What's happening with the California State Railroad Museum?

First I hear they have sent a big Santa Fe Diesel electric car down to Arizona where it used to be operated.

Now I am told they have given a Northwestern Pacific caboose to the Carter Brothers Society. How much more California can the NWP be? A shortline that was entirely within the state?

And these departures after they have the transfer table in the Southern Pacific railroad yard running again. They can get more equipment into the builldings than ever before in their history.

Ted Miles

I can't speak specifically about the CSRM or their collection policies. However in any mature museum, availability of space per se shouldn't be the tail wagging the dog of good collections management.

Museums should perform periodic reviews comparing the collections they posses with their collection policy. They may even refine the collection policy over time. As a result, occasionally items previously accessioned may be deemed surplus, deaccessioned, and new homes sought for them.

Yes, the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources recieved a North Western Pacific narrow gauge caboose last Saturday, along with a steel 4 wheel side dump and the remains of a West Side Lumber connected log car.

All had been declaired surplus to their needs. The museum also had a Pacific Coast Railroad narrow gauge caboose which serves that role in their collection, and recently recieved a restored WSLC connected log car from a private collector in good presentable condition.

In addition to the Santa Fe railcar they have also given one diesel from the Santa Fe Collection to IRM (I believe it was the Dearborn switcher, and it hasn't moved yet) and have given an number of pieces including two wrecking cranes, a SP baggage, the Krass Maffie (sp?) diesel, two box cars, two flats, and two SP commute cars to the Niles Canyon Railway.

They have lost their outside storage space, but gained inside storage space. They are considering additional outside off site storage. Generally they are evaluating the entire collection, and how it might be used and displayed, and making choices. From what I have seen of the process it seems well thought out.

Randy Said:

"They are considering additional outside off site storage..."

Please, Please, PLEASE tell they're not considering sending #2925 and #5021 to some off-site storage purgatory where they'll be worse off than they are now (if such a thing is possible!) These locos need to be INSIDE and (cosmetically) RESTORED!!!

Building a new structure for storage in Sacramento would be a hard thing to do, with land prices so high, let alone political issues. I would hope someday the management will see the value in the second museum site at Jamestown as an 'easy' place to build a good indoor museum and add to their storage space. That facility could use more indoor storage space as it is. They could also get flat, permitted and developable land (at track level) from Sierra Pacific at the Sonora mill site and build a basic storage barn pretty easily, however it does spread the collection.
O. Anderson

All of this is true, of course. Which is why I'd never donate anything to any museum.[/i]

I believe over collecting is the biggest challenge facing history museums today, especially inappropriate collecting. Just because it is old and somehow connected with a railroad (or insert area of interest here), does it warrant preservation at a museum?

Instead of condemning all institutions as poor stewards, perhaps those who would have otherwise refused to consider a donation to a museum could consider how an institution's collection and mission are related. As they evaluate a potential recipient, they could also consider how an object they are considering for donation fits the museum's stated goals:
-Donating a GG1 to a museum dedicated to California railroad history is a disservice to both the donor and the museum.
-Donating (or transferring) a caboose built by a particular builder to a museum dedicated to that builder is likely serving the interest of everyone, especially the general public and our society.
-Donating the third or fourth example of a particular rail car, lantern, or whatever to a museum is not likely to serve the museum's best interest.

Here is another consideration: if a prospective donor has an object in poor condition, what can they do to help the potential recipient responsibly steward it? Could the donation include a collection care endowment?

And another consideration: the cost of enclosed building space for a single railroad coach that has basic environmental controls and security is likely to exceed $250,000. There will be ongoing costs to operate and maintain the building too.

Museums should not accept objects they cannot reasonably expect to store, care for and exhibit. Most curators agree that one well cared for exhibit is better than two that are not. That's one of the considerations that can lead to a deaccession.

All the best to everyone in discussing this and other thoughtful topics that truly help improve professionalism.

--Richard

Many collectors share the same sentiment and will not leave their collections to Museums. My famous war-hero step-dad had a bad experience with a museum and suspended the distribution of his holdings which were mostly related to his own heroics, letters from Presidents and other MOH men, autographed baseballs by dead hall of famers and the like. Well, now he's gone. My mom is ready to throw everything out because she does not have the time or energy to deal with it. I convinced her that if she chose to toss it, better that a museum make that choice as they are more qualified to discern its historical value. Had my step-dad donated it all to a museum, it would have saved my mom a lot of heartache and consuming, backbreaking work. If you decide to "protect" your holdings from the museum community, be prepared to have your heirs throw the stuff in a dumpster.

Boy, I don't know how many horror stories of that happening I have heard. No. 1 example being the Paul Spence locomotive collection that STILL has preservationists crying in their beverage of choice over 50 years later!

I belong to a Yahoo group on South African Railways. A couple of folks there expressed alarm at the declining state of South African Railways, and their heritage/museum operations. They are now trying to contact the National Railway Museum in York to see if they would be interested in acquiring their personal collections.

What disturbs me greatly is when I see a museum decide to change it's focus, and suddenly what was appropiate for it's mission statement no longer is. The chemical plant I used to work for held a large steam pump for a museum in Dallas for several months. My e-mails to the individual I was working with to come pick it up went unanswered; after sitting around as an eyesore during that time, it was sent to scrap. It turns out they changed their name; the name change indicated that their focus had moved away from "steam" to strictly "railroad." Makes me wonder what will happen to the shed with the package boiler, whistle collection, gauge collection, and steam pumps; especially if they do move to another location.

Much more alarming is what happened at the Henry Ford Museum in the 1980s. Henry Ford himself had acquired a huge collection of agricultural and steam machinery, which was restored and placed on display in the museum. Apparently during the 1980s; the museum decided to make the museum more "hip" and "modern" to appeal to a broader range of the public, and in the process of reforming itself; gave away or sold off many items in the collection to other museums and private individuals. (What's more, many pieces were allowed to be hauled away for scrap during the WWII metal drive.)

I have five steam pumps I have collected; the largest weighs about 500 lbs, plus some other steam pump related material. My wife and family have asked me "what are you going to do with them?" The truth is, I don't really know at times -- they are too small and un-interesting to be a museum unto themselves; if I sell or give them away to other individuals, they may be no better off than if I keep them, and why donate them to an area museum when they don't seem to fit the mission and collection policies of any of them. And if they did; what would stop that from changing, and the pumps being sold off or scrapped at a later date? So I just hang onto them; right now, two of them have been riding around in the back of my pickup truck until I get a cart large enough to store them on; I will then tarp them over and keep them on driveway. I may then haul them to some local machinery shows if and when I have time.

But, as pointed out, if something happens to me, then they become a burden to my family, and may well end up scrapped. I don't have any easy answers; we all just try to be the best stewarts of what we have for as long as we can.

I think the conflict is between our personal (over?) valuation of our collections vs. the demand or need for those same items in a permanent museum setting.

I have always advocated that one should take time to work closely with one or more curators to see what they are interested in from the items you have collected over the years. Take time to visit the prospective museum facilities and look for evidence of a collections policy, collections care, and cataloging.

Wesley

Guys,

Thank you for a good series of thoughtful replies, which is what I was hoping for when I asked the question.

One item that has not been covered is that politics can play a roles in the policy of government run museums, usually running over well thought out policy developed by professional curators.

i think a larger museum campus would have been much more interesting for the Museum of Technology than the condos that the developer brought in by the State wants to build there!

Ted Miles

As collectors, we should bear in mind that an item that may not be suitable or workable for one museum collection might work well with another institution.

Here are some interesting and rare items that I acquired from a gentleman who was indeed concerned that his uncle's collection would be destroyed after his passing. Among a large number of items that I purchased from him were these paper items. Some of the items such as magazine articles are pretty much worthless. Other items such as prints of the locomotives that the owner made are valuable in their own right-this gentleman built live steam models of the W&A locomotives General, Texas and Yonah along with vintage passenger and freight cars.



This is the only pass from the Civil War United States Military Railroad that I have ever seen.



This is the cover letter that accompanied the letter of acknowledgment signed by William Whitten, railroad agent at Tunnel Hill, Georgia from 1850-62 and 1866-77. He was a Confederate sympathizer and imprisoned during the war. Upon his release, he had to take an oath of allegiance to regain his former position as an employee of the state owned Western and Atlantic Railroad.



This is an Official United States Military Telegraph Service message, received at Stevenson, Alabama in 1863 related to troop movements.

In my case, parts of my collection will be donated to museums deemed appropriate for each specific item. Items relating to the Western and Atlantic Railroad will be donated to state museums or historical governmental bodies in states which the railroad passes through. I will do what I can to ensure that the items do not end up in private hands.

Good point, but I know of many non-RR related museums who often trade and sell off items that have been donated to them to pay their bills. THAT is why I'd never donate anything, except maybe to a large museum with a policy that forbids them to get rid of most donations (they're out there, you just need to know where to look). A very well known military museum once caught wind of a historical item in my collection and invited me to come up and, "Look through our warehouse and see if we have anything you'd like in exchange for it," (exact quote). All I could think of is many of the items suggested were things donated in good faith by families of veterans. I've seen that too. As a WW2 US collector, I have had people just hand over uniforms, paperwork, weapons, everything but vehicles to me at displays I've been a part of. Some of it was quite valuable, too!

This is something that I have thought about for years. I have collected locomotive builder's and number plates since 1963. I have plates in my collection that were donated to Edaville that were auctioned off in the early 1990's. We appraised the Gerald Best plate collection for the Smithsonian back about 1980. Out of about 275 plates, 25 are on display and the rest are stored in a warehouse. I have told my family that I want everthing sold to private collectors and they can care for the items for another 30 years. Hope that there is still some interest when I am gone. They have provided me with a link to a steam era that I largely missed. I have simply seen that many museums are better off with cash donations than collection donations. They can only display a few items in each specialty.