Younger members

Wed Jun 6 06:30:31 EDT 2018

Ken,

I have only words of appreciation for the Arrow and the insights of the N&W
era that each issue contains. But, as a writer who has had numerous
articles published in the Bristol Herald Courier including several railroad
related pieces, I am at a loss to offer any positive response to your plea
for more material for the magazine. I did not have any involvement with or
was I employed by the N&W so cannot come forward with any articles.
Unfortunately that is also the case for many current members and will be
even more evident with any younger members enlisted. Sadly, it has to be
acknowledged that the sources for N&W material are all in the senior
citizen —- really senior, such as myself —- group. Sorry for the gloom and
doom but that is the reality of the situation.

Respectfully,

Mike Pierry, Jr.

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 8:53 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> Jeff
>
> Let me address several factors here, as the new editor of the Arrow. By
> the way, due to the change over with the magazine, the April-May-June issue
> was delayed, but should be in the mail. Those of you who were at Spencer
> saw the proof of the new format. The next issue is being assembled as we
> speak, and is hoped to go to the printer by the first of July, and the plan
> is to be back on schedule before the end of the year. There was almost no
> ready to go material available when I took over the magazine. You will be
> able to read more when they arrive.
>
> To address your comments, the Arrow actually began as a bi-monthly
> magazine. In those early days, that first issue was 10 pages, the second
> was 14 and the third was 12. Five years later, the first issue of 1990 was
> 16 pages. In 1996, the first issue was 24 pages. By 2007, the magazine had
> gone quarterly, and normally was a 32 page issue.
>
> The magazine has changed for a wide variety of reasons, but unfortunately,
> the two main reasons are simple, cost of printing and mailing, and a lack
> of contributions from members. A look back at those early issues finds many
> of the same names involved as we see today, but some others have passed
> away. Not many new names have appeared over time. Unfortunately, one story
> that I have heard over time is “I submitted an article for the Arrow and
> never heard anything” yet, we find no evidence of such articles. So,
> please, if you submitted an article in the past and never saw it, never
> heard from it, please send it on again. Mail it to the Society’s P.O. Box
> in Roanoke, or email me at:
> thearrow at nwhs.org.
>
> That being said, we do have a great photo essay of Clare Yard in the
> winter, which is being saved for a winter issue obviously. We have several
> lengthy pieces on the Virginian, an outstanding history piece from Tom
> Salmon on the early beginnings of the VGN, and a piece on the author’s 1978
> strike experience, which is coming soon.
>
> I’m not trying to make excuses on this, but if we do not have material, we
> cannot produce magazines, what I’d love to see is that we have enough new
> material to print six issues a year. Most of the material in the
> March-April-May issue are things that will work and trying to get a broader
> scope of coverage. Over the past number of years, Kevin EuDaly had created
> the Arrow with basically nothing in hand, using reprints of technical
> articles on electrification. Some folks did not like it, but those same
> folks did not provide us with other material. If he had not produced the
> magazine in this way, there would have not been a magazine.
>
> It is a Catch-22, we need more material to print more magazines, but we
> cannot print more magazines to encourage more folks to contribute.
>
> Now, on that aspect. Folks have grown quite used to the Arrow being all
> color and a really slick magazine. Our single biggest expense as an
> organization is the mailing and printing of the Arrow each year. To print a
> magazine of the quality and style you see requires us to use large 4 color
> presses at a printer established to do such work. For those of you who are
> not used to the print world, magazines like ours are printed on large
> sheets of paper, with 8 pages on each side of the sheet, creating a 16 page
> “signature”, magazine size is dictated by those 16 page signatures, so you
> have either a 16 page magazine, a 32 page, 48 page or 64 page magazine. You
> cannot easily do a 24 page magazine, it is not how the printers are readily
> set up.
>
> If we drop back and do a 16 page magazine every two months, it becomes the
> same thing as a 32 page magazine every four months, but now we have
> increased our mailing costs not quite by double, but close. Printing costs
> mainly come in the set up for print. So, while we do not actually double
> the printing costs, it will definitely increase the costs there as well.
> Can we save money by going to a black and white magazine? Yes, a bit, but
> the committee the board appointed to study this came up with a lengthy
> report with alternative pricing and ways of doing the magazine. Ultimately,
> we managed to still reduce the costs and retain a color magazine at only a
> slightly higher cost than a black and white version.
>
> Some folks have asked “can’t you do a print on demand?” Generally
> speaking, our magazine is a heavily photographic magazine. Photographs,
> particularly color, do not do nearly as well in the print on demand mode,
> at least at a reasonable cost. Print on demand is usually for copies that
> are not aimed for quantities over 100 or 200. The price is hard to do. The
> converse of that is, we do not have a large enough membership to make the
> magazine larger and cheaper to print. This is part of the why we are
> pushing to increase our membership, so we can afford to do more for the
> members, or more value for your membership dollar. We do appreciate your
> membership and we can do more with more members.
>
> Why people do not contribute, I do not know. Perhaps they feel like they
> don’t know as much, perhaps they are afraid of the critics who, upon
> occasion, have taken an article or item to task on this or another list.
> Perhaps it is that they did indeed submit something, never heard back, or
> never saw anything in print. I’ve tried to be in touch with most of our
> regular contributors, but a few emails have bounced back on me, so if you
> have contributed but not heard from me, please contact me at the address
> listed above. I apologize for any miscommunication that might have occurred
> but we truly are interested and want materials. We are looking for a wide
> variety of things, not just steam. Do not get me wrong, steam is my
> favorite, but we do need to cover a lot of other things as well. There is a
> huge batch of material out there and subjects to cover. Don’t know how to
> do it, or have materials for illustration? Not a problem, please get in
> touch, we have a great archive of materials and knowledge of more out here,
> our Archives volunteers can be amazingly helpful.
>
> If you are afraid of writing an article because of making mistakes, that
> is the least of your concern. All the material is closely reviewed by our
> review board and believe me, they are are not afraid to make changes! But
> the best thing is they are made before it goes to print. Now that being
> said, even the best of the committees do not know everything, but we are
> pretty broadly covered with knowledge, so most material will be finely
> checked.
>
> To kind of sum this up, your board has studied the Magazine, quite in
> depth and while we want to go to more frequent publication, we need two
> things for that: more members and more contributors. It is that simple.
>
> We need contributions from everyone. Please be sure to send them to
> thearrow at nwhs.org, or mail your material to the P.O. Box in Roanoke, the
> Arrow is now done in house. Please do not assume that we have everything
> that was previously submitted, things get lost or misplaced.
>
> Ken Miller
>
> > On Jun 4, 2018, at 1:57 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > When I first joined the society, the ARROW was a monthly magazine, that
> I waited in great anticipation for.
> > Over the years it has been cut back to 4 times a year.
> > Although a bigger magazine, it seems like I was getting less for the
> cost of my membership.
> > Perhaps bringing it back to 6 times a year would get more articles out
> from more people.
> > If this is member driven, and I understand there has to be a boss in any
> business, then why not have more members submit articles for the ARROW.
> > I did get mine submitted in the Jan-Feb- Mar issue 2017. I had written
> that story many years ago, and submitted it some years ago to the society,
> to the point I had forgotten about it. There is still so much more we can
> learn about the N&W and VGN.
> > I just want to see the society carry on and grow. I have used all of my
> pixy dust many years ago, so it's going to take more than magic to keep
> this and other societies alive.
> >
> > Jeff Wood
> > ________________________________________
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>
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