For a variety of reasos, the three years that have passed since the financial meltdown of 2008 haven't been particularly kind to the ferro-equine fraternity,
What might appear to be the most obvious symptom, a general decline in economic, and thereby, railroad activity, doesn't seem to be the case this time around, particularly when compared to the downturns of 1958 (which hastened the demise of steam) and 1970 (which put an end to a lot of branch lines, local freight, Alco and other "orphan" diesels, and eventually, private passenger service tself).
For those of us given a mere nibble of those times. and at an age where we were too young to fully understand the social and economic forces impelling us toward them, the temptation to wallow in the past is great, as the boomlet in "classic" railfand publications and sites dedicated to "fallen flag" rail entities no longer in operation will attest.
And at the other end of the spectrum lies what I'll characterize, without rancor, as the "HSR generation" -- young, heavily exposed to the electronic media from the earliest age, holding great faith in technology, but not familiar with a time when the industry was much less concentrated and, while never fully insulated from the demands of the state, enoying both a greater degree of autonomy and comfortable with the knowledge that the public, or at least the male half of it, posessed a somewhat deeper understanding of the basic structure of the system and a somewhat deeper exposure to it in daily life.
As a nearly-forgotten character actor named Strother Martin put it over forty years ago, "What we got here is a failure to communicate."
My point being, that despite the emergence of an apparent schism among rail hobbyists, the basic economic factors which dictate the superiority of rail vs other modes of transport through efficiency measures alone are particularly strong at this point in time. We are in no danger of being relegated, like Civil War buffs, to the status of a group with a limited source of raw material.
As a member of that faction which, due to the simple realities of age, Is oriented toward a finer appreciation of the multiple quantum shifts within the industry over the six decades for which I've been here, I want to offer only one broad suggestion to the people who will take our place: Please don't fall victim to the belief that only the public sector can effect meaningful change within our common interest, and please take a closer interest in the process by which we got here.
As demonstrated by, for example, the development of personal computer, major strides in the advancement of our daily existence have sometimes arisen from small inprovements which found their way into the mainsteam via combination of obvious suitability and the weight of numbers, and there is no reason why some similar trend could not develop within an economic sector favored with such a stromg advantage as our favorite.
As has been observed so often as to become apochryphal in its origins, "nothing is permanent except change". The simple autonomy of the private vehicle makes it certain that something will evolve that will limit the prospects of the HSR dream, but there's plenty of time (and room) for the natural efficiencies of rail travel to claim a substantial portion of the intermediate-distance market. As observed many times before, the positive solution, the American solution, is not to use illegitimate power to fight over a dwindling supply of benefit, but to find a way to create more of it for all.
What might appear to be the most obvious symptom, a general decline in economic, and thereby, railroad activity, doesn't seem to be the case this time around, particularly when compared to the downturns of 1958 (which hastened the demise of steam) and 1970 (which put an end to a lot of branch lines, local freight, Alco and other "orphan" diesels, and eventually, private passenger service tself).
For those of us given a mere nibble of those times. and at an age where we were too young to fully understand the social and economic forces impelling us toward them, the temptation to wallow in the past is great, as the boomlet in "classic" railfand publications and sites dedicated to "fallen flag" rail entities no longer in operation will attest.
And at the other end of the spectrum lies what I'll characterize, without rancor, as the "HSR generation" -- young, heavily exposed to the electronic media from the earliest age, holding great faith in technology, but not familiar with a time when the industry was much less concentrated and, while never fully insulated from the demands of the state, enoying both a greater degree of autonomy and comfortable with the knowledge that the public, or at least the male half of it, posessed a somewhat deeper understanding of the basic structure of the system and a somewhat deeper exposure to it in daily life.
As a nearly-forgotten character actor named Strother Martin put it over forty years ago, "What we got here is a failure to communicate."
My point being, that despite the emergence of an apparent schism among rail hobbyists, the basic economic factors which dictate the superiority of rail vs other modes of transport through efficiency measures alone are particularly strong at this point in time. We are in no danger of being relegated, like Civil War buffs, to the status of a group with a limited source of raw material.
As a member of that faction which, due to the simple realities of age, Is oriented toward a finer appreciation of the multiple quantum shifts within the industry over the six decades for which I've been here, I want to offer only one broad suggestion to the people who will take our place: Please don't fall victim to the belief that only the public sector can effect meaningful change within our common interest, and please take a closer interest in the process by which we got here.
As demonstrated by, for example, the development of personal computer, major strides in the advancement of our daily existence have sometimes arisen from small inprovements which found their way into the mainsteam via combination of obvious suitability and the weight of numbers, and there is no reason why some similar trend could not develop within an economic sector favored with such a stromg advantage as our favorite.
As has been observed so often as to become apochryphal in its origins, "nothing is permanent except change". The simple autonomy of the private vehicle makes it certain that something will evolve that will limit the prospects of the HSR dream, but there's plenty of time (and room) for the natural efficiencies of rail travel to claim a substantial portion of the intermediate-distance market. As observed many times before, the positive solution, the American solution, is not to use illegitimate power to fight over a dwindling supply of benefit, but to find a way to create more of it for all.
Last edited by 2nd trick op on Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)
