During a huge clean up and dumping of unwanted railway stuff, I came across some photos I have been hunting down for some. The title photo above was actually the one I was most after, Karel (RIHSPI President)

had asked about it some months prior.

The week was in the early half of 2007 and marked a significant

milestone in Philippine railway hobby history.

A request was made on the PRHS (then Philippine Railways SIG) Forum for people who would like to meet up at Tayuman for a day of watching trains, travelling on same and just to get to know each other.

A week later, a visit to the PNR workshop at Caloocan courtesy of Edward Manapol (one of PNRs nicest people - sadly since gone) saw the decision made that something must be done to preserve this importantly.

Subsequent months saw us go about setting up what is today known as RIHSPI, with the BUDA car that was the basis for our decision now

restored as a static exhibit at Tutuban station.

While, for now, I am unable to be involved in what we started, one day it is hoped that attitudes change enough, the hobby put first, and I shall again be able to make a contribution to that which a handful of railfans and myself started just over four years ago.

Heres to Philippine railway preservation.

Attacks/Rumours - The Society.

One of the weirder side effects of voluntary work in the railway hobby is the amount of trouble and hate one attracts along the way.
Sadly, it does seem a national past-time of many railfans, Australian, Filipino or elsewhere, to deride the efforts of all who give of their free time and money to share back with the railfan community.
Indeed some railfans do go out of their way to encourage it, building empires of imaginary power, trying to benefit financially from others, making ludicrous claims and the like.

But overall, many a railfan gives of their free time out of pure generosity and a desire to help. It does not matter the cost, or the efforts gone to, they are the true volunteers.
At least until all the backstabbing, lies and attacks finally make them wonder why.

Sadly the society has been target for many problems in recent times, all seemingly coming from the Philippines, presumably coming from somewhere that is railfan related and seeking to cause problems, or at best, our demise.

It sounds like the script of a James Bond action thriller, but spies, informants, betrayal and deceit has been the order of the day in recent months. People posing as friends to both societies, but at the same time working against them and trying to cause mayhem.
Followed recently by removal from Wikipedia any traces of the society and its websites, as well as general censorship on the Facebook group 'PNR LRT MRT in the Philippines'.
Indeed, despite our group policy of any member being able to join any other group he/she feels like joining, involvement in our group has reportedly been banned by at least one group.

People are asked to do themselves a favour. Find out both sides of any story. Listening to, and believing, one side of any story not only leaves a person ignorant, it also makes you look like a fool in front of the person you believe.

The PRHS will always remain as a voluntary society open to helping and sharing information, it will never dictate which other organisations others can join and it WILL ALWAYS treat all members as equals.

I'm frightfully sorry if this is not what people wish.

IS IT TIME TO SINK OR SWIM?

Everyone has their darkest days, a day they regret, a day they wish had never occured.

For me it was during February this year when a visit to Manila brought me to the immense reality that railway preservation in the Philippines, by the society I personally had started the ball rolling with (along with friends Bill ad Harvey), had greatly failed the people of the Philippines.

The endless need for ego massaging, to take hold control of all railfan societies based on the Philippines and to be alongside managers and other dignatories at railway events, mean't that the wholesale scrapping of important items went unnoticed.

Indeed, the soon to be proclaimed new president of the 'Railways and Industrial Heritage Society Phils. Inc.' was horrified to learn of what I had found, not least due to the destruction of a couple of his personal favourites.

The soon to be out-going president (officially, but not in reality), too busy massaging his own importance, has since brushed it off saying that they decided to keep whatever "THEY" could hope to restore in their lifetime, without thought to other peoples lifetimes.

You see, socities are mean't to be full of OTHER people. A society works together to achieve a common goal.

Socities, including railway socities, require the usual heirachy at the top, but when these people fail to treat their members and others with respect, they soon find people leaving for other goals. Not even the appointing of a puppet president will curb this downturn - people seeing straight through the bulldust into the reality of what is still going on.

Railway preservation in the Philippines has been failed - Totally Failed.

No amount of ego, smoke screens, mud slinging, lies, lies or other carrying on will ever change this.

The question being put to a meeting of the PRHS this Friday is:

"Is there any reason to continue reservation in the Philippines, should there be a new more considerate society and how can things be done differently?"

Three questions, but three very important questions needing a lot of discussions.

It all comes down to whether or not what little is left needs to be preserved and is there a new team out there who has the capability of doing it?

A answer of 'NO' would be regretable, but fully understandable, given the total disgrace that has spewed forth since 2007.

Philippine Railway Preservation

Time To Sink Or Swim!

20563

~~ PRHS UPDATE ~~

Good morning everyone,

Been a while since I did one of these, actually I am not even sure I ever have. :-)

The society continues to slowly grow. It was never expected to be a fast thing and as such we are just happy to see growing interest.
We recently recieved our first member from outside Australia - thanks Jeffrey.
Thank you to everyone for their continued, and much appreciated, support.

The newsletter has changed from its small size to A4, while lessons are being learn't, and improvements made, with each issue.
Sometimes I have trouble fitting in everything.
The one thing we are very short of is small historical articles, or scans of historical items etc. We would like to eventually have a histrorical section regularly, but the editors main interest is 80s until today.

The society has ben recieving good coverage in the railfan and other press. This is slowly also proving to show dividends in membership. This sort of promotion shall continue, while I am hoping one of our local Sydney members will take on the important role of approaching local Filipino businesses here for possible support.

Possibly the biggest cause for confusion of late is the recent change of name from the RIHSPI-ANZ.
I shall try to rectify some of this below:

We are, as with the ANZ, basically a support group.
We have a slowly growing (but it is growing) membership and our primary goal is to raise money to donate to railway preservation groups in the Philippines.
The only change is that we can now donate to any railway preservation project in the Philippines that is an official project, this includes Mr Tiongson's RIHSPI.
I have made a number of approaches to the RIHSPI about their interest in continued financial support, but to date only the Vice-President has replied.

So why bother with the name change?

There seemed to be significant confusion over our use of the RIHSPI name.
PNR especially seemed to continually link our group, which was autonomous, and the Philippine based one.
Due to cultural differences, this caused a bit of trouble for the Manila group.

At a board meeting here it was voted to enforce the idea that we were seperate by utilizing a new name. We would still support Philippine preservation as before, but we would technically call them grants so as to appear a different society.

At the current time we are investigating a number of proposals, but to date we have no plans to preserve our own rollingstock. As this would be difficult from Australia, I am unsure where the idea has risen from.
This is not to say we wont in the future.
Indeed the idea of RIHSPIs proposal of preserving Abad Santos signalbox still appeals to many within the PRHS, as does the restoration of all rollingstock the society recently earmarked for preservation.

First and foremost, my love of Philippine railways means that I will do whatever it takes to help the preservation of it along, preservation of items the 'CORRECT' way.
The PRHS will ALWAYS support ANY railway society in the Philippines and look forward to one day being allowed to support the RIHSPI financially, historically and technically again.

Clearing up some of the strange myths going around:

1) We have dumped the RIHSPI to fend for themselves.

Absolutely not. The RIHSPI would always remain our main priority should they request help in restoring items.
They are a very important society with a big job ahead, they should always be supported 100%. The PRHS, regardless of name, will always be here to support them.

2) Changes were made due to disagreement in the Philippines.

Again, absolutely not. The RIHSPI people are great people in person and I have nothing but fond memories of my time there with them.
The work done on the first BUDA car was fantastic, virtually beyond belief for those of us who saw her at Caloocan.
We may have some concerns about their ideas, but this does not prevent us from donating to those projects considered right.

3) We wish to set up a rival museum.

Yeah right, that would be feasable from Australia :-)
No, Manila does not need two museums, it needs one museum and that is the RIHSPI one. Locals should aim to support this one and help where possible.

If anyone else has questions, or have heard some myths surrounding the recent changes, please feel free to email me and I shall answer here, in public, on the website. These can be sent to PRHS.Soci ety @ gmail . com (remove spaces)

~~ LUCENA INSPECTION CAR ~~

This little vehicle, the number of which could not be identified, is closed in behind a fence on Lucena station.
It seems to now be used for storage by a person living in the residence next to it.
Slowly rusting away, it would certainly make a great addition to the RIHSPI IC collection.

~~ RIHSPI-ANZ NOW HAS PAYPAL ~~

Hi there,

We have finally got PayPal up and going for memberships and donations to the ANZ (Australian/ New Zealand) chapter of the RIHSPI.
As a result we can take memberships from people outside Australia via this method (this does not include the Philippines) .

I plan to get more of our first newsletter reprinted in four weeks time, so any memberships recieved between now and then will obtain a copy, thus allowing them to get the inaugeral issue and so they have joined at the start of the membership year in April.

Membership to the RIHSPI-ANZ entitles you to:
1) 4 issues of 'Along Da Riles' each year.
2) Membership to the RIHSPI-ANZ Yahoogroup for group news and chat. You must quote your name and membership number when applying.
3) Attend any meetings of both the Philippine and Australian groups should you be in town.
4) Join in any RIHSPI sponsored tours to railway locations and instalations.
5) Help preserve whats left of the Philippines rich railway history, both actual railway vehicles and in archive form.

Cost of membership for the year April - April.
Australia - $30
NZ/Fiji/SE Asia - A$34
Rest of world - A$36
** Note again: Interested people in the Philippines can contact the local group.

Your membership and donations help us with the important task of starting the museum and keeping us going.
Please consider joining us and help save Philippine railway history.

People interested in joining can contact our Vice-President and Treasurer Bill Sullivan.

bsullivan at rihspi.org (replace the 'at' with @)

Bill will be able to help you with the process. We are still on our 'Learners' with this :-)

Thank you for your time and support.

Brad Peadon
President: Railways and Industrial Heritage Society Phils. Inc (ANZ Chapter)

"ALONG DA RILES"

The first issue of the Philippines first all-railway newsletter is now available via membership to the RIHSPI-ANZ.
Chock full of railway guff related to the Philippines.
It is just the start, so it will gradually get better and possibly bigger.
That is not to say this one is the dogs bollocks :-)

Sections include: Powertalk, Rollingstock-Rollcall, Society News Australia and Philippines, Coverage of the new railcars being unloaded, Rail-Mail and news briefs from around the Phils.

For people in the Philippines, please contact the local chapter of RIHSPI!

RIHSPI Gets Its First Items.

Howdee,
In an exciting move, new society RIHSPI has taken delivery of their first two items for restoration, these being BUDA cars 21 and 22.
Both have been moved from Caloocan workshops to another location for restoration, one to operation and the other as a static exhibit.

Further items of interest.

RIHSPI

RIHSPI-ANZ

BUDA CARS - On The Philippine Fleetlist website.

RIHSPI -ANZ 'Australian Media Coverage'

Howdee,
While we are still in the initial stages of setting up the Australian chapter, I have wasted little time promoting who we are and what we are trying to do.

This appears in the September issue of the 'Bayanihan News', a Aussie based magazine for the Filipino community.