This is a great discussion, Kelly.

Sadly, a lot of railway preservation groups are going to stick with a model that is already obsolete until it becomes too late to change course. While you mention looking for volunteer PR people, etc., I believe that fund raising is going to become the most important aspect to any museum's survival (unless you are lucky enough to have enough riders/visitors to provide a steady, heavy revenue stream, and even then fund raising is still significant). Why is fund raising the most important aspect? Because the volunteer workforce model is becoming obsolete. Sure, some groups haven't felt the pinch yet, but sooner or later they will.

The volunteer model is dying because people no longer have the time to volunteer; people no longer have a direct emotional link to the artifact that needs more elbow grease than any sane person would want to expend; and tasks have become extremely specialized due to technological advances. Cash is the great equalizer -- cash can be converted to time and work (paying someone to do the grunt jobs and paying for specialized skills). While the NRHS has gotten a lot of grief over the recent dues increase, the truth is national management recognized (just in time) that the volunteer business model is no longer viable; they've had to pull their aging membership (which still believes the volunteer business model is viable even though no one volunteers) kicking and screaming into the realities of the 21st Century. My belief is that without their changes, the NRHS would have ceased to exist in less than a decade.

Railroad museums would be wise to take some of the money they're spending on a coach that will never get finished and instead get a paid *professional* executive director on board -- perhaps several small museums could chip in and hire one person for all (assuming that said museums could give up the petty in-fighting that has fragmented the U.S. rail preservation movement). Personally, I think that the museums should invest in the technology to clone Mark Bassett so each museum could have one!

Anyhow, the key is to get some professional help, because in most cases the railroad preservation movement is trying to navigate to the future by following the stars, while the rest of the world is zipping by with GPS. By making funding a key issue, it will help museums focus on what projects really need to be done, what equipment fits into those projects and ultimately forces them to map their mission and their vision for the future. Personally, I think the best organizational set-up would have a strong executive director at the top (who may not know the difference between a K4 and and SD40, but knows every congressman and state senator for 100 miles around, and also realizes that their railroad station museum is not competing with the tower museum in the next county for visitors, but rather is competing with Disneyland, Princess Cruises, Yellowstone, the historic house down the street, the wax museum one town over and thousands of other activities where folks can drop their discretionary dollars).

I would have to agree with Steve on this one. I know as a investment banker and business man that all groups need to follow the Disney Model.

Why does Disney do so well?? Because they entertain the public when they are there. I'm not saying you put a someone on the train that sings or makes balloon animals but there has to be something more then just coming to the Museum and seeing the 1940's box car that Grandpa use to load with livestock. There has to be more then watching the scenery go by on a 1 hour train ride. The general public is looking to be entertained for there money.

What you have to remember is the 20 and 30 something all have parents that either worked in Factories or office jobs. I'm so busy with my job that when I do take vacation I try to cram as much as I can in the week I'm off so the less time I spend at one place the more I have time to go to another.

The days are gone when the US major employer is the railroad. So people my age, the 30 somethings, don't have a lot to relate too other then my past with my grandparents on the railroad. I'm one of the few that has a very big railroad family but if I talk to the folks where I work you say Steam Locomotive and they have no clue or look at you do they still run those things? Let alone do they realize a lot of there goods are traveling the country side via train.

See there is general flaw I see at most places. I think most folks have heard me say this before? Who do you market too and how do you get them to come to your place? What do you do to entertain them while there at your property? What is your claim to fame or are you just the run of the mill attraction?

Please don't be offended but your museum is competing against a lot of baseball games, football on TV, rising gas prices and a whole host of other distractions. You have to give the general public good reason to want to drive to your location. Spend some money and come away feeling happy.

You know sometimes taking a survey at the door in your musuem might help you to find out where you should be using your marketing dollars.

I'm a full believer in hiring a marketing consultant who can help you sell your product the railroad or attraction to the public. No offense to Trains and Railfan Magazine but those most likely only reach us the railfan community and not the general public. When was the last time your group took out a AD in AAA magazine or a Home and Garden magazine??

I would also have to agree the new model is going to have to be paid folks and the place to be run as a for profit business or in the standard corporate model with GAAP practices. There is something about a pay check that no volunteer could match as people will follow orders and get things done if the holy dollar is ties to the lively hood.

I have to agree that not knowing about trains has a good part of it too as an executive your busy making sure the $$ is coming in and make sure everyone stays happy while there at your attraction. Leaves less distractions on worrying about the Whistle didn't look right today on 1352 in the yard on the Monday sunlight.

Sorry folks the general public pays the bills and keeps the doors open and Disney has proven this and close to my home Cedar Point with over 3.5 million folks going to it in a season. Which to point out what do they do almost every 2 to 3 years? Build a new coaster and what can a musuem say they do or promote something new? Keep if fresh other wise people will say the "been there done that and got the t-shirt to prove it"

The new method is to entertain and people want to come away with the WOW!! feeling after they plunk down there money to see your place.

Sorry I even feel as good as some musuems are static displays just don't do it for me in today's fast pace world. I want to go in, get educated, entertained and get out. So what I'm eluding to is someone giving me a tour or having interactive displays keep me at one location vs a place card for me to read and then look at the passenger car or box car with stats. Don't get me wrong I like stats but the public has no clue about AAR Arc bar trucks or a 5 chime step top whistle.

If they rolled up to a static steam locomotive display and were able to punch a button to make it move its wheels or ring the bell they would get that warm and fuzzy feeling and exclaim that is neat and how did they do that? Pulic X would remember they rang the bell at X place and tell there friends about it but could not remember that the locomotive was 4-6-2 Pacific type like us rail community. But in the end the person got to do something which is interact with the artifact and get entertained.

May not seem like something so simple would bring the wow factor but it does and people will remember they got to ring or blow the whistle at X museum.

I'll give you my prime example is Strasburg Railroad. When you arrive on the property I feel that I have arrived at the Disney park of steam. It's amazing how I lose track of time when I'm there because I'm being entertained and my short attention span is being kept looking at other things and being bombarded with so many things to do it keeps me there wanting to try out everything and this is the same thing that happens when your at Disney or a roller coaster park. You have ride or try everything to say you did it all while you were there.

Hi,
From my own point of view, a static never changing display is as boring as they come. Once you've seen it, that's it.
If you are wishing to take photos and measurements for a model, that is a reason to come back.
I have been to the Sacramento with it's excellent displays. The one display of the car where you can feel the train move is expensive, but quite interesting.
Unless you have a display building like the RR Museum of PA where the consists may be switched around or with the under-locomotive view, T can not get enthused to see something static more than a few times. I'd like to spend my money on something new.
Although I have visited the RR Museum of PA several times, I've visited the Strasburg RR more.
I have not been out to the local Southeastern RR Museum in years since the displays are always the same. The same point of view applies to aquariums, the Civil War displays of the General and Texas, The World of Coca-Cola, and many other attractions. Once you visit them a few times, it becomes the same old thing. I never grow tired of visiting operating museums such as the Strassburg, Cumbres & Toltec, Durango & Silverton, TVRM, and so forth.
One thing that would make the static museum more interesting would be not having only self-directed tours. Having a tour guide can make the static tour very interesting. My first experience of this was the Sierra RR (after the steam facilities became part of the California RR Museum).
I have noticed since then that a tour guide can add a whole lot to the experience. I experienced this at the James K. Polk birth place in Columbia TN, Biltmore House in North Carolina and the Vanderbilt House in New York.
If a tour is not feasible, how about recordings at different spots with a button to push to play it to help the visitors out.
How about a display of a locomotive cab (steam)? Have a person there dressed in coveralls. Have an artificial fire in the firebox (look at what they can do with technology today). Have a coal scoop and show them or even let them shovel some coal into the "fire". Have a hidden screw or conveyor take the coal back to the tender every so often. (it could be a replica of a coaling tower and then it actually drops the coal with the pull of a rope. Have the throttle connected to a sound system (PFM maybe) so you can hear the locomotive moving. Add the air brake sounds. Set it up to show how injectors work and have water come out the overflow tube until the steam picks it up.
In this age of simulators, this would be a steam locomotive simulator with (hopefully) less maintenance than the actual thing.
Same could be done for the cab of a diesel. If operating a real diesel costs say $100 per hour (for those with be-an-engineer programs), maybe a $5-10 fee for the simulator would be good. I think it might be a good way to tie in an understanding of the railroad jobs with "actual" experience and enhance the understanding of seeing a static locomotive with the experience of having "run" it in the simulator.
Food for thought.
Doug vV

I am not convinced that volunteers are drying up due to nationwide demographic trends. There are a lot of retired people with good health and disposable income. Some of them even like trains. I have seen evidence that organizations can can continue to recruit volunteers if they are producing results and taking care of their membership.

I was trying to say in my previous posting that people generally want to like railroad museums, and those that offer rides have a lot going for them, but this has created many problems in the long run. Revenue from ticket sales, and a past of relatively plentiful volunteers has created some unhealthy dependencies.

The thing is, in order to grow and attract a wider audience, railroad museums need more than volunteers, and the folks listed by nathansixchime, ("PR people, media gurus, educators, strategic planners, etc") are generally not available for free.

Some groups may luck out and get some free time out of talented members of these professions, or alternately from a recently retired individual, but this is not a viable model for getting important stuff done.

I think most railroad museums would be well served to come up with business plans that will allow them to hire professional directors with significant fund raising responsibilities. My guess is that many groups want to keep going as they have been, and maybe they will continue to do kinda okay for some time to come, but I think our movement would be better served by having more professionally trained and experienced people involved in planning, design, and management.

Perhaps we need to reconsider some restoration projects today in favor of building an infrastructure of professionalism for tomorrow.

Also, just because I can not let this pass, if the "Disney Model" that steamfan779 refers to means sophisticated and intelligent design with a focus on the visitor experience, then I am all for it. If it means ersatz-historical edutainment with balloon stacks and train robbers, then I am not. Although there are some tangential relationships, museums are not amusement parks. We have an obligation to be faithful to our collections, the public, and history.

Folks, the problem is industry-wide. I manage 4 museums, An historic House Museum, Pioneer museum, 1850s Chinese Temple, and a Tool Museum. I am only 30hr/wk, there is one paid guide for the Temple, 25hrs/wk, everything else has been kept open with volunteers, but they are dying off and moving away. Despite efforts to recruit new ones, we can't stay ahead of the attrition rate. Also attendance is down, greatly at the house museum & the pioneer museum. Chinese tour groups help keep the temple up, and the tool museum is still marketed by its founder (also since it is new, it is still a local curiosity).
Finding folks with time to volunteer is very difficult, even though we only ask for 8 hours a month. Fining ways to make the museums interesting for today’s visitors is challenging. Recently a senior citizens’ tour director called and wanted to know if the Temple had interesting things to do, or was it “just one of those look at it and say wow” museums. Being a still-functioning temple, it is mostly a “wow, lookit that” place.
Twenty years ago the controversy was “smoke & mirrors” at the museums, now we are expected to have the “smoke & mirrors,” but many of us don’t and in some cases the nature of the facility doesn’t allow a change. If the general public requires entertainment, then house museums and many history museums will not survive. Society is undergoing a fundamental change, and I suspect that historic preservation may be in extreme danger.
Any answers out there?

We were discussing that very subject at our last board meeting. How do we tailor our educational programs to the requirements of the schools, so that a field trip to our facility would help the teacher meet his or her teaching requirements.

I visit many museums and see some of them missing opportunities.

The locomotives, whether steam or diesel, are the equipment that fascinates the public the most. Yet a lot of museums use the fantrip approach that a locomotive is something to take pictures of, and after the visit you get on the bus or in your car and leave. The cutaway 0-6-0 at Steamtown is one of the best uses I have seen made of a steam locomotive that would have required major work to run again. The diesel roadswitchers and switchers with full side frame mounted handrails are a wonderful teaching tool, ideal for opening all the hood doors and doing a show and tell session, but very few people use them that way. A switcher or roadswitcher would also be ideal for removing all the carbody doors from one side to make a fully visible display of the machinery.

There seems to be a prevailing mindset that equipment needs to be displayed "complete" or it isn't worthy of display at all. Taking that approach overlooks some opportunities to produce excellent cutaway exhibits.

I also notice a failure to adapt commercially available model railroad products to suit museum needs. Perhaps they get overlooked because they are not "historic", but in many cases they could provide a cheap and cost effective look at areas of railroad operations that are otherwise difficult to tour. They also provide a point of interest for younger visitors and model railroaders, and a way to get members of the local model railroad club involved in your activities.

Two examples of commercial model railroad equipment use that immediately come to mind as dioramas are the interior of a locomotive shop and a way to present railroad marine operations. In the latter case, Walthers produced much of what is needed including an authentic railroad tugboat model, although some of the kits are off the market now. Overland Models produced a very nice cutaway locomotive model of the Worlds Fair GP35, I have yet to see one displayed at a museum. Perhaps not historic enough? Well the locomotive manufacturers produced locomotive models too, very few of them make it into museums either.

But this is a strange world, isn't it. We worship foreign steam experts but almost completely overlooked many of the US designers of steam and diesel locomotives, some of whom lived right around the corner from members of the local NRHS chapter and were never even invited to a meeting. Years ago I exchanged letters with a gentleman who was a locomotive builder's chief engineer during the 1940s. He was amazed when I showed interest in what his company had done, nobody else had ever even bothered to seek him out.

Educational programs? You need information to support educational programs. One way to get that information is to find and talk to the people who built the equipment while there are still a few of them left to talk to.

Does that even make it to the list of priorities?

That's what I thought too.

MX (Obviously Not My Real Name)

We are in the middle of attempting to develop an educational program. So far we have found the key is to find an education professional who has experience with the curriculum in your local school districts, region or state (in our case it is a state level thing). We have identified several areas where we can offer unique opportunities to highlight and enhance parts of the current required curriculum. The consultant we have has written up a brief outline of what we can provide at several different grade levels (elementary, middle school, high school, and even adult education). In addition to the "field trip" aspect, we will offer in-school opportunities that may not have the field trip - the idea is to provide an educational service.

I hope to be able to expand what we are doing here in the coming months. Right now I have a number of grant requests in front of various Foundations. The good news is that the Foundations I am talking to want to give money to organizations providing some sort of educational benefit to the community. These are Foundations that normally do not fund historic preservation so I am not "diverting" money that otherwise would go to nuts and bolts restoration.

Education does not have to end with children, while we are not there yet, I envision cooking classes in our dining cars as well as some possible partnerships with local colleges and universities.

Since an education program means people, the intent is to use a portion of the money to have a paid employee - something we feel is necessary to create a year long sustainable organization.

With which museum are you associated?
I would first offer that you find three progressive teachers who have a track record of writing innovative curriculum. State awardees or Presidential Awardees would be a good choice. You state education association or Department of Education can help you. You want a teach from Elementary, Middle, and High school levels. A social studies or science teacher is a good bet. Instead of guessing at what you should provide, these people will tell you what they need and what will keep the kids focused.

In short- You are looking for energy transfer. How does a Diesel differ from a steam locomotive? What is the best way you can makes that obvious and understandable? Children are NOT intuitive!
How did people live when traveling by train? How was it made elegant? What about work crews?
What kind of freight did railroads haul? How was it hauled? What kinds of cars were utilized? How were they special?
How were trains controlled? Why didn't they crash? How were signals controlled?
Why do trains stay on the track? How do trains change tracks? What happens when a train jumps the track?

You are not speaking to railfans, nor are you likely to convert the masses into railfans in a single visit. Give the kids plenty to do, with lots of permission to touch and manipulate real artifacts. Take them for a ride on a motor car, or let them try a velocipede. Kids hate to be spoken to like they are idiots, since most kids are extremely smart. Talk to them in age appropriate language, but take them seriously.

When a teacher schedules a visit, send her or him a packet of pre-teaching materials which your consultant teachers have developed. Five lessons including math problems, diagrams, a crossword, a coloring book, word and essential terms lists, are all useful. I develop a checklist for my students before we visit a museum, because I want them to be on the look out for specific pieces of information.

Lastly, if you have no operable equipment, find a way to develop some, but in the meantime, have plenty of hands on stuff and not just "pap" that simulates educational activities.

Let the rest of us know what works for you and what feedback you get.

I was out to the Western Railway Museum on Saturday also. It was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky. We are lucky that it doesn't get much better than that between winter rain storms.

But we had people from the Track Dept working on a new switch. The Shop had several people at work on various projects.

The Archives had several people at work also. And of course the Operations Department was running street cars and Interurbans. Not a lot of folks on the cars; but families out having a good time in Northern California.

Isn't that what museums are all about?

Ted Miles

Unfortunately, that's the problem. Lots of folks crowding onto the cars should be what the museum is about. None of the other good stuff matters if there isn't support - and I don't mean to suggest WRM isn't getting support or lacking in any way, this was Ted's illustration.......but probably reflects a pretty universal reality.

What could put mass quantities of butts in seats that isn't being done? If we can't answer that we need to find out.

Why should we care about the track work and restoration and playing train if it isn't worthy of at least as much community patronage as NETFLIX gets?

Let's not set the bar too low and feel good about reaching it.

dave

Is the Museum concept dead? I’m unconvinced that the majority of preservation groups are actually museum’s even if they have the word in their title.

First and foremost, many are membership organizations that have more in common with a local Moose Lodge or Masonic Temple. These organizations provide charitable, educational and other benefits to society, from funds often raised from the operation of community events. But they are basically fraternal. Like fraternal societies, marginal preservation organizations limp along because the sale of a money-pit lodge building (or wooden car or locomotive) would be a disaster to the social structure of the organization. Never mind that the roof is falling-in. Never mind that the elements take their toll which makes everything look ratty and thus it becomes increasingly unappealing to potential visitors or volunteers. Never mind that newer generations have different ways of volunteering, learning and contributing.

Second, most historical groups are collections rather than museums. There is a great difference. Recently at IRM, a woman who had visited several display barns asked, “So where is the museum?” It’s a good question, even though IRM is better than average at interpretation. If your signage or docent presentations only explains each piece of rolling stock, you have collection, not a museum. Collections rightfully never get much respect. Donors, particularly corporate and foundation sponsors, hate them. True museums are several cuts above the local doll museum, the salt-shaker collection or the antique car show.

Museums are not dying, but there are far too many. In Illinois the number of historical societies with displays has doubled in ten years. The number of science museums and art galleries has probably tripled and the growth in children’s museums has been exponential. The house museum growth rate is staggering and the first preservation option mentioned for any threatened old structure is to make it a museum. Most have the problems listed above and, while they may not have long-term viability, they suck visitors, donors and volunteers away from other venues. This over-proliferation is a bigger threat than the X-box, and forgive my heresy, but there also seem to be more railroad museums than the market can bear.

This is a very good discussion. One thing that has not been noted however is that visitors to rail museums have changed over the years. In many cases no one in the museums seems to have noticed that the audience has changed. Too often it's a case of same-old same-old. What appealed to the public twenty years ago no longer works. What is needed desperately is market research.

For example I became involved in rail preservation at an operating trolley museum in 1958. Streetcars had been gone about ten years at this location. Probably 80% of the visitors were on a nostalgia trip. They wanted to show their children what took them to the amusement park in summer or they wanted to relive the experiences of their youth. The other 20% were railfans or enthusiasts of one type or another.

Today the nostalgia market is dead, literally. On a museum wildflower excursion train about ten years ago I asked a carload of people how many had ever ridden on a rail transportation vehicle of any kind. Less than about 35% said yes. This in spite of the fact that San Francisco Municipal Railway has operated rail transit continously for 95 years and Bay Area Rapid Transit moves hundreds of thousands of people daily. The train was pulled by a GE 44 ton locomotive but I still kept getting asked if a steam engine was providing power.

The railfan market also is way down. At the Western Railway Museum today less than about an estimated 10% of the visitors are railfans or enthusiats. (Precisely defining or identifying a railfan is difficult at best. Only a few are obvous foamers with lots of badges on their caps and eager to tell us everything we are doing wrong.) I understand that similar figures are seen at many other rail museums. About 85% of our visitors live within 20 miles of the museum. About 51% of our tickets issued last year were for children. To most visitors we are just a train ride, Disneyland North.

Now there's nothing wrong with catering to Disneyland North customers to raise money for equipment preservation and restoration. But that raises another questiion. All our equipment has a limited life. Eventually it will wear out past the point of feasible repair. An example is one trolley museum with five cross bench open cars in its collection. It has not been able to operate an open car for the public for probably ten years.

Should a museum operate the life out of its equipment for the benefit of Disneyland North customers?

I for one am a great believer in the power of volunteers to successfully be a part of any operation. I think that the management of any given operation has more impact on its success than whether or not is is all volunteer, all paid staff, or a mixture of the two. In this area there are 4 organizations actively involved in some sort of rail preservation. The N&W Historical Society has built an excellent archive of the N&W and Virginian Railways and is in the process of becoming officially sanctioned by Norfolk Southern Corp. as an official corporate archive. It is an all volunteer organization and is financially stable. The O. Winston Link Museum is a subsidiary of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. It is also financially stable and sponsors or hosts a number of special events each year. It operates with a small paid staff and a fairly large group of volunteers who also participate in it's management. The Roanoke Chapter NRHS had a very high profile in the past in this area as one of the founders of VMT (prior to a major political rift with the museum in 1985) and as a major equipment provider and trip sponsor with the NS Steam Program prior to 1994. The Chapter has 6 operational passenger cars, (5 currently in service at Spencer) 2 more awaiting restoration, 2 seviceable (FRA carded) diesels, and a fairly large freight car collection. In recent years, the Chapter has quietly raised over $600,000 towards the restoration of Roanoke's fire damaged Virginian Ry. station. It is all volunteer, financially stable, and has an operating endowment fund. It has just earmarked a substantial amount of funds towards another potentially major project in this area, and last week voted to turn over it's archives to N&WHS. (The Chapter does have a fairly large number of active and retired railroaders in it's membership) The Virginia Museum of Transportation is essentially all paid staff, with an "outside" Board. For information about VMT, see the recent "More Interesting Things in Roanoke" thread here on RYPN. In this area at least, the "staff/volunteer" and "volunteer" models are working well. Recently, in response to comments from Norfolk Southern, the four organizations have formed a coalition group to work together on future projects. My other addiction is Civil War reenacting, which is an entirely volunteer activity where the volunteers actually pay to participate. Yet on any given weekend, at least in the Mid-Atlantic area, you can find events with several hundred to several thousand reenactors within driving distance. The key to successful volunteer participation is giving volunteers projects that they want to participate in, allowing them to be a part of the decision making process, and showing them appreciation for their efforts. Do that, and you will be able to recruit the next generation to carry on your mission. A management that realizes that has a great resource at it's disposal. One that doesn't is doomed to failure.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=200847


everyone has a purpose in life, even if it is only to serve as a bad example (Attila the Hun)

"The house museum growth rate is staggering and the first preservation option mentioned for any threatened old structure is to make it a museum"
And that has been the exact center of many discussions in museum news reports. The problem is, quite often this "solution" ends up in a few years with the house museum failing, and the "saved" structure going on the market again, or falling into disrepair. Sometimes sale of such structures for adaptive reuses provides a better long-term preservation than the museum "solution"
The proliferation of museums does not match the declining attendance of such facilities. The only growth appears to be in natural history museums, especially those that cater to the growing "Green" segment.
S'
David D.
Still with no answers, but many questions!