most rabid examples of the "My hobby makes me an expert" mentality I've seen were on forums devoted to the Fire Service.
Indeed, although in many cases, it's not the fire buffs (the railfans of the firefighting world) who are ripping the experts - it's firefighters ripping on firefighters. Rather like two train crew members going at each other. Many times its a case of the vast difference between the urban/career-staffed world and the rural/volunteer environment.
In the railroad world that would be along the lines of a Class 1 engineer taking exception to statements by a shortline engineer, without taking into consideration the operational differences between the two.
One site has a name for the folks who like to second guess what they see in the many videos of fires that are available on the web - "keyboard incident commanders," or "KIC's." Folks who draw broad conclusions about how a fire was handled based on the narrow view afforded by someone's cell phone video.
carnej1 edblysard Crusty? Well, it has been kinda hot down here lately…. Ya know, I have always wanted to go to an airplane forum, and tell pilots how they should fly, and how to build better airplanes. My best idea so far is to use more glue to hold the paper clip in place…. There's a well known aviation forum I like to "lurk" on (in other words I've never joined the forum and thus don't post on it) that has many members who work in the commercial airline industry, including many pilots. I can assure you that the same type of activity with some(a small minority I surmise) of the "planespotters"(i.e "The Railfans of the Airways") essentially trying to lecture to the folks that do it for a living. An example of this was a discussion of the economic an operational practicalities of U.S Air Carriers use of predominately narrow body airliners (like the Boeing 737 series) on domestic routes in recent times. One "buff" kept bringing up the fact that in Japan and some other Asian markets airlines use jumbo jets for high density short haul operations and thus Southwest Airlines should be operating Airbus A380 Superjumbos on U.S routes.... The most rabid examples of the "My hobby makes me an expert" mentality I've seen were on forums devoted to the Fire Service. However, all of these sub-types of fan-dom are not the majority and most people on the various forums seem to genuinely want to hear and learn from the professionals.
Oh yeah, an Airbus make perfect sense for a flight /hop from Houston to Dallas…you’d burn more fuel getting off the ground than the rest of the entire flight would take!
Norris, crusty is fun, best when it is cheese stuffed!
carnej1 There's a well known aviation forum I like to "lurk" on (in other words I've never joined the forum and thus don't post on it) that has many members who work in the commercial airline industry, including many pilots. I can assure you that the same type of activity with some(a small minority I surmise) of the "planespotters"(i.e "The Railfans of the Airways") essentially trying to lecture to the folks that do it for a living.
Sounds like PPRuNE
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