(erielack) [ELHS] History and the future from someone who has been there.

[Tim <njmidland_@_peoplepc.com>]

I wanted to weigh in on the future of the ELHS. (We now know that Board members delete these types of messages.  But I am writing this for the interested and myself.)  First I would like to give a little of my history.  I grew up in Blairstown and saw a lot of the EL as the Cutoff was down the hill about 1500 feet from my house.  I rode the Lake Cities one time before the end in 1969.  As a teenager I explored the abandoned right of way of the Susquehanna.  I also made trips to Warwick and got to know Gifford Moore and the good people of the Lehigh & Hudson River. I also had a brief career at Conrail.
 
In the mid-1980’s I joined the ELHS.  I helped in a couple of the mailing sessions and commented on how primitive the labeling system was.  I commented on how “easy” it would be to computerize the membership list and shortly thereafter I was “volunteered” to be the ELHS membership chairman.  I did this (first on a DEC PDP 11/34 and later transferred it to an IBM PC) and was membership chairman for about 4 years.  I was not a member of the Board of Directors and as I recall I think I only attended 1 or 2 Board meetings during that time.
 
In 1988 Ray Threlfall had started the idea of a New York Susquehanna & Western Technical & Historical Society.  I got involved and really did a lot of the work to give it a structure.  I filed the Articles of Incorporation and wrote the By-Laws.  The Articles of Incorporation were “easy”.  There were a few groups in New Jersey that assisted new non-profits.  I adapted the closest one they had and filed them with the state.  The By-Laws were a different matter.  Most of the samples did not really fit for a railroad historical society.  I made the fateful decision to copy the ELHS By-Laws for the NYS&WT&HS.  The only thing I had to change was to add a provision giving the members the right to change or amend the By-Laws with a two-thirds vote of the membership.  This was necessary as New Jersey state law would not allow a member-based non-profit to leave members with no rights.
 
The NYS&WT&HS went along with a lot of success.  However, we had a period where a number of Board positions turned over.  We replaced Board members by essentially accepting the recommendations of other Board members.  This lead to the  NYS&WT&HS moving away from recording and preserving the history of the NYS&W and moving towards what it has become today.  After a vote by the Board where a majority favored this move, I and two other Directors resigned.  For the record, I understand that the By-Laws were eventually scrapped with ones that allowed for elections of directors leaving the ELHS and the New Haven group as the only ones with no member rights (by the way, how healthy is the New Haven group?).
 
The New Jersey Midland Railroad Historical Society was created as a way to focus on the history of the NYS&W and the railroads that connected to it.  The three former NYS&WT&HS directors who founded it wrote a democratic set of By-Laws from the start.  Directors serve for 2 year staggered terms.  In the ten years of the NJMRHS we have had one contested election.  Each year we ask anyone interested in running to submit their name for the ballot.  We seem to be able to find people to run, but only when there is a vacancy.  In 1999 the Railroadians of America merged into our group, expanding the scope to all railroads that ran in NJ.
 
The final part of this story began on this list in 2001.  Someone posted that DL&W diner 470 was for sale and wouldn’t it be great to save it?  Mike Steinberg organized a meeting in Parsippany and four of us attended.  The result was the birth of the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society.  The Articles of Incorporation and the By-Laws were modeled after the NJMRHS.  We did add an Advisory Board for other interested groups to participate.
 
Why all this history?  I wanted to post my observations of where the ELHS is and where it may go.  Here it is:
 
1.  People that are not happy will drift away long before a problem comes along.  I thought that members of the NYS&WT&HS were concerned about the shift away from history to covering the current events.  I was wrong.  At the time I resigned most of the existing members had little or no interest in history.  I sense that the current ELHS members want their magazine and really not much more.  Also, it seems like a lot of the Board efforts are towards the production of models for the collectors and model railroaders.  Judging by the number of these projects and the products sold by the Society it would appear to be what most members want.  Frankly, I am not a model railroader so I don’t benefit from this effort.  I would suspect that many of the really content members are also modelers. 
 
2.  The ELDCPS has a specific purpose of recreating the dining experience and the long distance passenger train experience on the DL&W, Erie and EL.  The members get a newsletter several times a year, a dinner event, discounts on reproduction items, conventions (like the one planned for Scranton this coming October) and eventually a members “open house” event on our equipment.  I believe ELDCPS members belong because they want to help with the preservation effort.  They follow the progress of the project through the newsletter, but they aren’t necessarily members just to get the publication.
  
3.  In the case of ELHS I don’t know that there is really a focus on preservation.  For example, we know that there are the archives at the University of Akron.  There is usually a request for members to provide donations in addition to their dues.  But there is not a report back on progress.  For example, I have never seen an update saying that Hornell repair records have now been cataloged (or whatever topic).  But again I contend that most members don’t seem to care.  If the Diamond went away tomorrow and all you got was an Extra Board, but there was lots of news about restoration and preservation projects, would you renew?  I think the answer is no.
 
I am really torn as to whether I will renew my ELHS membership when it comes due.  If it were up to me, I would like to see the ELHS By-Laws rewritten and probably amend the Articles of Incorporation to be classified as a member based non-profit rather than the current non-member foundation setup.  The NKPH&TS went through this process last year and it was one of the finest efforts at “re-inventing” and revitalizing a group I have ever seen.  Realistically, I know this will never happen (one of the Board members posted yesterday and said so).  The Board provides a magazine and the majority of members (subscribers) are happy.  As I have learned you can’t convince happy people that change is needed.  Henry, Will, Paul and others have the vision to see that this status quo is destined to decline and fall.  Many of you don’t want to hear this - “hey now we get 4 issues of the Diamond, don’t rock the boat”.  Well many in the West were predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union for 25 years.  It took a while but it happened, and with a whimper not a bang.  
 
I want the groups I belong to to be vibrant and growing.  What neat stuff are they up to?  I don’t feel that from ELHS.  (Maybe you modelers do).  As the old saying goes, if it isn’t fun anymore then stop doing it.  ELHS isn’t fun (for me) anymore.
 
Respectfully,
Tim Stuy
ELHS #1314
President/Director New Jersey Midland Railroad Historical 
Society Secretary/Director Erie Lackawanna Dining Car 
Preservation Society
 



________________________________________
PeoplePC Online
A better way to Internet
http://www.peoplepc.com

------------------------------