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group raised their hand and asked, “So did they name every train for where it ran?” I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, so he added, “Well, you said this one was called ‘Lehigh Valley,’ so did they name them all like that?” It was a valid question from someone who had never had any interaction with railroads. I explained that “Lehigh Val- ley” was the name of the operating company, and that it was one of five competing lines that once served our area. This inspired a follow up question, “How did they manage to coordinate all those trains on the same track?” In other words, our visitor thought that train tracks were an open system like the highways, and that trains just ran where they needed to go (like tractor trailers). Take a look at the freight trains that pass through your town, and you can understand how someone could make that assumption when you see Union Pacific or BNSF locomotives leading a CSX freight. Isn’t it amazing that folks have no problem accepting the notion of flying with Southwest or JetBlue or Unit- ed yet they struggle with a simple concept we take for granted. Of course, old railroad names die hard, and confusion can arise when you try to explain that the “Chessie” they knew was really the Baltimore & Ohio, but before that it was the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh; but now “Chessie” is CSX, but the CSX you see rolling through town is run- ning on the old New York Central, which lat- er became part of Conrail. Got all that? Go to any railroad museum across the


country, and you’ll no doubt hear someone ask “How do they steer the train?” Before you can answer, you’ll see some proud par- ent stoop down to point to the brake wheel


and tell their kids, “See? There’s the steer- ing wheel!” While you can count interactions like these as “teachable moments,” some of the issue lies in how we present our collec- tions to the public. Of course, the worst thing you can do is overwhelm your visitor with too much infor- mation and details. While cleaning out the depot at our museum some years ago, I found a dusty binder that included a sample “script” for tour guides to follow as they brought visitors around our nascent muse- um grounds. A page was dedicated to each piece of equipment then on display, and in- cluded a dizzying amount of history, facts, and figures, I shuddered to imagine someone dutifully reading chapter and verse out of this book to some unsuspecting family out for a Sunday visit! The role of the tour guide is not to spew out information like a firehose and try to make your visitors into instant ex- perts in railroading. One method to consider is to give your vis-


itors some useful context so they can make their own connections. We have thousands of people tour through our restored depot each season, and it never occurred to me that someone might not know what the building was actually used for until someone asked. I was taken aback until I remembered that many of our visitors have never ridden a train before, never mind seen the inside of an old train station. So now my tour begins by welcoming visitors to our “1909 Erie Rail- road passenger station. This is where you would come to purchase your tickets and wait to board your train.” It sounds elemen- tary to you and me, but it helps prepare the visitor for the tour ahead.


www.nctrans.org 8 MAY 2014 • RAILFAN.COM


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