There are some things going on in the railroad industry and the economy that are likely to have significant impact on any organizations wanting to acquire more "modern" equipment for preservation.

One is that any motive power that predates the emissions "tier" requirements and has been well maintained and is still supportable in the parts supply network is now in demand by regional railroads because it is cheaper to operate than power that requires update to current emissions kits when it needs overhaul. This is driving up the prices of good pre-73 locomotives.

Meanwhile the Class Ones are concerned about the potential impact of Tier 4 on locomotive prices, and they are increasingly looking at upgrade programs for Tier 0 locomotives to extend their service life. Unaltered Tier 0 locomotives are likely to be very rare in a few years, an entire generation of motive power that is likely to be extensively rebuilt.

And the price of scrap metal along with many other commodities is likely to be increasing very rapidly in the near future due to international monetary influences. I won't bother getting into the reasons "why", you can read about the current events in the news services, but I suspect that sometime in the not too distant future, a lot of retired equipment will achieve values beyond of the financial reach of most museums.

PC

I believe the South Shore little Joe out east was moved because the museum was closer to its builder, GE. It also reflects on the local people heritage and the people who built and worked on this equipment.

Nothing wrong being railroad specific about your museum interest/heritage.

Other may be out to scrounge and save whatever they can.

After thinking this one over since last night, I concluded that the original poster's ("OP") assertion is somewhat flawed. Saying that there are no "real railroad museums" because many have a specific focus is like saying that Colonial Williamsburg is not a history museum because its collections do not encompass the entirety of history, from the dawn of time, to yesterday. Or, it is like saying that the Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio is not an aircraft museum because it doesn't encompass ALL of aviation.

That being said, most museums try to limit their collections though focus and collections policies because, like all museums, there are the limitations of time, financial resources, and manpower to care for the equipment at hand. Volunteers tend to rather work on historically significant and regionally significant equipment. Providing a theme or focus is one way to manage the limitations that most museums struggle with. I tend to think that outside some notable exceptions, (IRM, MOT, NRM, etc.) that when small or medium sized museums suffer "mission drift" is when you risk loosing interest in your volunteers and maybe even the general public.

At the end of the day, I would tend to think that the general public would rather spend money to ride something like the Valley RR or Strasburg for fun, leisure, or entertainment than ride a "preserved" Amtrak Turboliner, plodding along at 20mph, that looks a lot like what they can take on Amtrak today.

That being said, I think the OP is making a valid point, whether he knows it or not (though not a new point). We do need to start thinking about how we are going to interpret the Amtrak era, and the railroad resurgence, if our various organizations have goals and mission statements that encompass that. The future, with electronics, railroads and Amtrak holding onto equipment much longer, and other issues might make preservation of today's "present" much more difficult.

Aren't many museums started by people who have a specific interest in one topic, and choose to consolidate their varied collections, and seek more material to amplify their collective knowledge? For example: The New York Central; Maine Narrow Gauge; equipment of the Long Island Rail Road, etc.?

I doubt many visitors would be charmed to pay for admission to see what they can see down at the local tracks every morning.

Long ago and far away, a "docent" at a "railroad museum" blithely dismissed a visitor's concerns thusly "One man's museum piece is another man's razor blades".

I want to add something else I haven't seen mentioned yet, which will likely play a big part in a museum owning more modern equipment especially if it is to be ran and not static display.

The more modern you get with locomotives the more computer controlled and complex they are. This entails more expense when something breaks plus more expertise on those that have to maintain and repair the equipment. Some museums may not even have the ability (knowledge, funding, programs, ect) to fix the modern stuff. Much more able (and cheaper!) to maintain and repair a GP-9 than a Genesis for most of us in the railroad preservation world.

To put this in another similar perspective: most mechanically inclined people have a much easier time working on older vehicles than newer ones without all the computer controlled stuff and emissions. Especially those of us who don't do it for a living and have Snap On scanners with all the current software. The railroad museum I'm active at has a 1992 highrail pickup that had an electrical problem that drove several members nuts for awhile before finding out the problem. A damaged circuit board in the VSS buffer module that forced the tranny (4L60E) to not shift and stay in 'limp home mode' and kept the speedometer from working. The vehicle speed sensor (vss) and ECM had been changed out first. We also have a 1976 highrail truck that is much easier to work on, no electronics, no emissions very basic and easy to trace wiring without even using a schematic.

This is the challenge we face with HTM 1329, our 1971 PCC from the Hague. It is solid state with all manner of interlocks. There is no "simple" Westinghouse drum controller. And it is a "smart car" with interlocks to be sure you follow the right steps when stopping, starting etc.

Wesley

Microprocessor systems are rapidly becoming the prevalent control technology on post-1973 locomotives on the Class Ones, relay logic will soon be a thing of the past and with it will go some of the training and technical support capabilities that used to be common in the shops. Entire fleets of Dash-twos and later production are now getting microprocessors, CSX for example has converted their SD50's to Q-Tron QES-III and is in the process of rebuilding their SD40-2 fleet with the same system in new cabs and electrical cabinets. One new feature is programmable parameters that handle all the settings and alarms with a separate software file from the basic programming. Locomotives now monitor and record several hundred analog and digital inputs and outputs, and reading and analyzing the files is an increasingly important part of locomotive troubleshooting.

PC

The definition of ‘historical’ depends ONLY on the perception of people, one at a time. An FP-40 is historical to those who know that Amtrak no longer uses them. But even to many train buffs, there’s nothing historical about one at all because it’s not “old” enough. A Steam locomotive or GG-1, it ain’t.
A personal non-RR example was seen last year. I belong to a WW2 living history group. A few of the guys agreed with me that we should acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait in Desert Storm. So we got together a small group of people who were all correctly equipped, armed and with proper uniforms and even vehicles and did displays and parades for 2011. Lots of people appreciated what we did and the vets of that war got misty eyed that someone cared. But the flipside of that was lots of other people said it was, “too soon,” and dismissed that timeframe as not yet historical. 20 years is a long time by my count, and running steam 20 years after mainline fires were dropped would be considered by most as not remotely too soon. My point is that you can’t depend on everyone agreeing that something is historic if it hasn’t been multiple generations. Heck, most archeologists would argue that NOTHING in railroad circles is “old” as such. They think in terms of centuries or millennia.
I wonder if the original message was more concerned about a TRAIN RIDE, which to me is different than the topic of a museum at all. Some places offer a train ride. Others have cold equipment behind a fence or in a building where nothing runs. Yet others are a hybrid between the two (and I’d imagine do better than the first two categories if all have similar types of items to see or ride). It’s not a fair comparison but a turboliner wouldn’t do well where I am. Here in the Puget Sound region we have a few very good tourist operations and lots of steam to be found. We also have very good Amtrak service. Nobody in these parts would want to hop on a relatively new former Amtrak equipment and bounce along a branch line at jogging speeds when they can hum along on the Cascades at 70 MPH.

RCD,

All of this stuff should sound very familiar to you, as you and I, as well as several others have had this very conversation in person.