Railway education and false information

[60800]

The way in which people around the world are taught (or in many cases not taught) about the railways is pathetic. I've seen the situation where a kid points at Green Arrow and says 'it's Flying Scotsman!' many times (actually it's not just kids with this one). I've even seen some people point at Mallard saying 'it's Thomas' and of course, whenever a 'film' fan sees a MK1 coach or something else in Maroon, they instantly shout 'Harry Potter!'

Some people will stare blankly a name plate, or a number and then protest by saying it's something completely different - thankfully there's always someone of 'our' parish to set them straight. Worst of all though, is that in a recent group discussion with American 'rail fans' I found out they were led to believe that the A4 and Princess Coronation are, yep you guessed it, American.....

What I'm trying to say is that very little railway fact gets around these days, and very little has gotten round for decades. The mainstream magazines like 'Steam Railway' fill in articles with little bits of rubbish to get their magazines off the shelves and on people's laps, causing a fair amount of people who visit the NRM, galas, etc to be horribly mis-informed and they will fight off our correct information because 'their's was from a magazine'.

What can be done?

[Boris]

Re false information and other stuff.

How many people do you hear at preserved railways or such, telling others that their dad / grandad drove the "Flying Scotsman" or "Mallard".

Once stood at the side of her in York Museum heard one woman saying her grandad had told her on a previous visit that he had driven "Mallard" on its record breaking run, when I asked what they called him she couldn't remember his first name, just Harrison, always new him as Grandad.

I worked for 15 years as a fireman and can honestly say I NEVER fired an "A" class of any ilk, including the "Flying Scotsman" or "Mallard" and out of the 200 plus at Darnall I never hear of anyone that did, except one fireman came in saying he had fired an A4, from Darnall to York, [that was true 'cos his driver confirmed it,] on one of the trains that used to come from London to Scotland at weekends, forget what they were called.

[Just one point, anyone tracing their family tree will find that loads of folks never knew their grandparents first name.]

[Bill Bedford]

You only have to read a range of model railway forums to be overwhelmed by the misinformation……….

Myths are always more powerful than reality.

[strang steel]

The way in which people around the world are taught (or in many cases not taught) about the railways is pathetic. I've seen the situation where a kid points at Green Arrow and says 'it's Flying Scotsman!' many times (actually it's not just kids with this one). I've even seen some people point at Mallard saying 'it's Thomas' and of course, whenever a 'film' fan sees a MK1 coach or something else in Maroon, they instantly shout 'Harry Potter!'

Some people will stare blankly a name plate, or a number and then protest by saying it's something completely different - thankfully there's always someone of 'our' parish to set them straight. Worst of all though, is that in a recent group discussion with American 'rail fans' I found out they were led to believe that the A4 and Princess Coronation are, yep you guessed it, American.....

What I'm trying to say is that very little railway fact gets around these days, and very little has gotten round for decades. The mainstream magazines like 'Steam Railway' fill in articles with little bits of rubbish to get their magazines off the shelves and on people's laps, causing a fair amount of people who visit the NRM, galas, etc to be horribly mis-informed and they will fight off our correct information because 'their's was from a magazine'.

What can be done?

They may be naive, ignorant and technically incorrect, but is that all bad?

At least they take an interest, and with that interest comes entrance fees and the chance of lottery grants while the interest is an enthusiastic one from the public in general.

At least they don't point at Flying Scotsman and shout "rusting heap of old fashioned junk" which is effectively what the nation did to all the A3s in the early 60s, when deciding which locos to keep for the national collection. If it had not been for Alan Pegler, there would probably have been no 4472 at all.

It is sad that people lack the railway knowledge, but if you try to correct them their eyes just glaze over; and maybe it is best just to encourage the enthusiasm until they are tempted to learn for themselves, rather than put them off for life by publicly pointing out their errors?

[AndyRush]

You only have to read a range of model railway forums to be overwhelmed by the misinformation……….

Myths are always more powerful than reality.

And the 'news' media generally.

[Steve05]

Well said John.

I also believe that the education and motivation for our passion starts with people, and indeed people like you Blackout. Everyone has a starting point and whether you recognise it or not, you are one of our ambassadors.

Your question is a very good one but I certainly don’t believe the glass is half empty. What you do in your everyday life and in promulgating your passion is indeed very encouraging and will rub off. I’m an Aussie but I take my hat off to what you Pom’s have done to preserve your very proud heritage of railway engineering prowess.

Regards

Steve

[60800]

I also believe that the education and motivation for our passion starts with people, and indeed people like you Blackout

Whilst working on 45407 at Grosmont last weekend a chap came up to the MPD's gate saying he'd heard 60007 was there and he'd like a photo of her. I got permission from the main shed staff for him to go on site and gave him a quick tour of 60007 whilst having a chat about other stock sat around. He only wanted a photo from just inside the gate, but it's nice to be able to give something back

They may be naive, ignorant and technically incorrect, but is that all bad?

At least they take an interest, and with that interest comes entrance fees and the chance of lottery grants while the interest is an enthusiastic one from the public in general.

At least they don't point at Flying Scotsman and shout "rusting heap of old fashioned junk" which is effectively what the nation did to all the A3s in the early 60s, when deciding which locos to keep for the national collection. If it had not been for Alan Pegler, there would probably have been no 4472 at all.

It is sad that people lack the railway knowledge, but if you try to correct them their eyes just glaze over; and maybe it is best just to encourage the enthusiasm until they are tempted to learn for themselves, rather than put them off for life by publicly pointing out their errors?

That's a very fair point. I'm just annoyed that no-one 'high up' seems to care about teaching people about the railways. We get taught about suffrage and the equal rights acts, which are very important subjects, but the focus in teaching is always on wartime and periods of financial or social depression. All that GCSE studies offer up are a brief mention of Trevethick, the rainhill trials and Brunel's ships (this being an optional segment). No mention of the technological achievements of the 30's or GWR's standardization or indeed the growth of the country through the railways.

[Iron Duke]

I can remember going on holiday by car to somewhere near the Yorkshire coast for a week in 195....?
An uncle & aunt of mine who went with us kindly gave me a "used" ABC to go train spotting on the local station.
The idea was that if it rained and we could not go on the beach this was a good alternative (and cheaper than the amusement park).

It rained for half of the week so we spent a few days on the platform.
Oddly enough we did not see anything interesting except for a couple of wagons and could find nothing to underline in the ABC.

Upon returning home and talking with some of our more knowledeable spotter friends we discovered that the ABC was for the Southern Region. Also to top that the station & line had been closed the year before....

We were the laughing stock of the school that term, but that Christmas the uncle & aunt bought me a brand new "Combined ABC" Turned out ok in the end

Still don't know where it was though??

[watcheronthebridge]

No mention of the technological achievements of the 30's or GWR's standardization or indeed the growth of the country through the railways.

If you can tolerate the American accent and somewhat over obtrusive ads I would recommend the edition of 'Big, Bigger, Biggest' dealing with the French AGV project and the world's fastest train attempt. Have a look and you will see, however unpromising it may seem initially, that there is a LNER connection in there.

On DailyMotion (a sort of French YouTube) at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm6rsc ... V17w51wa70.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[Autocar Publicity]

Steam engines are easier to handle!

Mis-information is not confined to railways. A certain author of fiction had one of his characters say 90% of what was written on any subject was incorrect. After some experience of the 'real world' in work and some research of various subjects, I've reluctantly concluded that he probably isn't far out... ( )

As strang steel says, don't publically embarrass them, just give them a nudge down the right lines...

_____________________________________________

Interest is far harder to acquire than knowledge.

Ignorance is excusable, it's lack of intelligence that I find upsetting.