Re: VGR TRACK SPEED

[tonyl646@my-dejanews.com]

In article <924105317.588162@woody.hotkey.net.au>,
  "Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au> wrote:
> Before we continue, might I state my appreciation for all those who restore
> railway heritage in this state (and all the inferior states too...) and work
> hard to that end.
>
> However...
>
> I hope you get the assistance you are looking for, some friends of mine
> visited your railway and quite enjoyed it, I got shown the photos at least
> twice if that is any indication! Plus I wouldn't mind a look myself. Whilst
> I agree with the sentiments that not enough people want to do the hard
> yards, bagging people for expressing their opinion is no way to garner
> support for your cause.

And we're not allowed to respond or critise as well when we think it's a bit
unfair?

> If you have trouble getting people off the locos and onto the permanent way,
> perhaps you should adopt a similar approach to the one DVR used to (and
> probably still) have - when you join you have to do some time looking after
> the track first (used to be 6 months). THEN you can 'play' trains! Or
> perhaps you can take a similar approach to our community radio station - you
> must spend at least the same amount of time off air as you do on air working
> for the station. Perhaps for you it could translate into time spent
> 'playing' = time spent maintaining track.


> I am sure you have thought of all these before, good luck but perhaps try to
> be a little less critical in bagging potential volunteers. (Of course,
> putting the volunteer page on your site might help too!)
>
>


Point taken on the issue of "playing" trains! But we all enjoy playing trains
including me - its why we are there! The info on driving the steam loco was
purely that - no sarcasm intended.

As we see it we've tried the one day's work for one days operation earlier and
the workforce didn't improve.

This left us with the problem that if we enforce it then all we
do is overload our maint staff who are already ops staff (those that dont want
to or cannot for personal reasons, work family etc just don't come)- so like
you suggest we accept that some people can only find the time for an
operational role and what we really want and need is to have more people who
are happy to just do maintenance work first.

Its more a problem of having a few core people to regularly do the task and
we have a problem in the track area for these people. Our solution (?) is to
head to paid staff, but that needs money. Volunteers are getting harder to
find - just ask your local Lions/Rotary. We certainly do insist on a period
of work in a non-operational role first for anyone wishing to join the train
crew.


-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own