Episode 16:The making of The YouTubes

In this week’s episode of Off the Rails with Rowdy and Bethan, Bethan is M.I.A., and Calvin - commonly known as "Production" steps in to talk about all things YouTube and his entry to the Chugg Life. 

1.) Who is Calvin? What's he do aside from "Production" stuff?  What's his entry to the ChuggLyf been like? 
2.) Behind "The YouTubes." How it got started, how it's found it's footing, and what goes into each week's episode. 
3.) Polson 70 updates following the FRA's visit. 
3.) In the News! Our weekly news segment talks about America 250 paint schemes.
4.) Our Frequently Asked Questions – like, why does Calvin say "brother," so much? 

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Send it our way- we’d love to hear from you. 

So grab your coffee, crank up the phonograph, and let’s go Off the Rails.

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Thanks to Huffman Machining Solutions is proud to sponsor this Off the Rails podcast.  See how we can help with your next challenge at huggmanmachining.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Off the Rails, the podcast where steam locomotives meet modern matters. Joint executive director of the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad, Bethan Marr, and Rowdy Pearce, Superintendent, Professional Cat herder, and occasional how-to-go cheer. Together they pull back the curtain on the wild, weird, and often hilarious world of tourist steam railroads. You'll get a front row seat to the ins and outs of this truly unique business. So grab your ticket, hold on to your sense of humor, and join us for a ride into the unpredictable world of steam. This is Off the Rail.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Alright, so I guess welcome to Off the Rails today with Rowdy and Calvin. There we go. What's going on, guys? What's going on? For everybody that doesn't know, Calvin is actually production and he's usually the guy behind the camera. He's in front of the camera today, because, well, I would say that Bethana is balls deep in grants and that kind of thing, but means that she doesn't have those, she's um chest deep grants and other things right now, so she couldn't be here today. Yep, yep, yep. Um, so Calvin.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Following the script here.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Here we go, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Um just go on ahead and answer all these. Who who is Calvin? Who is well, hold on.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Calvin is a complex being. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Calvin is a complex being.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

So, kind of first question here: how did I get involved with the railroad? So, with me with the railroad, it was the right place at the right time. Um, I was kind of basically looking for something to kind of have on the weekends, kind of have on my days off, and I saw on nd.com that the railroad was hiring, and I made a phone call, I sent out an email, got a phone call back from uh Eric, not even two, three days later, came in for an interview, and the rest is kind of history. The rest is kind of history.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

When when when you started during Christmas, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03 1:56

No, I started Easter. Easter. Easter. Yep, I started Easter, and I was here. I think Eric was here for a month.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yep, he was here for a month before I got here, and then I was kind of the first of his hirings of his new hires.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

A lifetime ago. It feels like a lifetime ago now. Yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Feels like a lifetime ago. Around here, years feel like decades.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Yeah, days do for sure, for sure. Uh kind of next one, responsibility is kind of what I do. I kind of look at myself kind of like a jack of all trades. You know, um, wherever you guys kind of need me, I'm I'm kind of your guys' plug and play. Obviously, videography, um, the YouTube, the podcast, um, that's my wheelhouse. But you know, anything you guys need, customer service, anything you guys need for a uh a plug and play, that's kind of exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

You're in the parlor car a lot when it's when it's actually out and running.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Exactly, exactly. So as soon as we can get the steam back up, I'm ready for it. I'm definitely ready for it. Yeah. Um, for listeners who only know me through YouTube, what's something they might be surprised to learn about me? Um, something, something uh you might be surprised is uh videography was something that was always just a hobby for me. You know, it wasn't something that I ever thought that I'd make some money or anything like that with. Um, it was always something I was really passionate about. I loved it in my own personal time. When I wasn't working, I kind of did my own things. Um one thing kind of led to another. Um I did something for a friend, and then another friend caught wind, and then word of mouth. And then coming here, it just kind of happened that it just was perfect, the kind of right place, right time. You know, Bethan approached me. She said, Hey, I kind of heard you kind of do some of these things. And then next thing you know, uh production is here, and we're rocking and rolling.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah. It says here, did we finally get rid of Beth and God? I wish we had. But she's here in spirit because we have a uh sugar-free Red Bull here on the table. Couple clicks of the pinpoint. I gotta do a couple on her. Couple clicks for her, couple clicks. Um, you know, uh, no, like I said, she's she's off dealing with grant stuff today. She really wanted to be here today because today is also the day that we squeezed the 70 for the FRA. Yes. So we'll we'll get to that here in a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Perfect, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Um life at the railroad, what has surprised you the most about working at the railroad?

SPEAKER_03 4:05

You know, I think both these questions are are kind of the same answer. I think for me personally, you look at a train and you look at the coming in on a weekend, and you're an outside kind of looking in, and it it doesn't look like there might be a lot that goes into it. Right. But every person from the groundwork to keeping the land good, the grass cut, everything to all the way up to superintendents, everybody's vital. And if there's one person that drops the ball, everything drops. It's a domino effect. You know, I mean, this is the first place that really, if you don't show up, everything doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, everything hurts.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Yeah, everything hurts. And everybody feels it. You know, if you're not pulling your weight, everybody feels it. So I think that's been one of the most surprising is there's no days off here, you know. And I think, especially, you know, for the crew, you know, obviously what Rowdy does and them, there's no days off at all.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

No, it it's uh I think that that's one of the biggest things that surprises people is that they think that, oh well, we parked the locomotive and we go away from it, and then you know, Wednesday or Thursday we come back and we do it again. Yep. Because there's a lot of places in the industry that that's kind of the way they work. Of course. I mean, for me, I live here. Yep. I don't get to get away from it right now. Yep. I mean, as as today progresses and tomorrow we're in a better spot where I can say, yeah, I can get away for a while because we've we've built a team that can function on their own in that department. But for the most part, you know, Nate and Chris are here on their days off from the time they clock in Wednesday morning at eight o'clock until the time they clock out Sunday night, whenever that might be. And it's uh it's a slog.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

It's a big slog. I don't think a lot of people really full on realize just how much has to go into the behind the scenes to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

And I had no idea. I mean, and and again, that's I mean, you got Nate's a 19-year-old kid, you know, in Chris's early 30s. You know, I mean, like these, you know, 19 years old, I wasn't sacrificing like like the way that I see Nate sacrifice.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

We actually had to take a 10-foot pry bar under his butt to get him out of here Saturday and Sunday so that he'd, you know, we I had to tell him, Nate, your sister only graduates once. You really need to be there. You gotta be there, brother.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

You gotta and she was there for you, so you gotta be there for her.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yep, exactly. Exactly. Um what what has surprised you the most about becoming part of the Chug Life crew?

SPEAKER_03 6:24

I think the thing that that surprised me the most is this is a family.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

You know, you go to some businesses and you go to some work uh environments, and you know, people are there to collect a check and then they're ready to get home. Here, it's not like that, man. You got you got guys that are working past working hours. You know, you yourself. I mean, last night was a prime example. You're up at 11:30 trying to make sure that the the boiler stays to a temperature to make sure when the FRA is here that everything's uh up to and fighting through it with a uh uh hypertension headache.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Hypertension headache.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

I'm sick, you know. I mean, we're all you know, so I mean it's it's it's something at the end of the day that this isn't something you get everywhere. It's not something you get experience everywhere, and it's very, very special. Yeah, and that is a huge surprise because again, when you look at this on a weekend, you look at the train go back and forth, that's all you think. But this is a tight-knit family, and once you're in, you're in.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Meanwhile, over at Mount Rainier, Scenic Railroad, they're planning World War II airsolving.

unknown 7:21

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Well, we gotta have we gotta blow off some steam too, huh? We gotta blow off some steam too.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Okay, so we're moving on to the behind the YouTube channel. How it all started was that when I had my business going, yeah, I had my own YouTube channel because I just I thought it was a good way of um showcasing work, of course, that kind of stuff. Of course. Um, you know, people could actually see the work being done to their project in the pretty much real time. Of course. Um kept me honest and certain things because I mean I'm filming my work, so there's no way that I could lie to the customer that this is what we were doing. Staying transparent, staying very transparent. And when we got going in this, I actually had, I mean, one of the the first Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad YouTube video is actually on that channel.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

It was I I visited and filmed Bethan and I walking around before we even really announced that the place was gonna open back up. Yeah, we wandered around and took a bunch of videos and that kind of stuff. And it's a V rowdy excavator. It's still around. I haven't shut it down yet. But um, so it took a little bit of convincing Bethan that you know we we needed to do it. And I don't think that it was a she was hesitant in doing it. I think she was she was just trying to figure out you know what format would be the best. Of course. Because I mean, we don't do things the more corporate way. Not at all. Yeah, when I said I think it needs to be, you know, raw and and there on the ground and and you know, kind of a your POV in in it with us, it uh there was some very very much some concern on the blowback or repercussions that could have come from that.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, and we never really set out for it to be a massive thing either. I mean we're we're happy with where it's at. Oh, of course. And it grows every week now, which is which is you know it's a thing. But um it wasn't really uh entirely my idea either. She she wanted to do something with it, but it just it it was how to make the idea mesh. Of course. And we finally settled on a, you know, we're not gonna filter it, we're not going to uh sanitize it. The curse words are gonna stay. Um because the where she comes from with everything here is that it's a story about the people. Of course. And the locomotives and everything else are just the vessel which the story travels on. Yep. And so that's that's where she kind of was like, okay, I think that we can do this based on that. And it has to stay that. We should never whitewash it, corporanize it, of course, be scared of what we're saying. Um be, you know, we're we're basically 100% ourselves. Yep. And that's that's for me. If you want me to be anything other than what I am, I can't. Yep. I just simply can't do it. Of course. You want me to drop saying the F word, it's not gonna I can I can clean it up a little bit, but it's not gonna exactly. You know, it's it's not you.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

And I think that's and that's what's gonna take away from the YouTube is the authenticity, authenticity of you. You know, and then you don't want that.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

And and and the organization, because I mean it's like you said earlier. I mean, we're we're up here in the trenches all the time. Yep. There you can't you can't walk in with a camera and say, okay, guys, we are going to film a YouTube video today, and you've been calling the locomotive a four-letter word that you can't repeat anywhere else. Um, we need to really clean this up. You all need to be wearing clean clothes and and you know, be prim and proper and be something that you're really not, when it's just a lot easier to walk in and say, Yep, we're just gonna add a beep here, a beep here, a beep here, a beep here. And this is exactly this is the real what it takes to do what we are doing. Now, I mean you can't enter a lot of other places with the camera and see what we are doing because every place is different.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

If of course we're just a little microcosm, of course, of course. So Which that's a shout out to Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad because there's a lot of people that don't let you in behind the scenes. No, and they won't let you see any of this stuff. I mean, some of the videos we have coming out in the future, you're gonna see some behind the scenes FRA, some stuff like that. You wouldn't get that anywhere else, you know. You don't get that anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, that the FRA isn't gonna be like on film, but they they were very, very open and saying, hey, we don't care if you film, we just don't want to be on it.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Exactly, exactly, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

So um you don't get a whole heck of a lot of of that other places because I think that they want to try to maintain some level of professionalism. They don't really want their, you know, you get organizations that really don't want to look unprofessional. Of course. I mean, we sit back and say, are we our professionals in our field. Of course. But we are not professionals in practice or something of that nature. Yeah, because I I've seen a lot of the other places' YouTube videos, and they do, you know, it's like they put on the white collar and they put on the tie, and they have a persona that they're trying to push towards the people, and they do better than us in in in you know, views and what they are trying to do for their organization. But for us, it's just uh it's not us. This is this is who we are.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Yep, that's not us. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

We're we're gonna, you know, I I got mine, you got yours. The only person who's waiting on one now is Chris, and probably after that shows up, we're gonna be wandering around the sh woods shooting the shit out of each other with air soft guns to blow off steam.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So it finding its footing, the channel really had a hard time at the beginning. Of course. Because I was not only running the locomotive, I was taking the video. Of course, I was editing the video. I mean, the first mini of them, that was all me doing it on on my own. Of course, and then it basically was hey, Calvin can can do this, and Beth and going, what do you think? And like, well, it's my baby. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, and it's taken a little bit to find its footing, but you know, I think it's fine is it's finally starting to find its footing.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I agree, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

You know, we've we've we've had our here and there, you know, as growing pains do, but it's never really been anything that was anybody one's person's fault. It's just you trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

It's trying to make sure that we match the same thing. I have my own that I come with, you have your own. And I think, like my very first video, the first feedback I got, you got this is too polished. Yeah, you know, it's too nice, this is too clean, you know, this looks too good. And all of a sudden they're kind of looking at them like, man, like uh I was looking, I really put my heart and soul on that, you know. And I didn't, it's not personal. It's just you want it rough, you want a little bit more raw, and it's totally understandable because at the end of the day, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

And to be fair, if anybody could have seen the look on his face, we Beth and I are sitting there just like, uh he's getting nervous because he can see that there's he can sense that we're just kind of going, mm-hmm, oh and then well, wow, what would be what'd you guys think? There's not enough curse words. Yeah, exactly. Well, I came in, I was like, oh, I'd knock this out the park.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

They're gonna love this. Oh, look at the look at the transitions, everything, the color scheme, everything's perfect. And they're sitting there the whole time. Beth and scrolls her phone, like, damn it. And I'm like, oh, oh, that's the first sign that uh this ain't the best. The feedback, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, it was it was way too way too polished, way too clean, it wasn't gritty enough, it wasn't and and and then once we kind of said this is we just walk into the shop, take a bunch of video of the guys working, yep, and then just mesh it together and cover up the curse words as best you can.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Exactly. Um, and anything super inappropriate, you cut that directly out.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So that goes into the director's text. At one point in time, we also had a Patreon that we were trying to put more of the you know off, really off-hinged, you know, of the going on over there, and then it just the the socials are just a massive bear to manage anyway. So trying to do YouTube, Patreon, TikTok, of course, uh, Instagram, Facebook, oh yeah, uh it's his own monster. And and Beth and you know, she likes to joke about the social media intern, but Bethon is social media. Yep, yep. And for one person to not only be the executive director, do all the grants, and then try to take on everything with social media. And you know, social media is a tremendous hit and miss. Of course. I mean, yesterday there were people quite literally arguing over the gender of a steam locomotive. I believe it. It doesn't have the gender. I believe it's a steam locomotives, we can call it whatever we want. Um dress it up how you want, but it's a steam locomotive at the end of the day. So that's that's a it's a social media in itself is something hard to wrong, but then doing the YouTube is also, I mean, how much time do you spend in a week doing just the YouTube and the podcast?

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Brother, uh, you know, well, I'm shooting here two days, three days sometimes. So I'm, you know, that's at least four or five days that I'm editing, you know. And you gotta think. When I'm here, I'm four hours at a time. So I'm shooting about three hours, maybe two and a half each day. And then I'm cutting that, and I'm getting that, what the best of each best is. You know, and then you guys have to remember, I mean, we got you guys are drilling, you guys are sawing, you guys are spraying, you got oil going everywhere. You got, you know, so that's why the camera that I use for our podcast isn't the same lens that I can bring into the shop. You know, I mean that I'm I'm changing lenses weekly, you know. So it's it's it's important, you know. You're only as good as your equipment, you know. So you want to make sure that you have the right stuff out there as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Well, it just time. Because when we got a podcast, I mean, like this week, you're you're hammering it. You are lucky that today you got to spend a good amount of time taking some video. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

But you said coming Tuesday, I was like, oh, perfect. Well, I get one extra.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Because not only will you have gotten the podcast and a good chunk of content this morning with the FRA's hydro visit, exactly. You'll be able to get the internal tomorrow, and if they give us the yay or if they give us the nay. Exactly. Um, you know, and then that's basically the YouTube video for the week.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Exactly, exactly. And then schedules will change. Obviously, again, if once we get the blessing, then obviously the steam engine will come back out. You guys are deciding what you guys want to do, what you which cars you guys want to put on there, and that's obviously gonna rotate things again.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

So that means I'll be on on the weekends, I'll be working on the train.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And you'll probably get a phone call at some point in time saying grab your shit and get on the steam engine because we're gonna go to we're gonna go out to the far corners of the world and get our passenger cars. Exactly. Which are in Tacoma. Yes. Um the third one is stuck in Chattanooga because of the big boy. At least that's the excuse the NS is giving.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Two for three, we'll take two for three.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

We'll take two for three. So, uh, at what point did it start to feel like a real production rather than an occasional project?

SPEAKER_03 18:46

You know, I the way that I think that we've all looked at it since we gotten here is it's been a production. You know, I think that's the way that we we want to look at it. You know, again, rough, raw, but at the same time, we want to make sure what we're putting out is something that's worthy to be out on YouTube, on the social media, and all that. So, production, I feel like it's always been there. Now that we've started a podcast and the podcast has been under, I feel like production has really come through. You know, obviously we got lighting, we got other things, we got mics, we got everything else that's kind of coming in. We're getting ready to change the set. And we're getting ready to change the set. We're getting ready, we want to bring more people in. We need a we're getting TVs, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

We're getting ready to but we're we're in one of the museum display buildings right now. That that just is not going to be able to work in the next 30 days because as the state comes in and starts looking at whether or not we're able to get the funding and that this place has to start to transition back to being a museum.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And um, so we're we got that great big fancy shop next door. It's got a conference room in it. Yep, plenty of space, plenty of space, and have two or three more people instead of having just two people at a time. It could be rowdy and Beth and Calvin, Rowdy, Beth, and Eric. Exactly. Or somebody from out, somebody from outside. There's been some people that have been like, hey, I'd I'd be willing to travel up there and get on that with you guys. I mean, because I mean the podcast, too. I mean, we've tried to keep it as raw as possible, just like the YouTube. Of course. I mean, is we're not the type of people that are just gonna sit back and put a sock in our mouth and not say something.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Exactly. And guys, forgive me with my color in here, okay? Everything's yellow.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

So I'm doing my best with the color in here, okay? But everything's yellow in here.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Everything's yellow. He has to use the white light to get us. If it goes with any, if he goes with any softer of a light, everything just goes weak.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yellow. So that's gone with Beth, and I try to get her skin tone, but it goes straight yellow.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Her skin tone is white anyway.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

So it goes straight yellow. She doesn't have my best, Beth. I promise I'm doing my best.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

I I just look exhausted most of the time. So at least you get the dark circles out from under the before too long, we're gonna have makeup and everything.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Oh, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

So, what are the biggest challenges in producing a new episode every week?

SPEAKER_03 20:57

So, for me, some of the biggest challenges is, and I'm sure that you guys have seen it with some of the videos, sometimes it can get a little repetitive. And the only reason why that is because obviously that's exactly what the work that needs to be done. Yeah. You know, when you have Chris and you have Nate and you have yourself, and you three are the ones that are working on there, how many tubes do you guys have going in?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah. You had 291 tubes and you're rolling both ends of them. That's what I'm saying. So you're basically 291 times 10.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Exactly, exactly. And then 300. And shout out to the boys, but the boys did every tube like it was the first one. So that they didn't rush, they didn't move through it, they didn't burn through it, they took their time to make sure that when the FRA came like they just did it when we we squeezed it for the first time last week.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yep. And um you got a little bit there towards the end. But were you did you get anything of us squeezed? We you did, you did.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Yeah, so that's that's actually the one coming out.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

That'll be the tomorrow, which is you know, last Wednesday when this comes out. Exactly. Um and that was the first time I've ever seen a locomotive come out of a 1470 do and to inspection and not leak as bad as it was leaking. It was just like it was hardly even. It was just weeping. Yep. You know, and that that's the them that did that. Because, like you just said, they did every tube just like it was the first one. They they were very meticulous in how they were doing the work. I didn't do hardly any of it. I just got in the firebox and it sealed building. Yeah, that's all I did. Yep. This is their project from one from beginning to end. So um, when you get into that, you know, how many weeks. They do on that. Of course. So it's hard for you to come in and go, I'm in a film. Yep. Because then three weeks' worth of YouTube videos are basically the same thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

Exactly. And it's not monotonous, it's pr it's stuff that's happening. Yeah. You know, it's exactly what the boys are doing. So it's not that I'm trying to feed you the same stuff. It's that's what's happening at that week. That's exactly what the boys have to do. And if you think it's monotonous from the video, that's only an hour long.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

And they're they're they're they're allergic to picking up the camera themselves and filming. So we don't really get very much. I mean, I try to take the other you the the other GoPro and and do some stuff to try to get you more, but Chris and Nate, they're allergic to that. They don't want to touch it. They're a one-track mind, man. Just get to work, get it done. As Chris says, he puts in his cone of silence and he just washes the world out and just does the work, and he's not thinking about anything other than getting the job done.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And you know, Chris is analytical, so he's wanting to make sure that it is the best work that he can possibly do every single time. Look at look at the amount of stress that he had this morning. That's what I'm saying. Perfectionist, guys. No matter how many times, I mean, the boss is sitting back leaned in the corner with his feet up, just like you know, the FRA is crawling all over the locomotive, and and he's over there just with his long hair is standing on in and his blood pressure's up, and it's just like, you're nervous? Yeah, well, yeah, aren't you? You'll you'll see it in the video.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

A couple times you see Chris, and Chris is just sitting there like a deer in the headlights, just sitting there like waiting for something to happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Waiting for something to happen. Um, so we try to change it up. Of course, and that's the next talking point is what is sometimes difficult to show more of the maintenance away work. I would say it's probably because of how far away from the shop they are a good chunk of the time.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Of course, of course. And then the other thing too is is they're out of here first thing in the morning most of the time.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

So by the time you know, if we have a safety meeting or we don't, they're usually out of here first thing, you know. And some of the stuff that they're doing, obviously, again, it can become a little monotonous. You know, obviously pulling off shrubs, pulling off uh, you know, uh clearing the right away, doing all that kind of stuff. We can cover that so many times, but there's also some things, obviously, at the end of the day, that you guys are doing in the shop that we have to cover.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

You know, and recently Calvin doesn't feel like being with maintenance away from eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night to because that's when they go out, they're gone until they don't. I mean, last night they didn't get back until after seven o'clock because the truck couldn't get the the big Christmas lights didn't get enough traction and was struggling to get across the railroad because of the rain. Yep. Um, so you know, you don't really want to go out. I mean, the only real way that you can get footage from them is if they take the camera with them. Well, they're allergic to the camera too. The only person that's not is Eric. Yep, exactly. Because you know, Corey's in, Cory and Jackson are in get it done mode. We we don't have time to screw around, get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done. And Eric will, you know, try to move the do it all. Yeah. But you know, I but you can only do so much of that. And then unless it's I take you out there with the higher rail to follow them around for which we've done before, but you know, sometimes I don't have the time to say, Calvin, let's get in the higher rail and go find out.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

I think that's the biggest thing is is it's the time right now. You know, again, when we are running the diesel, like you guys are, you know, we're counting the days down until we have to not run the diesel. Yeah. Right. So I think that that's it's all hands on deck on everything right now, you know, until the 70 rolls out. Yeah, you know, but she's close. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

She is close. How do you that this is this is a good one? How do you decide what makes it into an episode?

SPEAKER_03 26:56

So, with anything that I personally do with any story is tell a story. And that's what I try to do every day. So I come in and I try to get a little bit of rowdy, I try to get a little bit of Chris, if Chris is in the mood, and I try to get a little bit of Nate. You know, I try to get a little bit of everybody. And what I do is I'll ask them first, hey, what happened last week? What's kind of going on? And then I'll try to give them, give me a little something on camera. You know, some days it's a little better than others, some days a little lighter than others. But for the most part, what I try to do is I just try to build from there. If I can get an idea of what they're doing that day, then I'll just kind of put something together and piece together. You know, I am very much uh wet behind the ears when it comes to trains, anything. And so these guys really kind of help me to make sure that I'm putting the right stuff out there for you guys. I'm making the right notes, and then obviously I'm shooting the right stuff that I should be getting.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

And whenever Rowdy starts to bad mouth somebody else in the industry, just timestamp and say, Yeah, we're gonna get rid of that. Yeah, no, put the kid.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Dirty son of a hey, we're going to commercial break.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

And I'll text, I'll text Rowdy or I'll text Bethan probably about two or three times when I'm editing everything. Can I keep this in, guys? You know, is that do you remember when you said that? Is that okay to keep it? And then they give me the goal.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

There was one you did this last go around where I was calling out the safety Nazis.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Yep, yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

This episode coming out is the Chris actually put on a pair of real safety glasses that weren't his special made ones that you know he uses for machining. And he had a welding hood on too, and he was inside the boiler and something bounced off of everything and still went inside of his eye. Yep. And he was at the doctor. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Down a day, down a way.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

It's like, yeah, I called out the safety Nazis on that one. And you're like, well, I leave that in there. Like, yeah, keyboard warriors need to be held into account too.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Of course. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Uh, how do storylines develop? Do they happen naturally or are they planned in advance? So there's some of them that are planned in advance.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

There is. So it's both. It's 50-50. Again, shout out Beth and you know, if she's not with grants and other things, then obviously she has a little extra time. She'll send me a little something. She'll send me a little storyboard or she'll send me a little outline of some things that she wants me to make sure I catch, or or Radio let her know, hey, make sure Calvin gets this if I'm too busy or I have to step out. So sometimes I'll have a little bit of something that I make sure that I have to get this, this, and this. But um, for the most part, especially lately, it's just, hey, let's capture what's most important, what we're really trying to get, and then obviously make sure that we can develop a story from that. You know, luckily, you know, last week, like you said, we did the City Hydro. Um, this week it was the FRA, and then hopefully we can tie that together, and the next week will be the you know, approval and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

And, you know, she's got steam on her again after only being away since, you know, December of last year.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Unreal. Unreal.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

So this is this is a good tie-in to that is how much footage do you shoot compared to what you actually makes it into an episode? Now, when I was doing it, I had to weed through about six or seven hours of footage to find the highlights and put those into what I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Exactly. So I was just gonna say six you know, four to six hours pending. Yeah, you know, but it also depends on the episode. You know, luckily right now you guys are a little bit more lenient with the 20 to 30 minutes, you know, 45 minutes, you know, you guys are a little more lenient on that. Um, but I think obviously moving forward, we want to make sure that we can give you guys the most that we possibly can. So I think that once we do get the 70 up and running, once we do start working on the other engine, once you guys do decide on what you guys want to do for future things, I think that that is all other things that we'll be able to tie in.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

And here's the here's the I mean, we've we've talked about, you know, how many episodes do a week a week do we do? Of course. Of course. We've talked about that too, of course. How many, how many is possible to put out in a week without killing Calvin. Of course. Of course, of course. And right now it it's it's about one. And I mean, we've had that bonus round.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

We did. We had the bonus round. Shout out Eric, the MO uh MOW. Yeah, they took it out there, they gave me a little extra footage and I was able to make something for you.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

There's sometimes it's it pops up of a you have enough to do a whole nother one, and we say, hey, let's let's do a bonus round this year. Exactly. And that's what that one was. Um so how long does it take a typical episode to edit and publish? For me, it was because when I was shooting, I was editing it in my head as I was shooting. Of course. So I kind of knew what to look for in the content, and I could jump to those places and put it together, and I was able to do it in about an hour. Of course. But you don't get that luxury because you're just taking the content and then you got to go through and find it, and then you got to go through and patch it all together. You you don't have the you don't have the luxury that I did where I was sitting there filming it the entire time knowing what I was wanting to do based off of what I was watching.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Exactly, exactly. And for anybody that's wondering, I use Premiere Pro. So that's kind of what I edit on. Um, typical episode like something like this, three days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

I was using iMovie. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

So about three days, you know, but but again, I keep I try to keep it raw, I try to keep the transitions low, I try to keep all that stuff. Because again, you know, at the end of the day, it's exactly what you guys are looking for, and I want to make sure we're keeping that going, keeping that pattern.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So who do you think is actually watching this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 31:58

So who's actually watching? Well, obviously we all first and foremost, we know it's foamers. Yeah. I mean, that's that's all throughout the panic world. Yeah, throughout the comments. So that's that's definitely uh that's definitely one. But Beth and she got a little demographic little little thing here, and it looks like uh funny to say, it looks like mostly women.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Well, that's for the entirety of the social media.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

Yeah, it looks like uh uh mostly women. YouTube all men.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

YouTube is all men, YouTube's all men, Facebook, Instagram, 65 years and older is uh 30 30 percent. Yep, 25 to 34 years old is 22 percent, and then it it's it's uh pretty barren between 25 and 30 year old to 65 year old. Um, you know, there's some that's that 10 is 55 to 64, 8.3 percent is 45 to 54, and as you said, age and gender, the gender is 97.7 percent male and 2.3 percent female.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah, so so we rule we rule the twos, but the Facebook and the Instagram, the ladies are pulling it.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Well, the Facebook and the Instagram, it's it's all it's all them ladies out there. Ladies are pulling it there, but I mean 35 to 44 is um that's a big one. That's almost 20%.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Well, it's the in the question right have any audience trends surprised you?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, that's pretty surprising.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

I'm not gonna lie to you. I thought the YouTube number was gonna be everything for Facebook and the Instagram. I'm not gonna lie to you.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, I that's uh the YouTube's about what I figured it would be, but if Facebook is um, you know, I I I get to see some of the comments because I I get to be on the important parts of the social, so I could I could see that. We do have quite the lady fan following. Yeah, um, but yeah. Uh so I I say, yeah, that's that's the audience stuff there. So Pulsen 70.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Pulsen 70. Um where things stand.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

We're in a good spot. We hydroed it right before we started the podcast. Um that's your first time actually see this. Is actually your first time seeing something like this done. So I mean, I could sit here and and and hemorrhage freaking bullshit out my ass for the next you know three hours, and then when I'm done telling you everything I know about trains, I could go on for another probably three days on World War II, and then when we're done with that, I could tell you everything about the Titanic. Um for you on the outside, watching the process of, I mean, now this is this is we just took one out of service, did the boiler, put one back into service in record time. You've kind of been seeing what's going on with the five. Of course. What's the outside perspective there?

SPEAKER_03 34:45

So the outside perspective, number one, is obviously impressed. You know, that's number one. But two, I didn't really know what I was looking for. So the other day when we first did it before the FRA came and you guys put water in it for the first time. She for she finally got some water in her. The first thing I asked you was, what is it that you're looking for? And two, is it worse than what you've seen? Like, have you seen worse than what you're seeing now? And then you kind of walked me around and you told me, I've seen it where water was shooting across the shop from here. I've seen it where water was billowing from certain plots. We didn't have any of that. Yeah. You know, you had a couple places where you didn't have the stuff in there, you didn't have the stuff screwed on, the stuff was missing totally, which was understandable. And the turret valve was exactly, but for the most part, everything was holding perfect. Yeah. You know, you had a couple, couple of the uh pipes uh weep a little bit, nothing that you got didn't expect. But at the for the most part, I I was thoroughly impressed. Uh I went.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

And hopefully the five is as good as that. Exactly. Right off the page.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Well, if you're looking at the 70, and then obviously if you're listening to what the FRA said today, I mean, they were impressed.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

They were very, very impressed. They were impressed. They were very impressed. Uh that takes us to are you really filming a fucking podcast while the FRA is on? This is Bethany's words, not mine. It says that right there. Um, on site. Yeah, they're not on site now, but they were here 45 minutes ago. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Um, yeah, we we are. They came and we told them too. I mean, what was the first thing we said when they walked through the door in the shop is hey, Calvin's our YouTube guy, he's here filming today. Is there any part of this that you don't want him to film? Of course. And they said, We don't mind being in it, but just don't film us for mentioning it.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And so you stayed back. A lot of long shots on what they were doing. You didn't get any of them in or anything like that. But yeah, the FRA has been here. We've done that part of it, which people are gonna see, and now we're filming a podcast right behind the FRA being here.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Immediately.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

And then, you know, we're tomorrow morning. The FRA is gonna be back. We're gonna go inside, do the internal. Um, you know, we're gonna talk again about the casket which has been dug up, and and we've determined that the guy inside of it is dead for the third time, and we're gonna hopefully put the casket back in the graveyard where it is.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Please, please.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Um and yeah, I mean, we we are. It's just like we don't stop for the FRA or anybody. We we continue going. Nope. And I think that that's one of the things that you know they respect about us a little bit here lately, too, is that you know, we didn't just stop. We said, well, we're we're going.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Of course. And they were understanding. They totally understand. If we have questions, we'll let you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yep. And you know, as I what did I say right at the beginning? I think you got it on film. And I think I looked at Eric, I mean I looked at Chris and and Nate said, hey, this is your guys' show.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

Yep. You know exactly what to do.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

You know exactly what to do. I'm just gonna stand back and hang out.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

And I had the, you know, I basically the only thing I did was just bullshit. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Yeah, of course. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

You know, of course, you know, Nate and Chris are just whoa. You'll see, you'll see. You'll see. You'll see. But yeah, it's it's we we don't stop. Yep. Yeah, the FRA was here. Of course. You and I are filming a podcast episode right behind it, and Bethan would have been here. We'd probably still be talking with the FRA, um, but we would have filmed a podcast episode right behind it. And that's just what we do. Of course. Well, you got something to do right after this, brother. So I mean, like, there's no there's no time not to. There's there's no time not to. There's no time to just you cannot, you can't slow down, you can't stop, you can't, you know, time management is time is everything. I only get 12 hours a day that I feel I can stay open sharp. Yep. And then after that, I start getting pretty dull. Of course. And you know, I suffer from these headaches regularly because of just the amount of stress.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Um, so the team behind it. What's it been like watching Nate and Chris take ownership of this project? So another perspective for you from the outside.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

Yeah, from me stepping in here to now, you're watching boys to men. I mean, that's that's really the best way to put it. And I think that you guys can even down in the comments sit there and say, I mean, from them one word, you know, Nate saying trains in front of the camera to actually now they're holding jokes, they're talking about things. He's getting full sentences, you know, he's getting more and more comfortable. Same with Chris. Chris too. Chris is, you know, sometimes Chris has a tough, tough day, and I totally understand. But for the most part, he's taking the time to explain it to you guys to make sure that you guys are able to follow along. I mean, it's huge. I mean, it's it's huge.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

It confidence building.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

Confidence building.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

It's confidence building. It's it's, you know, for me, when we started in on the 70 from the very beginning, two years ago. Of course. Um, the plan always was that I wanted to be in a position to where I didn't have to do a lot of work. Because that's not my job. Yep. My job is not to rebuild the 70s. Of course. My job is to oversee the 70s overhaul moving forward, the fives overhaul. Yep. You know, there's certain things they don't feel comfortable doing. Of course. Like the welding. Of course. I mean, you know, that's a that's a pretty big juggernaut of a thing to do on a boot bar is welding. Of course. I can sit back and go, well, this is chickens shit shit because it's it's a small thing. It's a small boiler. Of course. You know, because I'm used to building 3,000 psi pressure vessels. Of course. You know, of course. And for them, it's uh they got it stuck in, you know, they got it in their head that this thing's a bomb and it could kill us at any moment, and they don't realize that 180 psi is like nothing compared to what's really out there. Of course. And I'm not trying to take away from the danger of the boiler, but you know, that's where I kind of come in, is they they Chris is getting better about, you know, like seal welding rivets. He is or not rivets, but uh stables. He probably could have seal welded the tubes, um, but I did it. Uh but you're what I see in the both of them is it's a flower starting to bloom. Yep. And they're right about here, and you're just starting to get the idea how beautiful they're gonna be when they actually bloom all the way out. Oh my gosh. And you know, I I sit back, it's just like watching a big rose open. Yep, yep. You know, they're they're they're curled up as it is right now, and the petals are starting to unfurl. And you see these two guys just really starting to come into their own. Yep. And you see these two guys, I mean, they can even if they walk away from the 70 and say, I don't want to do this anymore, they will have bloomed to the point where they have done it.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

100% agree.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yeah, 100% agree. And all Chris is gonna, you know, he's gonna struggle a little bit, of course, but he's going to bloom. Of course. You know, Nate's blooming a little bit faster because he's just that's just the way he functions. Of course. And that's it, that's any any person that comes in here, that's the part that I actually enjoy about it, is watching the flowers start growing up.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

I agree. Because it's been it's been so cool to see. Because like you said, the confidence builds. You know, you sit there today, you get done with it, you look at Chris, you go, Chris, great job, brother. That's a good the whole time. He was worried the whole time. Oh, yeah. Why? The confidence in what you work, the work that you put out. Almost confident in your work. Yeah. I mean, I I didn't even, I don't even know what half the stuff he's doing. I'm confident the work they did because he looks at me. You're not nervous? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

I have full confidence in your work.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Not at all. And then sure enough, as soon as it's done, and the FRA says the same things that you're saying to them, and then you can see them kind, you know, they don't light up like like any other person that you might know that you know they're proud of their work. You know, but when I sit there and come up to him and tell them, bro, like, thank you. You're saving my job, you're saving other people's jobs here. You know, if this would have gone another month, we wouldn't have been working. Yeah, you know, so thank you. You know, and to sit there and see him and his face, you know, it's it's it's important.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Well, it'd be like this morning that was, I mean, he he overslept. Yep, you know, only because he's stressed and he's open out. Of course. Yeah, and you know, to now walk in that shop and yeah, he's hanging like a monkey off the crane trying to fix it because it exploded. But it's all smiles and giggles and stuff because you know, uh a big weight has been lifted off. Huge. Now I can walk in and not even feel that weight because, you know, I have the experience to sit back and say, I am confident in everything that you guys did. Of course. They don't have that confidence yet. But after today, things go well tomorrow. Yep. And in a couple of weeks, when the locomotive is actually out functioning and doing what it was built to do, they will have a whole new level of confidence that's gonna guide them through the next one. Exactly. And the next one, and the next one, and maybe not even continuing on here. If they choose to go do something different, they will have the confidence to be able to sit back and say, well, if I can rebuild a steam engine, I can do anything. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

And that's the full bloom.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

That's the that's the full bloom. And then the flower might not finish blooming here, of course, but the flower is actually starting to open. Yep, because I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

I think that after FRA approves this and we get that back up and running, they go back and forth a couple times. There'll be drastic differences with both of them.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah, they'll they'll they'll want to they'll be chomping at the bit to do something different. And then when the when the passenger cars get here and they go through a passenger car, get a passenger car out. Exactly. And see the fruits of their labor there. I mean, everything that you know we do as the managers and the people that are trying to nurture them is exactly what you would do to get that flower to bloom. So you're providing them with fertilizer, you're providing them with water, you're providing them with all the things that they need to do to open up. Yep. And that's that's the that's the for me, uh that answer, what's it been like watching Nate and Nate and Chris take ownership of this project? It's that's been rewarding because now for me, I feel confident and comfortable that I don't need to be in that shop all the time. And I can focus on helping Beth and with Chrissy. Yep. I mean the buildings here are also my responsibility. There's being the superintendent of this and the second in command to Beth and back and forth. And she says job titles just the thing. But it's it's one of those I have other worries that I have to worry about here. And now that I can sit back and say they did a 1472 on a locomotive really without me. All I had to do was walk in, put in my ear pods, and seal weld the tubes.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Yep. Yep. And shout out to you guys too, shout out to management. No micromanaging, no nothing like that, nothing that will stunt the growth, you know, and and that's that's huge too. Because, brother, with with the deadline that what you guys had, and and and obviously with the diesel and you guys are going through gas, you're stressed too. Oh, yeah, you got people blowing your phone up saying this needs to be done now. Yeah, so you could easily went in there and said, Everybody out of the way, let me get in here and let me get this going.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah, you know, no. Well the so when when Chris was fighting Sunday to put the smoke box front end back on, and I walked in, I thought I don't know if I'd do it that way. I don't know, you know what I mean. I'm sitting there going, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, because the cranes broke. Of course not. And the cranes broke, but the smoke box half on, half off. And I realized after about 10 minutes that I wasn't helping. Yep. And that it would be better for Chris, and it'd be better for the project, and it'd be better. Better for the timeline. If I just said, Well, I'm gonna go worry about other stuff, you call me if you need help.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

And that's huge. Yeah, that's huge.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Not very many other places, especially in this industry where something happens and your timeline could be fucked. Does drastically does the guy in charge say, I have faith in you that you are gonna provide? Yep. So um I think we kind of answered how uh are there any moments where you step back and realize how far the project has come? Yeah, it's got water in it and we've squeezed it to 220 psi and it didn't leak.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Uh what's left before we steam again? Well, tomorrow we gotta do the internal. The FRA is gonna come back. They gotta go down inside of it. Make sure nothing has broke, which regulation calls. Anytime you go over maximum allowable working pressure, you gotta go down inside, check it out. Uh, there were, I think, three stables. We determined one of the stables was actually water leaking down the side of the from one of the valves was going down the side of the boiler, hitting the stable, going through the hole drilled in the middle of the stable, and what they saw on the inside of the firebox was actually that. So we got three stables that we didn't determine before we took it apart that leaked. And that's the reason why we do these tests. So we gotta do three stables. After what they say tomorrow, it's basically start putting it back together. Let's go. And so I gotta go, you know, put insulation on it. We gotta do the jacketing, we gotta put fire brick in it, and then we gotta steam test it, fire it up, and and steam test it. Probably do that before we put the laging and jacketing back on it, and then you know, finish finish off the valve gear stuff, and she's ready. She's off and running. So she's she's close, she is very, very close. I mean, so close I can smell it. All right, so we're gonna go into the news here. In the news. In the news, America 250 locomotive liveries.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Seems like everyone is paying the engine for America's 250th birthday.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

They are, and I get it. I get it. The whole American Freedom Train thing. I I get it. I'm a patriotic person. Are we gonna do the 70? Probably not. Paint jobs are not cheap.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Um, you know, Nagatuck's gun done the spirit of turbo, which is a great thing for the cat that unfortunately passed away. BNSF is uh, I think BNSF is probably, as far as liveries on their diesels, I think BNSF's probably one of the better ones I've seen with the uh whole we the people thing.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

Yeah, that looks really cool. I just saw a picture of that this morning.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

The 1776 Spirit of Freedom at the Delaware and Lackawanna, including the Liberty Bell crack painted onto the bell. I mean, that's pretty cool. Um, yes, that's 250 years of the United States. We're halfway to the downfall. Uh, you know, it's a great time to be alive. I just kind of wish that the uh with the with 250. I'm just gonna step into my beliefs for a minute. I just wish that the country was more united. We're divided right now and we're divided nonsensically. Yep. Um I agree. You know, the last podcast, proof of that. Oh, yeah. The comment section is proof of that. Of course. Um, some of the, I mean, the whole gender thing with the 70s.

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Of course, proof of that. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Yep. Um, you and I see it on a lot of the local pages. Of course. I mean, right now there's people squabbling over a pantry in Morton. Yep. Um, you know. Uh you not a real person. Yep. Do any of those paint jobs stand out to you that you've seen?

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Or do you even look at no and yes. Since I've started working here now, I notice everything, right? Yeah, now I notice everything, right? But before before this, never, never. You know, I mean, uh I I lived in Kent, so I had uh the Kent Railway right there in downtown Kent all the time going through You hate trains. It was just something that friends would come over and go, that you don't hear that? And I lived with the whistle and all that so long that I didn't it it was it was second nature, so it didn't didn't bother me. But I've never had that that drive, you know, that that some of you guys really some of you foamers really have, you know. I've never had that. So you know, whether it's painted, whether it's not, whether it's orange, whether it's red, as long as my uh as long as my materials will get into the store and I'm able to purchase them for a decent price, I'm happy.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

I I hear you. I'm I'm not as big of a foamer as people think. I know a lot about trains, but I don't I don't go out of my way to follow them afterward. I work on them, I work on them enough to sit back and which design works the best. I mean any of them at this point that doesn't say 45, 47 on the side of it. Because all that is is just a great big dick suck to try to get a merger through, is all that is. That's that's not patriotic at all. That's a brown nosing ass kissing situation if I ever did see one.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

So you don't it doesn't really matter to you about the paint or the design concern?

SPEAKER_00 50:21

I mean, I I I like the whole entire, you know, remembering that we are the United States. Of course, of course. And that it's red, white, and blue. Of course. And you know, maybe we should be more neutral in the world than we are and all that. But when it comes down to it, it's just like I don't notice it's yeah, yeah. It's like I know Texas State painted their locomotive all freedom train colors. I just sit back and go, well, now what's gonna happen when you know once the 250 is over, you gotta repaint the thing again. I just see more work. Yeah, of course. Of course. More money going out, more work. It's great for them because they, you know, hobbyist it for the most part and just run the thing every once in a while. But something like the 70, this you know, you know, like Dawn said today, he goes, Well, what's what kind of a work schedule is this thing gonna have on it? So I wouldn't be surprised if we still get 175 days on it, even though we're starting halfway through the year, because we're gonna run the ever-living crap out of this. I believe it. I mean, we we've been talking about painting it a certain color, and we are gonna paint it that certain color, probably around October. Uh, but the sheer logistics of you know, Chris and I sitting down and saying, Okay, well, the jacketing as it is right now can't retain its pickling because it looks like shit. We got to paint it black, then we're gonna paint it this other color for what we're doing. Of course, and then sometime between the end of October and Christmas, we got to paint it the Baldwin green that we want to paint it. That's a lot of logistic of how you're figuring out how you're gonna take the locomotive out of service long enough to give it a paint job. Exactly. Good one. Exactly. You know, that doesn't have runs and with everything else you guys got. Everything else we got going on because we got a whole passenger car that we have to have ready to go by Christmas.

SPEAKER_03 51:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Um so I think that pretty well answers that if MRSR painted America uh an American 250 locomotive, what would it look like? It's gonna look be a uh American flags hung off the front end. Um, it would be the most MRSR way to celebrate America 250. Well, we're gonna shoot each other with Aerosophia. Just gonna say blow shit up at the 4th of July, scream America at the top of our lungs, sing kumbaya, and drink and eat.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Blow off some steam.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

All right, listener questions. More than usual.

SPEAKER_03 52:30

Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

We're doing good on time.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

There we go, guys. Get them in.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Uh, Calvin questions. Why do you say brother so much?

SPEAKER_02 52:40

That's Beth and huh? Why do I say brother so much? Uh man, that's that's just my thing. That's just my thing. Everybody's got their thing. That's mine. I've always done it.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

I say fuck all the time.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

Yep, so that's, you know, so that's my thing. So if you meet me, you're gonna be brother, whether you like it or not. So it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Uh, some listeners have noticed you're referred to as the railroad's unofficial therapist. This is Beth. How did you earn the title of company shrink? That is Bethon.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

That's not that's not listener.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

That's bet that's Beth, right there. Um, so I'm a listener. You know, I've had people say I'm pretty intimidating, but not here. No, everybody seems they want to want to come talk to me and vent, and you know, hey man, uh if I'm there to lend an ear, I'm I'm more than happy to do it.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

You know, um we got a lot of stuff going here. You know, some people got a lot of stress more than others, if that means that you need to come over and vent a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

The thing of it is is you know, Bethan jokes about my how mine and hers phone relationship is unhealthy. Yeah, it fucking is. Of course. I mean, there's a lot of times she's the only person I can talk to or invent. And then that doesn't help because we start that vicious spiral with each other going up. Or if we're fighting, it's two bald eagles spiraling going down. Of course. Then sometimes it takes the outside eye of, you know, hey, this is what I'm feeling about this situation. What do you think? And somebody else will say, Well, yeah, you're you're onto something there and no, you're fucked up.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

Exactly. Exactly. You know, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

There's actually been a couple of pretty good knockout blowout freaking people haven't seen that Calvin's kind of been the the neutral in the room. And when when Beth and I clash head, it's not pretty.

unknown 54:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

It it's pretty and it's it's like once or twice a year, so you know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

You know what's gonna be Christmas, right? What it is is it's right before Christmas. It's either it happens in the dead of summer and we're fine through Christmas, or it happens right before Christmas. Yep. And you know, especially last year when it happened right before Christmas, there was a lot going on.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

Of course, of course, a lot. We won't. New production, yeah, a lot, a lot. Okay, railroad questions. Rowdy mentioned pursuing roughly 40 million in grants. What projects would that fund funding support, and what are the chances of success?

SPEAKER_00 54:55

So a good majority of that is Chrissy. And what Chrissy would do is Chrissy would fund the basically the entirety of opening up the railroad from Eatonville to Morton and allow us to tap into the potential freight market, allow us to have more than just the excursion which we have. Because I'm gonna piss some people off saying this, and that's mostly the freaking fan club because they have a higher opinion of themselves than they deserve. Um for 40 years, not much was done to the track here. The Warehouser got it, and then you know, Tacoma Rail got it. Uh there the railroad was in fairly decent shape. Track wise, bridge-wise, all that. Tacoma Rail put a buttload of money into the thing. And you know, we were able to run all the way to Morton, we were able to run Eatonville and back, we were going to Tacoma once or twice a year. You know, we we had the ability to pursue six operating steam locomotives because we weren't putting money into the track. And by not putting money into the track, I mean, fifty thousand dollars a year for a track budget is is not that's the little white speck on top of chicken shit. You know what that little white speck is? Chicken shit. Yep. Um, so when I say that, it's the place got narrowed down, narrowed down, narrowed down, narrowed down to where we couldn't run a divide anymore because they got trees growing in the railroad. Tonet we got stuck on six and a half miles. You can't offer much outside of that. And it was so narrowed down that when you know Tom and them sold West Fork Timber, no one's thought to, hey, let's make sure there's something in there to maintain the loop in the picnic ground. So we've lost that because they weren't going over there at all. Yep, yep. So we get Chrissy, we are able to open the railroad completely and totally back up, tap into that freight market. That's just sitting down there begging to be tapped into that no one in their right mind thought, hey, let's try to tap into that to give funding to the railroad. Exactly. That's what the Chrissy grant does, is it allows us to not only haul freight, but it allows us to run more steam trains. I mean, you got the five and the 70 and enough cars for both the locomotives to be pulling a four or five car train behind them. Why not have them running all over hell and gone on the railroad and doing a variety of different excursions outside of the same damn thing over and over and over again? Yep. Maybe that's the reason why they struggled with ridership for so long because it's well, it's the same damn thing. Of course, of course. It's just got a different engine on the front of it that might break. Of course. Um, so that's what that one does. Another big chunk of it is uh museum funding. A lot of people want to get to get off the train. A lot of people want to go through, look at the collection, and we want to open it up and say, hey, this is this is actually one of the few places in the world that you can come and see this. But again, I'm gonna piss some people off saying this, and I'm unabashfully gonna piss them off. When the buildings that the locomotives were sitting in were built, they were built for one specific purpose, and that was to get the Willamine, because Jim Gertz told Tom, I am not donating you my locomotive if it can't sit inside. Because everything else was sitting outside at that point. The locomotives just used to everything here used to sit outside. The lucky engine would get to sit in the shop if it was being worked on. Of course. The five, the ten, the hysler, all of them sat outside. They built the building. Okay. Well, and then camp six gets shut down so that they can extend the aquarium at Point Defiance Zoom Aquarium. Well, and that was sitting right where Camp Six was gonna be. So, oh well, let's go after this grant and turn the place into a museum. There was no thought of how does this work, how does this lay out? I mean, it was done well for what they were able to do. Of course. The idea behind it was great, but you you see how it is trying to move people through here. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at the look at the building that we are in. Yep. You know, it's hard to be a good, interactive, and interpretive museum in the situation that we are in when when you get off the train, you walk through the log camp buildings, and you didn't look at the freaking map because maps are stupid, you don't realize there's a whole nother building over there full of cool shit. Of course. And so what this other piece of funding that she's going after does is it allows us to have interactive displays, touch the screen, yep, tell the story a little bit better. Exactly. Instead of, you know, it being the whitewashed version of logging in the Pacific Northwest, which we have been given. Of course, it's gonna focus more on the people, you know, the Japanese, of course, the the women. There's a lot of women logging, you know, the like that one behind you, wartime challenges to union. You know, it's there's a lot of stuff going on that shaped the story of the area. Of course, not just what we got going on. Exactly. So it allows us to open up the big building to get all the shop moved over there so the railroad has a permanent home and a building that can support the railroad. And then the museum can actually be turned into a museum because you don't have to worry about a passenger car being worked on inside of a museum display building because you got a shop big enough that you can put that passenger car inside and you don't have to worry about it. Exactly. You can display everything, you can move things around, you can take the gear house, empty it out, put those locomotives in what we call the rod house, and turn the gear house into a great big event room that you can bring weddings into, bring businesses into, bring dinners into. You have an event space that can be rented. You have a venue. Yep. You know, so that's what those um that funding is is there for, as well as helping match with Chrissy. Of course. And the likelihood of success is uh, you know, with Beth and it's up there. Of course. And that's the thing that scares the shit out of me. Is that she, and I go on record talking good about her, but she doesn't give herself enough credit with what she does. Yep. And when she puts her mind to something, she's gonna get it done. She's gonna get it done. She's gonna get it done. And that's the part of how this little team works between the two of us is that I can make the shit happen on the ground going forward. I can't do the administrative shit that she does.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

I can't sit down and write my way through something like the Chrissy Grant. Yep. I don't have the, you know, I know what my limitations are up here. Of course, with the ADHD and everything else I got going on.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:33

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

I'm a hands-on person.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

I'm not a sit at the computer doing this person. Yep. You know, so that's the likelihood of success is very high. Very high.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:44

Next question. Yes, impression. Uh, what are your impressions of the big boy to her? My internal liability lawyer is just going off. Oh my gosh. Drones, people falling out the side of it. Was it a dog or cat?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Uh I think it was a dog or a cat that they hit. I I saw a video the other day of a gal that was standing there and she had pushed her stroller so close that the engine damn near hit it. And I saw another video where it went by and the gal was standing so close, she literally got burned by the steam coming off of it as it passed. And I'm just sitting back going, this is gonna be the thing that they have to shut down.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

Something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Something's gonna happen. And I and I, oh yeah. So a trains magazine got Ed up there, oh, I'm Ed Dickens, you know, and please stay 25 feet back and all that. That was a waste of fucking time. A waste of time. Because, all right, the rail fan people are gonna go out there and say, hey, let's stay 25 feet back. Of course. They don't understand what it is like to the people move in herds. They do. They do move in herds. They do. And when one person's stupid, 50 people around them are still. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

One person stops for that picture, somebody tries to get in front of them. One person does, somebody tries to get in front of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Somebody else thinks that they can do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:57

They can get in front of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

And when you're dealing, and a lot of those people that criticize my comment on that, um, you know, their industry colleagues and stuff like that, do not know what it's like to try to deal with a thousand people. How many people do we have on the platform during the Christmas event?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

Too many.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

Too many.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

Yeah. How many stupid things happen between point A and just getting into the parking lot?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Oh, I'm telling you. Uh and we're talking basic, basic things.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

Basic, basic. Now you got a 1.3 million pound steam locomotive with a full train behind it, doing it. Makes my palm sweat, man. 40 miles an hour through a crowd. The only thing that Ed can do is sit up there, close his eyes, and pray.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:36

Yep.

unknown 1:03:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

And it's not gonna be the rail fans, it's not gonna be the foamers, it ain't gonna be them that get it shut down. It's gonna be the general public that don't know any different.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

They've never been. They don't know. They want the photo, they want the Instagram story.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Yep. Well, I mean, so when the the Canadian engine, 27, whatever the hell number it is, because I mean that's that's how much I pay attention to other locomotives, not mine. I don't I don't know what their numbers are. The Canadian engine, eh? When it went down to uh Mexico and that it snapped that girl's neck because she was sitting there on the ballast trying to take a selfie cylinder set, hit her, snap her neck, dead, dead before she even knew what happened. And they turned that sucker around and got the hell out of there as quick as they they freaking could. Yeah. Yep. That's gonna happen in the United States. I mean, Ed's already dealing with, you know, hitting somebody before.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

I believe it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

You know, I believe it. Nailed somebody with the 44, uh, not the 4014, but the 844. See, I'm terrible at locomotive numbers, you know. I mean, and and the bad part about, and and you know, when you're running a locomotive, especially a steam engine, you're blind. Of course, you're blind to what's going on on the fireman side, and you are dependent as hell on that guy over there to tell you what's going on. Because it gets to a certain point you can't see past the boiler. Now you got a boiler that's damn near a football field long, and you're piloting this massive chunk of steel down the rails. You can't steer out of the way. Nope. I mean, you can, but then there's paperwork involved. You know, you can't get out, you can't, you can't. There's nothing you can do but just, you know, oh shit. They walk out in front of you and they're 100 feet in front of you, they're dead. Yep, that's it. You shut your eyes and pray to God you don't see it. And we've had so many close calls here when just what we're doing, that tiny little thing. Now you try to put the put it in the scale of what the big boy is. You know, I I feel sorry for Ed. Oh, yeah. I I do not envy him at all running that locomotive. I don't envy any of those guys that try to run the big mainline locomotives down any piece of track because they're so big and the people around you are literally so dumb. They're not stupid, they're just dumb. Yep. That you something's gonna happen that's outside of your control, and you gotta live with that for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

Well, every post, every post that you see that has the big boy in it, 50,000 views. Yep. 100,000 views. Yep. So guess what that person's gonna do? I'm gonna go try to get those same views.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Yep. I want to go see this thing. I want to go see this thing. It is, it's great, it's a wonderful piece of PR. I wish that more, I wish that more like short line railroads and and more main lines, like B and all them, would get behind it and say, hey, we're gonna have our own steam locomotive, we're gonna go out and try and do this stuff. But a good liability attorney is gonna look at what's going on with the big boy right now, and they're gonna sit back and say, we are one second away from a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Because the only thing that a liability attorney can say is sit back and go, Well, we can't we can't charge them for trespassing because if we do, we gotta charge 50,000 other people with trespassing. We can't do this, we can't do that. The only thing we can do is pay because we didn't do enough to keep them off. Yep. And the only way that that's gonna work is doing what Europe does. Big fences down both sides of the railroad. If you are there, you're going to prison.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

That's it. That's exactly it. Next question. Uh the YouTube channel got noticeably more family friendly friendly for a while. Was that intentional just because Nate and Chris are actually debonair debonair gentlemen? Uh I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's uh uh a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:12

I think it's also a little bit of a podcast that dropped the the other day. You know, we've been a little bit more on our on our B's and Q's a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

I just haven't been in many of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

You haven't been in there, you haven't been there, so I think it's uh I think it's a Little bit everything on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

Probably. I I mean, you know, it it goes back to sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Of course. You know, I mean, sometimes you get it for flipping off the camera and all that other kind of stuff. I mean, it's like the whole argument about you know what is the locomotive's genderable freaking thing. I commented on this thing for crying out loud. Most of the time, what we call it violates Facebook's community standards. Exactly. It's not a boy or a girl. Ah, the drip oiler setup was pretty damn cool. Of course it was Chris's idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

The question is the drip oiler setup is pretty damn cool. Was that Chris's idea? I think I know what it is because there's no context giving outside of that. Um, I think it was Chris's idea, more than likely is. So yeah, we'll just we'll just run with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:12

Will will Rowdy light his face on fire seal welding the fives tubes?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Likely. Likely, yeah. Dude, I got a burn.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

The beard's just coming back.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

I got a I got a I got a burn right above my belly button from that shit. Yep. I got burn here, burn here. The whole back of my neck is covered in burns from the the sparks were going over the top. When you're welding, you're gonna be on fire at some point in time. You just cannot get around it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

It's not a matter of if, it's when.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:37

Will number five be complete this year?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

God, I hope so. I'm not gonna put a date on it. Um, the plan is that the 70 rolls out, it's the back to be in the front line locomotive as long as it doesn't need any major work through the year. Then we just I just work on the five because the board has determined that decided that there is a passenger car that has to be turned around and put into service by Christmas. And you know, they're in Tacoma right now. Let's go. Which means when they get here, I gotta figure out what one of them, I mean of the two, thankfully, the one with the bad truck is still in Chattanooga.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

Okay, that's the one that's in Chattanooga. That's the thing. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Okay, thank God. Okay, so that's a good thing. So I got two two cars that I gotta sit back and go, okay, which one is gonna make the most sense? And unfortunately, the one that needs the most work is probably be the one we pick simply because it doesn't have an observation platform on the back, and you can go through both ends of the cars. Because I mean, no matter how much I try not to have kids in the parlor car, I can guarantee you the parlor car is gonna be back on the train. Yep, it's gonna have kids in it because somebody effed up and pitched the Beth, and let's do a burlesque show in the damn thing instead of having an adult-only part of our show. Um, so no, no burlesque shows during Christmas. Exactly. I don't need naughty Santa and Mrs. Claw.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

No, we got enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Anyway, so kids are more than likely gonna be in the parlor car, which means I the other car, which I was hoping to use on the as the tail car on the end of the train and just be a coach car is out of the window, so I gotta go with the other coach car, which has a hole in the floor, the ceiling's sagging, all the electrical needs to be redone, all the the seats in it need to be cleaned and the seats made to work. It needs to have the bathroom updated and new one put in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

So as soon as that gets here, that's a whole nother list of work to get ready, rock and roll. Yep. My days.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:35

How are the cats? What's cats are good.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

Cats are good. Caught a bird the other day. We got another one, too. Oh, did we? Yeah, uh, this morning when I walked outside to uh you know do perimeter patrol just because I was awake, there was a black one with a white face walking out of this building.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Oh, we got another stray. There we go. We'll we'll introduce him or her a little bit later when we get her when we get him in. Uh, what's up with the goose?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

The porch goose. Um that seems to be Beth and Chris's um support spirit animal? I don't know what. Um it was dressed up as the Pope at one point in time. Exactly. It was the Pope. Dressed up as Santa for Christmas. It floated all over the set piece out there. It was in the uh satsup for a while. Yep. Now it's riding the alcohol. It was hanging out inside the five for a little bit, and now it rides in the fireman's seat of the Alco, and for a while it was dressed up as the Easter bunny, and then it had a Cinco to my book. Cinco to my body. Yeah, Cinco to my boy. I was dressed up as a giant corn stalk. So that's Chris and Bethon's thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:42

That's what's up with the goose.

unknown 1:11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:45

We're the ex-redding uh passenger cars today. Tacoma.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:48

Two of them are in Tacoma, one of them stuck in Chattanooga.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:51

You talked about the gays, but why aren't more women in railroad preservation?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

Oh, fuck. This is a landmine.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:58

This one's for Beth and Beth and set us up on this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

Oh, Jesus Christ. Um, you know, okay, so we did get some backlash off that last podcast episode. And then here's the thing I am gonna say. You know, I don't care what you do. Of course. I don't care what you are, just don't shove it down my throat. I don't shove my love of guns and meat and you know, fucking women and all that shit down your throat. You're gay, don't you know the threat? A lot of the guys that I grew up with here were gay. And I felt extremely comfortable with them. Never did any one of them cross the line intentionally. Of course. And if they I said, hey, I feel like a line has been crossed, they backed off bigger than shit, and they apologized and they they felt like hammered. Of course, of course. But I got pretty thick skinned too, so that very rarely happened because I was just firing it right back. Of course. Why aren't more women in railroad preservation? It's not welcoming to women. Yeah, it's not welcoming to women at all. And um, you know, I had this conversation with with a woman in the industry one time, and she got really, she was really mad about somebody that she knew who kept saying, Well, women don't belong here, women don't belong here, women don't belong here. Now, I don't think she realized that the the man's generation was that, you know, he he was a kid in the 40s during World War II and all that kind of stuff. And I asked, I said, have you ever stopped to think of maybe his you don't belong here is equivalent to a kid doesn't belong in a strip club? Yep. That he grew up thinking this is a dirty, nasty job that women are better than and shouldn't be here just simply because of how miserable it is. They're better than this job.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:50

Of course. I don't think it's anything of a a woman couldn't do the work. No, I I don't think that's any of it at all. No, I think it's more of, like you said, look at Nate and look at Chris.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:02

I mean, even yourself sometimes. Nate and Chris, one, they don't leave, but two, they're insane.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

If you tried to introduce a good-looking girl that wanted to do this kind of stuff into those two, I mean, for one, you'd be able to direct see what direction they are pointed half a damn time. You know, um, that's that's 25% of it. Now, I would say another piece of it is that there, I'll I'll break it into thirds. Disclaimer, put the disclaimer at the bottom of the course. This is Rowdy's personal opinion. It doesn't reflect Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad, Western Forest Industries Museum, Mount Rainier Railroad, LLC. It doesn't read this is Rowdy's personal opinion from watching 26 years of the shit. Another chunk of it is that you do have sexist individuals that do not want women involved, that think women are inferior to it. Yep, that think, you know, the whole entire the whole entire thing. Um, you do have that. Of course. You know, there are very sexist individuals that are bigots that sit back and say women do not have a place here because they're just stupid and can't do it. Of course. There was a joke the other I heard the other day of um um when you it was it had to do with uh you drink wine. You know why when you drink wine you can't drive anymore and you speak incoherently is because of all the women's hormones in it. There are people that think that that, oh you're just a woman, so you're stupid. And you know, everybody's stupid. Of course, everybody's smart, of course. Some people are gonna pick it up faster than others, you know. Um, so there are people that gatekeep that in this industry that say, nope, you're a woman, you don't belong here. Now we're gonna get into what is really gonna get me some flack because I have witnessed this first hand multiple times. There are some women that use their anatomy to climb the ladder, and that puts a bad taste in other people's mouth. And you know, well, why is this certain person an engineer and I'm not? Of course not. Then she sucked a dick to do it. Of course, you know, of course, there's that's the other third. Of course. So if you are a woman coming into this industry, Bethany and I have a strict rule of, I mean, for one, the thought of Beth and naked just makes me want to vomit. I threw up a little bit in my mouth thinking about it. Because those rumors are out there. Of course, you know, Beth and I have a strict rule. We travel together, she's on one floor, I'm on a different floor. Of course, you know. If we're out in public, we are seen with each other all the time, but we also make sure that we're not seen with each other all the time. Of course. You know, to try to mess it. We don't even ride the elevator to the floors at the same time. Yep. You know, we've only done it a couple of three times, and I'd never I've only been to her hotel room twice on trips. One was a grant emergency, and the other one is because my room wasn't ready. And I felt so goddamn uncomfortable sitting in the next to the door in her room that finally after about 20 minutes, I said, I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving. Yep. Yep. You know, that's the third part of it, is that there are women in this industry that have used their anatomy to try to climb their way to the top. And it's it's honestly, in my opinion, after seeing it, I it's hurt some reputation of women in the industry because you you get that. Oh, well, they slept their way to the top. Of course. Bethon hasn't, I can confirm Bethan hasn't. Of course. You know, there are other women out there that I look at and go, they didn't. Of course. You know, there are other women out there. I can go, hmm, they probably did. But then there's other women out there I can look at and go, they deserve it. Of course. They want to be in it, they deserve it. Exactly. You know? So if you are it the the gays in the industry, no one even knows they're there. Yep. They don't even know they're gay half the damn time. Unless they come out and say, hey, I'm gay. It used to be so much harder to determine who in the industry was gay and who wasn't, because all the guys that were here that were gay looked like normal dudes. Yep. They talk like normal dudes. Yep. They didn't put the accent on anything. Even outside of work, they didn't put the accent.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:18

Plus is blue-collar work. Yeah, the blue collar work. They're doing the same thing right next to you that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:22

My my grandpa, he was a logger for a long time in the 20s, 30s, and all that. My great grandfather was too. And I remember somebody, you know, before he died, tried to bait him into that. Well, were there gays and homosexuals in the camp? And he just said, We didn't care.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

We were there to do a job. Exactly. We didn't care. Exactly. You knew it was happening, but you didn't care. Exactly. Because you had to trust the guy with your life. Of course. You know, and we've we've lost that in society of not caring. It's none of my business. None of my business. None of my business. What you do at home with your people is none of my business. What I do at home with my people, none of my business. Of course. What Tom does with his people, none of his none of his business. Exactly. You know what Eric does is his business. Of course. You know, what Bethany does is her business. Yep. What any of these individuals in the industry do is their business. You know, if you are a man or a woman, then men do it too. They have slipped your way to a top. Okay, that's none of my business. Yep. Of course. I can have my feelings about it, because that's my personal opinion. Of course. If you are being held back because of the gatekeeping sons of bitches that are out there that are racist, freaking sexist bigots, all right, that's none of my business, but you can do better because you can go around them and just go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

You know, fuck them.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:29

Yep. Go find someone else.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

You know, don't give up. If you are in the beginning category where you've worked your ass off and all that other kind of stuff, and you've pretty well made it, great. Don't take shit from anybody. Yep. Um, so hopefully I've dodged that landmine and and basically hated on everybody all at the same time. Because I mean, I I think women are very capable of being in the industry. How about they're a Drango and Silverton? I was just gonna say.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:54

I was just gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

You know, I saw a guy actually comment on that saying, oh, they're oil burners, so at least the girls don't have to shovel coal. Oh my god, that guy got lit on fire. And I'm sitting back going, I see what he's saying. At least they don't have to shovel coal. Not saying that they can't do it. Exactly. It's just saying, hey, they don't need to do that. Exactly. It's easier on them. Exactly. You know, and and to the ladies in the industry, if somebody says something that you take direct offense at, step back for a second and just analyze really, is that really what he's saying, instead of throwing your hackles up? Because I know an individual that was saying that kind of stuff, if you don't belong here, I step back and say, why do you say that? Well, it's the same as a kid going to a strip club. They don't belong there. This is dirty, miserable work. And it's no place for a woman because women are better than that. Yep, yep. Men in general want to make sure that women are taken care of. Of course. You know, I mean there's some out there that don't. Of course. I mean, you know, men have that vision of they'd love nothing better than their wife to be able to stay home, cook dinner, and take care of the friggin' kids. Of course. You know, that's a very 1950s way of looking at it. That dream's long gone now. Gas prices the way they are for most men and are they're protectors. I mean, you're protective of your wife, I'm protective of Randy. I'm sure Tony's very protective of Bethany. Of course, I think. You know, it's it's we're protectors. We don't want women in places where they don't. I'm doing this in quotation marks for people listening, belong because we think they're better. Of course. I mean, that's the way I look at it. Yep. And it took a guy explaining that to me one time, and I just was like, you know, I could really say see that. Of course. You put it in the context of a strip club is no place for a kid. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:44

Anyway, was that it? Uh closing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:47

What's coming up next at the railroad? Um, we're shutting it down. Shutting it down next. Shutting her down. Uh there uh lots of stuff, you know. 70 is gonna come back out, got a pass the passenger cars coming. You know, we get the Chrissy, of course, there's gonna be major changes there. Um, if you know the five is gonna come back into the mix at some point in time, moving in next door.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:09

Moving in next door, that's huge.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

You know, we may be looking at acquiring some more equipment. You know, that's all stuff way far out.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:16

Uh choosing what uh the next after the five of the next one at the Rodhouse.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

Whatever that we might do. Um, you know, there's lots of candidates on the property.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:25

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

Just you know, it's kind of one of them stay tuned type things.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:29

Uh, what should viewers watch for on the YouTube channel over the next few months? Uh I don't know. Well, next couple weeks, I mean you got the FRA, you got approval, 70 rolling out.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Yeah, the FRA, uh the five getting worked on, you know, moving in next door, hopefully some more cleaning up of the museum and getting that a little bit more open to the public. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:51

I'll cover some more of the event trains, so some of the whiskey, some of the cider, some of the beer trains, so you guys can get a little behind the scenes of uh setup, what we're doing, what those kind of look like if you've ever been interested.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:02

Um, you know, that that kind of stuff.