<P>Bob Yarger's BRIEFS report on the demise of the former Union Pacific roundhouse in Sterling, Colorado touches on an important subject. There are those existing railroad museums that have eventual plans to build a roundhouse on their property. For instance, our museum (Hoosier Valley RR Museum/North Judson, Indiana) tried to secure grant monies last year to build a copy of an Illinois Central 4 stall wooden roundhouse and came very close to securing the funds. It is our intention to try again. Other museums also hope to eventually build roundhouses. Now there has been much conversation in RYPN about saving roundhouses "in place" and that's a nice thought but unfortunately, as happened in Sterling, much of the time these efforts will not be successful. Although it is bad enough to lose these historical structures, the loss is compounded by the fact that useable parts are also being destroyed! I believe we must make an effort to save what we can when a house is going to be torn down. This especially includes support posts for the roofs, beams, windows and doors. What must be done is:<br> 1. Identify those museums who have plans to eventually build roundhouses.<br> 2. Identify still standing roundhouses (especially those that are "undangered").<br>Perhaps we can get some kind of a clearing house on parts and identify those owners who may be favorable to some type of parts preservation. I realize that this would entail cooperation amongst museums rather than the normal "us first" attitude but I thing it can and should be done.<br>Any comments pro or con?<br>




midlandblb@cs.com

<P>Cooperation between museums can preserve but there are difficulties associated with cooperative ventures. Personalities and greed are the beginning. We have recently found new responsible homes for two thirds of the CTC boards we had surplus but could have placed everything three times over if everybody who responded to the offer with interest had actually come through. Kudos to South Carolina RR Museum for doing what they said they would do in an effective, professional way. <p>It seems that individiual members of some old line volunteer managed museums have a tendency to represent themselves as having the authority to make acquisition decisions without actually having the authority from time to time. Please, if this is the case, get a consensus from the governing board before pursuing acquisitions. Also, please be willing to spend what resources are necessary to actually come fetch what you have agreed to acquire in a timely way. Based on some of this kind of misinformation, a donor might agree to hold something which is them lost when actual recipients are turned down and the original one can't / won't actually follow through.<p>So, I have more CTC stuff including batteries and relays, and some signal maintainers test racks, and if somebody doesn't come up with a truck for this stuff in the next couple weeks, the CTC board will operate one of our volunteers model railroads and the test rack will be remodeled into a computer desk so I can get my door and sawhorses back. <p>Dave<br>




lathro19@idt.net

<P>All we can do is try - cooperation has been good over the years between Museum - false pride mostly.<p>Keep trying - people are gaining years and insight.<br>




lundquist@sdrm.org