Via the latest PRRT&HS Keystone, I learn that Alvin F Stauffer passed away on October 30, 2013. Another discussion is at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="ahttp://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=153390">ahttp://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtop ... 3&t=153390</a><!-- m -->

Stauffer's motive power books were part of a next-generation of railroad and railfan books that went beyond Lucius Beebe in content. I remember buying Pennsy Power about 1962. It cost something like $18, and I remember the hobby shop guy giving me a weird look and wondering how anyone would spend so much for "a book". The PRRT&HS obit suggested that Pennsy Power was a major influence that got the PRRT&HS itself started. I've also heard that Rehor's Nickel Plate Story was the influence that got the NKP group started.

There's another side to this story, though, and that's that in the same Keystone that carried the obit, the editor put out a call for articles, saying that in his 30 years as editor, he'd always had a good supply, but now he'd run dry. This Keystone is keeping up the trend that's been happening, where there's mainly a lot of whining about how K4s 1361 is still in pieces, the RR Museum of Pennsylvania isn't restoring enough PRR stuff, etc. There've been a lot of multi-page articles on how UK railfans are able to restore lots of steam, why can't we do the same -- and less and less on the actual PRR and its history.

There's more to the problem than this, too. The ONLY actual PRR-focused piece in the Keystone (maybe 80 pages) was a self-important thing on the committee that was going to come up with the official PRRT&HS version of PRR paint colors. No actual colors, mind you, just who's on the committee, and what wonderful things they're going to do when they do them. I have two problems with this. One is that, if you look in any "all color book" or even on the web, no two pieces of PRR rolling stock seem to be the same shade. Certainly things came out of the shop in the same color, but after a few weeks on the road, in different environments, through tunnels, in different weather, etc, they turned different shades, either via chemical changes in the paint itself or via soot, road dirt, etc. So a guide to official colors is a nice to have, and it's a basic good thing to tell people there were no Tuscan GP9s or whatever, but I'd actually be wrong to have all my PRR equipment in the same set of shades.

But then I had a problem maybe 10 years ago. The PRRT&HS made a big deal about how they'd given Walthers the right colors for their PRR passenger cars. I picked up an R50 and was blown away -- yeah, I'd never seen a color that reminded me so much of what I'd seen on the New York & Long Branch in the late 1950s. I posted on the PRRT&HS Yahoo group and asked what they'd given Walthers, it was really great, was there a way to mix it with Floquil or Scalecoat? Their answer was that this was confidential, it would be "premature" to give anything out, the Committee was still in the process of blah blah blah.

Well, wait, you've given the formula to Walthers, and they've put out thousands of cars with it, but it's premature to say anything else? That was a major milestone in my disaffection with the PRRT&HS. And it looks like the Committee is still, ten years later, in the same place it's been.

I'm wondering if the passing of Alvin F Stauffer is sort of a bookend to this phase of modeling-railfanning. We probably now, 50+ years after Pennsy Power, have more than all the PRR books we'll need, and the marginal utility of each extra grows less and less. Stauffer's was among the first, and it was really needed and really useful. PRR Color Guide Volume XVII, not so much. Mr Stauffer, thank you and RIP. But this may well be the last year for me in the PRRT&HS.

Aren't committees wonderful.

The PRR I knew wasn't all that great and the photos of their locomotives in Pennsy Power II or on Fallen Flags will show that.A raggedy outfit with substandard working conditions,equipment in disrepair-including passenger cars and lots of slow orders.

These things doesn't make found memories for 18 year old student brakeman..It was more like a rude awaking.

Such things PRR historical committees and PRR "expert" modelers tends overlook in their perfect PRR world.

I agree. The Keystone itself had an article by a guy who evaluated the 1361 after it had to be taken out of service, and it said it was long overdue for retirement in the 1950s, and wasn't really a fit loco to put back into service. Workmanship was poor when it was built, and trying to put the dome on the wrong way damaged the boiler, which showed up in the 1980s, which is a big reason they can't easily get it back into service. A recent book on the Panhandle said that by the late 40's, the PRR was regarded within the rail industry as a marginal, substandard operation. Looks like you saw the same thing.

The PRRT&HS was originally by and for railfan-modeler-photographers (the photographers weren't afraid to show a dirty engine!), but over time it came to be basically a PRR retired employees club, headed by an ex-PRR Penn Central "official". I told someone at the time that they needed to find a way to put that guy in a cage at the RR Museum of Pennsylvania so everyone would understand what went wrong with Penn Central!!

My uncle rose in the rail Industry to become a Class I CEO, and he worked at various times with (not for) PRR people, as well as for Alfred ("Mr") Perlman, who was definitely not PRR and was edged out of PC. My uncle had a particular black spot in his heart for PRR people.

But it was my first railroad -- born in Philadelphia, grew up in NJ and Maryland, rode it back and forth to school and so forth. I like to model it, and for quite a while I got good modeling info from the PRRT&HS. But more recently it's become a clone of the bad-old PRR.

Another PRRT&HS handsome-is-as-handsome-does: the last annual convention I went to, 2006, they had a bus tour, in schoolbuses (no restroom). Five hours, no pit stops, and it got behind schedule anyhow. These guys sure know how to plan!

I joined them recently after much back and forth in my mind, but I wish I had read this first. I was hoping there would be an active community there and I might be able to get some answers to some questions, but so far no luck. I do have to admit, I am somewhat put off by the rabidness of some PRR fans. My E44s provoke quite a stir from the hardcore Pennsy fans, since they can't stand the Conrail markings on one of "their" E44s.

My response to them, was that if the PRR were so great, it wouldn't be part of Conrail... (or PC for that matter!).

Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:I joined them recently after much back and forth in my mind, but I wish I had read this first. I was hoping there would be an active community there and I might be able to get some answers to some questions, but so far no luck. I do have to admit, I am somewhat put off by the rabidness of some PRR fans. My E44s provoke quite a stir from the hardcore Pennsy fans, since they can't stand the Conrail markings on one of "their" E44s.

My response to them, was that if the PRR were so great, it wouldn't be part of Conrail... (or PC for that matter!).

I betcha that comeback, as true as it is, garnered lots of favourable feedback.


Wayne

Chris, there's a lot of good info in back issues of the Keystone. I suspect that many of the most productive people have either passed on or are old enough to be less active. However, I believe the Keystone is all on DVDs, so I would check the PRRT&HS site. I'm not sure how well the Keystones are indexed. I know there's quite a bit about the electrification, modernized passenger equipment, and more recent developments, especially in the Philadelphia area. If you can't find what you're looking for, PM me -- I have a VERY low membership number (the only reason I wasn't kicked out 10 years ago!) and can probably find the Keystone issue to point you to.

But it looks like you have the current Keystone and know all about how it is these days. Care to contribute to the new-built T1????

doctorwayne Wrote:I betcha that comeback, as true as it is, garnered lots of favourable feedback.


Wayne

It does the trick! I don't mind a little bit of chop busting related to the railroads we model, but sometimes people need to be reminded that this is just a hobby. All that PRR/NYC nonsense should have died 40 years ago.

jwb Wrote:Chris, there's a lot of good info in back issues of the Keystone. I suspect that many of the most productive people have either passed on or are old enough to be less active. However, I believe the Keystone is all on DVDs, so I would check the PRRT&HS site. I'm not sure how well the Keystones are indexed. I know there's quite a bit about the electrification, modernized passenger equipment, and more recent developments, especially in the Philadelphia area. If you can't find what you're looking for, PM me -- I have a VERY low membership number (the only reason I wasn't kicked out 10 years ago!) and can probably find the Keystone issue to point you to.

But it looks like you have the current Keystone and know all about how it is these days. Care to contribute to the new-built T1????

I haven't gotten the new Keystone, and I haven't heard about this new built T1 (is this the BLI model?). Hopefully, I'll get more in the loop as time passes.

I've been trying to get involved in some of these organizations so that I can learn a little more, but so far my experiences haven't been fantastic. No one local appears to be on the Conrail Historical Society (and few there have been able to answer my questions), and though my club has recently made everyone join the NMRA (they pay the dues), I haven't been able to go to any of the NMRA meets either.

Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:I haven't gotten the new Keystone, and I haven't heard about this new built T1 (is this the BLI model?). Hopefully, I'll get more in the loop as time passes.

I've been trying to get involved in some of these organizations so that I can learn a little more, but so far my experiences haven't been fantastic. No one local appears to be on the Conrail Historical Society (and few there have been able to answer my questions), and though my club has recently made everyone join the NMRA (they pay the dues), I haven't been able to go to any of the NMRA meets either.

There's a group trying to raise $10 million to have a new PROTOTYPE T1 built. Apparently there are places like Poland that are willing to take this sort of thing on. I wouldn't hold my breath; where are they going to run it? The UP, for instance, will no longer allow third-party steam equipment. You gonna run it up and down on the Strasburg?

By and large, the technical and historical societies have outlived their usefulness. When they worked closely with the manufacturers in the 1980s to upgrade their paint and detail, they were irreplaceable. On the other hand, there were always the guys who on their own measured every inch of whatever prototype and badgered the manufacturers to get it right. I knew one of them, the late Hugh Debberthine, who did things like travel to the Detroit area to get to the Keystone low-level PRR train that was in a junk yard and measure and photograph the whole thing. As his obituary said, if there was a question on where the grab irons were on a B60 roof, he was the guy who'd find one and climb onto the roof with a tape measure. He was hard to get along with, and he certainly didn't work within the PRRT&HS, although he was another low-membership number guy like I am. He would have badgered the manufacturers PRRT&HS or not. (And he did -- the importers hated him, but they listened.) A lot of the improvement was due to guys like him and not the T&HSes.

jwb Wrote:There's a group trying to raise $10 million to have a new PROTOTYPE T1 built. Apparently there are places like Poland that are willing to take this sort of thing on. I wouldn't hold my breath; where are they going to run it? The UP, for instance, will no longer allow third-party steam equipment. You gonna run it up and down on the Strasburg?

By and large, the technical and historical societies have outlived their usefulness. When they worked closely with the manufacturers in the 1980s to upgrade their paint and detail, they were irreplaceable. On the other hand, there were always the guys who on their own measured every inch of whatever prototype and badgered the manufacturers to get it right. I knew one of them, the late Hugh Debberthine, who did things like travel to the Detroit area to get to the Keystone low-level PRR train that was in a junk yard and measure and photograph the whole thing. As his obituary said, if there was a question on where the grab irons were on a B60 roof, he was the guy who'd find one and climb onto the roof with a tape measure. He was hard to get along with, and he certainly didn't work within the PRRT&HS, although he was another low-membership number guy like I am. He would have badgered the manufacturers PRRT&HS or not. (And he did -- the importers hated him, but they listened.) A lot of the improvement was due to guys like him and not the T&HSes.

That does sound pretty intense. Maybe if it was a GG1 I'd be more inclined to contribute, that said a T1 sounds pretty good too.

If that is indeed the case about historical societies, then that is pretty disappointing. I'd love to be able to contribute as Mr. Debberthine has, though maybe I'll try to be much easier to get along with. I have no idea how to get companies to take my feedback seriously though.

I imagined i'd find people like that already occupying most of these Historical societies, and that I might find some real-life projects to help with (if they were building that T1 in New Jersey...) but its not really seeming like the case.

A few of the local NRHS chapters tried to get me to join a while back, and I was thinking about it, but I wonder if even they have any good projects to participate with.

A lot of this is a question of luck and being in the right place at the right time to talk to the right people. On a day to day basis, a lot of ordinary guys are too caught up in their own egos to let someone else take leadership -- this applies ESPECIALLY to established groups, where guys spend years working themselves up the pecking order. I got a lot of use out of the T&HSes in past years. Some, like the NYS&W group or the Three Rivers Narrow Gauge Historical Society, were very, very good while they lasted, taught me a lot, but have since gone defunct. Probably the best fate, and quite possibly a good fate for some of the others at this point.

Always good to read a (albeit rare) hard-hitting thread like this on the Gauge. Can we have more of this?

It's nice to see the PRR cut down to size!

Er, I get banned for this more often than I get commended!!

Maybe there should be a subforum for hard-hitting threads.

jwb Wrote:Er, I get banned for this more often than I get commended!!

Maybe there should be a subforum for hard-hitting threads.

I'm surprised people find this hard-hitting, and I don't see why you'd be banned for this.

As long as there isn't a personal attack, anything you can prove with evidence is fair game.