Why Can't We All Just Work Together ?

This is a heartfelt plea to all the Electrically Powered Fixed Guideway interests --- trolley modelers and clubs; trolley museums; geographically-focused clubs like CERA; British trams; European transit groups; Light Rail associations etc. --- to set aside personal and local concerns, issues, and past differences . Understand that the hobby as a group can act together --- in unison --- and achieve their goals on many levels by cooperating in the formation of a national --- or even international --- group of enthusiasts (I love the British term as it addresses the necessary levels of focused emotion) .


If we could get the leadership of the various groups, special interests, clubs, and museums to truly lead :

a. Decide on a set of Missions and Goals that rise above track standards and a focus on local geography; b. Become a trend-setter instead of a collector of historical materials;
c. Lead their group to be more than an organizer of a once-a-year display;
d. Recognize that our public is beginning to consist of a smaller and smaller audience;
e. Put aside past grievances, imaginary or real;
f. Analyze the possibilities of this Special Interest of ours;

This can all be accomplished in the following straightforward way :

1. Organize nationally. This is now truly within reach through the use of the Internet, the Social Media, Remote Meeting methods, and other electronic means.

2. Inform the public through the Mainstream Media;

3. Utilize the powerful impact of viewing T-to-the-Fourth Power equipment in action

4. Through a carefully planned series of events that demonstrates What we Do and What we Love

5. Don't dwell on past differences ;

6. Don't keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expect different results --- Albert Einstein's definition of insanity;

7. Look back over previous Electric Railways Network Blogs;

8. Don't get bogged down by trivial past or imagined slights; and especially

9. Search beneath the (admittedly very modest) humor posted here, Get Together and Get the Word Out to throughout North and South America and the World by planning and running one or more major Conferences and Exhibitions in reasonable venues :

       A. NOT a college gym adjacent to a Bikers' Bar in an obscure town

       B. ... at times of comfortable environmental conditions and pleasant weather

       C. NOT Frostbite Falls, Minnesota OR Nunavut inside the Arctic Circle;

       D. NOT Florida during Hurricane Season, as one national model railroad show did

       E. NOT in distant, physically unreachable places --- Kuala Lumpur (no kidding, it was once
           suggested and even planned) OR the Amazon Rain Forest OR Siberia

       F. ... accompanied by an instructive, attractive broad-based exhibition, even encouraging commercial
           interests to participate

       G. ... with broad instructive talks, NOT with minutiae or trivial details

       H. ... as part of a major, well-planned campaign to demonstrate, teach, and sell the many fascinating
            aspects of our hobby.

10. Keep in mind that teaching T-to-the-Fourth-Power history is fascinating but NOT the Goal.

11. Remember that even in All-In-Combat, the antagonists shake hands before they "Come out fighting!" ... keep all your disagreements in a civil context, and confined to policy issues, not perceived personal ones

12. Recruit NOT just the trolley and transit magazines, but the national and international general- interest media The New York Times and its brethren; New Yorker magazine; TV channels --- History and family-oriented TV; Readers Digest; Reminisce Magazine; TIME magazine; children's media --- TV, Scouting magazines like Boys' Life; the model railroad magazines; EVEN transit advocacy groups and Transportation Planning organizations on the Local, County, State, and Federal levels (yup, you heard me correctly).

13. Hold it in a place where people will go with delight (e.g., Disney World, Orlando); places that are easy to get to, where people will want to bring their family, even --- NO, especially --- the ones not interested in T-to-the-Fourth-Power; provide a Guest Program for them, which automatically means a place with many family-oriented diversions (like Disney World, Orlando).

Use the power of technology to schedule Pre-Event planning meetings using remote video conferencing communication.

Save the Naysayers and Sour-Faces for your local meetings (How has that been working out for you?).

Make it easy for non-US groups to participate --- it may be painful for some to admit, but neither financial nor transportation issues necessarily revolve around the USA these days --- that means easy Bureau de Change currency exchange --- try that in your local college gym -- plan for multi-lingual translation (including Russia, China, the Near- and Middle-East)

See if --- as a Group, a nascent Organization --- you can persuade major interests in Transit to foot the bill for some of the expenses of the planning period.

We were appalled when, in planning for a respectable Conference, we tried to contact major transit equipment manufacturers. Most of them didn't even respond to our (literate) letters or our eMails, providing us with an example of How to Influence People in the worst possible way ! It only takes five minutes to decline an invitation politely by eMail these electronic days.

All in all, we've given you a large amount to chew on. If you're happy, please let us know. If it's Quixotic, we guess we agree with you, but that shouldn't stop anyone. If you're angry beyond reply or polite discourse, we're so sorry --- as one of our faculty colleagues used to say --- So sad, Too bad.

Just consider the consequences of doing nothing (AGAIN : How has that been working out for you?).

HNILS@MSN.COM                                               HYBRIDPELTA@HOTMAIL.COM