Research and Education on the NEB&W

John, you've got some... plans or something called the set of steam eras studies. What's that all about? Well, it grew out of the fact that as we discovered how the world had changed from what we were attempting to model in 1915 we tried to go to places and nothing's there and how radically the world has changed from a railroad based society to an automobile based society. We feel that the layout has a value to direct research and to be used to educate people. And so to look at it in a broader base beyond just simply a model railroad. Particularly when people hear model railroad they think toy trains right. And to see if we can raise money to do education to do the research on a more systematic basis and not so much of a volunteer basis. Library has a lot of technical books on the iron mining and automobile design and architecture. And just tying that together. We're at a loss for a better word for steam era because steam era really means probably the first half of the 20th century. We're not really talking the 19th century. It's really the end of the industrial revolution as it phased into the information age and it's a very unique thing that people, i mean, automobiles were making their presence known but they hadn't taken over as the predominant way of life and trucks hadn't taken over from railroads. Railroads now haul bulk commodities but railroads were impacted on every person's daily life. I can't remember the last time I've seen a moving train and yet people, you know, used to see them all time. They'd be blocked at crossings all time because they couldn't get... In Troy, at one time had 130 passenger trains a day which is one every 11 minutes. It's like a subway schedule and there's no trains at all in Troy now. One of the things we've been doing is writing a series of books and guides on the different aspects of steamer railroading specifically for modelers too because there's so much information it's appeared in the hobby press, but it's hard to find it. It's buried in articles you wouldn't think of looking for and just kind of tying, tying it together and giving-- when I go to model something, I say what color was that freight car? Or what type of automobile should we have? or something like that. And then having to do that research. And then I say well, maybe people want to know about this and Well that, those there's a milestone contributions these books that you've mentioned the steam era fifties or what do you call that book? What's the name of the fifties details or... Yeah, Senior structures and details is the one and the other one's the guide to steamer freight cars. And these are never finished. You keep updating these things and uh, is this how you hope to support the club in the future principally is this kind of work? Right? And particularly their not finished because a lot of there's a lot of feedback that comes back from the readers. And so they write back and say, well this isn't quite correct. And so then it gets incorporated in there. Because the problem with the magazines is the information is there but you read one article and then you have to know to go ahead two months and find the correction to it. And then a year later when someone updates it again. And so you have to kind of look and I want to put it all in one spot and you just reference, you go, look. There's been studies of say the history of architecture but who looks at shacks and shanties? Well right. And who looks at... the vernacular what colors backyard ornaments or fencing or things that modelers care about but that's gonna disappear, you know? What color was a fire hydrant? People aren't going to know that because there weren't color pictures until you find descriptions of when the city changed its thing and what's common based on looking at a bunch of different things and figuring out is this a representative thing or is this out of the totally odd or what How do you choreograph all the passenger train action? We've set up essentially, what's the switching list but for the passenger trainer concept report and the past an operator during, not an operating session, goes out with a page describing what the train does what cars get dropped, at what locations. And a blocking sort of list. Yeah and then we might put in the number or we might say like the first passenger car. The first baggage car gets dropped. Well, how much difference is there between freight and passenger operations? The passenger trains are more consistent so that you see more of a regular pattern day to day. They stay on time much closer they're scheduled, whereas the freight is not scheduled quite as much the passenger and the affiliated action, the the railway express, the baggage the milk all of that's time dependent items. And so there's a lot of the what goes on is to move the stuff as quickly as possible. Whereas freight it's a little bit more laid back. Well, tell me about conductor William Shakespeare. Who was he and why are you so interested in him? He was a conductor on the Rutland, his actual name William Shakespeare. And he rode the Mount Royal, the night train from 1937 to 47. And then once a week he rode the milk train to finish out the week. And we have his complete collection of conductors notebooks where he lists the concept of every train that he rode as to like, you know, New York central, such and such a number or Pullman, whatever. And so we've done a lot of analysis of that to get actual operations and to see the fluctuations that go on from, from a kind of an average. Over a 10 year period. Yeah. Well, did you do that on a computer or did you do it manually? Or how did you-- On a computer.