If you can describe it without causing trouble, that is.

What does your group regret most about any of your projects?
What do you wish you had known when you started?
Was there a source of information you wish you'd have known about?

Oh my... nope, sorry, Becky, I'm not going there!

:-)

Steve Hunter

Well, those can be quite the loaded questions.

With my group over the decades, one recurring issue has been finding a balance between the unbridled dreams and lofty expectations of the moment compared to the realities of implementation--planning, money, people and time. This is a double edged sword. On the negative it has lead to problems ranging from over-collecting to horribly underestimating the time and cost of projects that end up languishing for years or even decades. On the positive side there were a number of transformative leaps of faith that worked amazingly well considering our constraints.

I don't think many people can answer this question, since there's not general agreement as to goals and priorities. My perceptions are much different than others are in groups I am associated with...... probably because we're looking at things from different perspectives, which lead to different ideas about goals and priorities.

dave

Or as is the case in many groups, ask 10 of their staff/volunteers who have been around for any length of time what their biggest regret is regarding the organization and you'll probably get 10 very different answers. A group has to have a really good strategic plan with staff/volunteers well informed of and committed to following the plan before you have a chance of getting convergent answers to this question.

I was afraid of that, and it's a shame because sometimes we learn more from failures than from successes. Getting consensus is an art form that should be practiced far more often. When nobody agrees on what went wrong, nothing is likely to go right in the near future.

Aside from the things you can't discuss, I'm thinking of the common mistakes:

--It's old and they're giving it to us. We'll find a place to put it, but no, you can't give it to That Other Museum we don't like even if it rots in storage.

--It's a huge building, but we'll find the utility money somewhere. No, we don't want to rent any of it out.

--That would work better, but the donor wants us to fix this up instead, even though it doesn't have a lot to do with the museum's mission.

We had one a few years ago. Another preservation group had pretty much folded, there was only 1 original member left alive who had control of all the equipment that they had aquired over the 30+ years they were in operation.

We were offered all of the 'small' bits (pallet size loads or smaller) for around $20,000. We had the money but just couldn't justify spending it at the time on this. The items included many patterns for the railmotors we have, lots of brass/bronze fittings and just general railwayana from first aid stretchers to 100ton jacks etc. There would have been around 50-60 pallets!

Eventually the last member passed away and they family held an auction for what was left. As they had no interest in where the items went most of the brass/bronze was taken by scrap dealers at market prices. We did get some of the patterns we needed and a couple of air compressors but it would have been great to have had the complete collection 2 years earlier........ Looking back now, we should have taken the offer when it was there.

Cheers, Alistair.

My biggest regret was that in 1996 when I had the chance, I did not follow through on the purchase of the J&L 58. However, I rectified that situation late last year!

Other than that, there are no regrets. We steadily move forward with every day looking brighter than the day before.

during IRM's existance they scrapped many historic pieces to raise funds, they have a list of them online, but sometimes ya gotta gottas. Hopefully they are in better condition to ever let that happen again.

I am also still numbed by the indianapolis traction terminal shed scrapping.

According to legend "someone" at National Capital Trolley Museum declined the offer of CTCo 303 from DC Transit. The car is now displayed at the Smithsonian. And after almost 50 years its sister CTCo 522, which we did get separately from DC Transit as a rail grinder, is undergoing a major restoration. It is a belated happy ending.

Wesley

Actually the number of pieces of equipment scrapped by IRM purely as a way to raise cash is extremely small. I'm only aware of three, scrapped to help pay for the museum's site relocation in 1964, two MOW cranes and a duplicate steeplecab. IRM has scrapped a lot of equipment but most were acquired specifically as sources of parts, were too deteriorated to save, and/or were not historically significant to the collection.

Not a problem of our group, but when somebody who is a "key" individual in an organization gets in a huff and withdraws, "taking their bat and ball" so to speak, it can wound a group severely.
I can think of when parts are spread out between well meaning people, then one or more die of natural causes and the family has no idea or concept of "what this thing is".
How many time has that happened?

I can't speak for every member of our organization, but the failure to protect a wooden caboose and an interurban wooden trailer from the elements has left both too far gone to restore. Both were in reasonable condition in 1985, now I wouldn't set foot in either as I would be afraid of the consequences. The cupola on the caboose has actually fallen into the carbody now. I won't even look in the interurban, the sight of all that varnished mahogany would make me cry. Protect what you have, leaving it for "someday" will lead to heartache.

Losing a major volunteer or officer is one of the most frequent disasters for a group, and "he took it home to fix and we don't know where it went" happens WAY too often. To an untrained eye, that hunk of brass on Grandpa's workbench is a dollar's worth of scrap, not the flux capacitor from the Dilbert valve gear on the local steamer.

If there's a diplomatic time and place to approach the family and say "Bill took home some parts to work on, and we'd like to pick them up wheneverit's convenient for you," nobody seems to have found it yet. Do it at the funeral and it looks crude; wait till later and you arrive at the house to find it empty and the stuff scattered to the four winds. Even if there's a will, there may not be a way, because the heirs don't always know what "box of timetables" looks like and will toss it in the recycling with the old Time magazines.

There is an old adage that "if want it done right, you have to do it yourself."

Regret #1:
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In 1996 after I published a book on the Carolina & North-Western Railway, a caboose, one of its first standard gauge pieces acquired after its narrow gauge era, came up for adoption from where it had sat for years. With one Southern caboose in the side yard already, I knew what my wife's answer would be, so I introduced the very active and bonfide local county museum and the owner to each other. Amid lots of fanfare and "look what we're gonna save" articles in the local paper, I felt pretty damn good about the future of this 1880-built ex-Pennsy sidedoor caboose. (http://www.tarheelpress.com/X1601.html)

For a couple more years, day after day passed. Occasionally, I would pass by the cab and it was where it always was, never moving, never changing. Then, one day out of the blue, I drove by and a Bobcat was sitting among a pile of splinters. I was devastated. I called the owner and asked why he destroyed it, I thought he had donated it... "Nobody ever called me." Why the HELL did you not call them? I called the historical society- "Why did you not go get it??" "Nobody ever called us to come get it." I still fume when I think about it.

Fast forward a decade in 2009, and a man comes to our NRHS meeting, saying his daddy had on old boxcar on his farm and it was rotting away and we could have it. There was NO hesitation this time, lesson learned, and somehow, some way, the best little NRHS chapter agreed with me.

Atonement #1

Thus, we have tried to atone for this sin, and to that end have managed to save narrow gauge Carolina & N-W #401, narrow gauge Lawndale RR #311, West Virginia Midland Baggage #1, WV Midland Office car "Holly". narrow gauge ET&WNC boxcar #434, narrow gauge ET&WNC gang car #1, std gauge ET&WNC gang car #2, a narrow gauge log car, and a couple of other pieces.

Regret #2

I was screwed out of a caboose 10 years ago by a fast talking b-s spouting individual... Soon, another piece of very rare narrow gauge equipment came up for availablity and for years, it was sworn to me that it would be coming to our NRHS museum, both verbally and in email... No, this "friend" wasn't going to disclose who, or where this piece was, he didn't want folks "bothering" the owners. Lo and behold, the owners look to move it, and this piece ends up at another place, geographically great, but with no infrastructure, out in the open, and it really destroyed what was a great set of plans for this piece of equipment with the rest of the collection. Nothing much we could do about except move on, but there was a lot of wasted time, planning, and a huge amount of disappointment.

Moral- be careful who you trust...


Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS