How about the MLW E-2 bi-polar in St Louis: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2470065 I live reaonably close to where these ran back in the day, in WA state, and I'm just fine with it being where it is. It's very well cared for there, probably more so than if it'd been dumped somewhere in Tacoma...

Obviously any artifact "belongs" where it will do the most teaching.

The Ferdinand Magellan is closed because years of visitor traffic has degraded the interior and Gold Coast decided to preserve what is left. See the quote from their web site at the bottom of this post. My point is that its teaching value has been significantly diminished.

What if the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum told Gold Coast it would correctly redo the interior for an open display if it could have the car? To me it is a no brainer. It goes north. The guys and gals at Gold Coast did their job. Now it moves on.

But you argue, "It is/was Gold Coast's big draw. They gave it TLC for many years. They own it." Well, they are 501(c)(3) so it is easy to argue it belongs to the public. It's a piece of American History that has a story that needs to be told to as many as possible. After all it was FDR's Air Force 1. People go to Hyde Park to learn about FDR. The Magellan paints a part of his story. He took his last train ride in it to his funeral in Hyde Park.

A GG1 in Duluth? If it were the last GG1 it would belong in the northeast. Maybe it does a good job of teaching right where it is.

Seashore has two Southern California trolleys. Do they belong here? It's a mute question. They are both beyond redemption and have no teaching value. Orange Empire is over loaded with stuff anyhow.

I hope I have made my point. Putting on your teacher glasses will help this discussion.

Marty Bernard


From Gold Coast Web Site, "Ferdinand Magellan “ U.S. No. 1 Presidential Railcar has been removed from open exhibit. While the exterior of the car is still available for viewing, the interior has been secured due to the preservation needs of the car. The many years of the public passing through the railcar have taken their toll. In order to preserve the car for future generations to study and enjoy, this step has been necessary. Please check back in the near future for postings of scheduled "Behind-the-Scenes" tours of the car guided by the Museum's staff."

Many items in preservation are where they are because that is where/who was available to take that item at the time and provide a good home. If MEC 470 or BLE 643 ended up in Utah because someone there had the money to provide them a good home would that be so bad? A tough one to swallow if you live in the East but compare that to the cutting torch.

Well, I asked for "thoughts" and certainly received them!

First, this discussion is far from what I consider "foaming." As Marty pointed out, it is an academic discussion about a historical artifact and where it would best fulfill it's mission as such. The initial posting was not calling into question the Gold Coast's ability to properly preserve the car. However, the car's current "status" does speak to the heart of the matter - either we decide, collectively, whether our field is going to continue to remain a group of best intentioned, knowledgeable amateurs or evolve into a historically minded professional community which closely follows the ARM's recommended "best practices" as a means of educating the general public about the rail industry. To be clear, this would mean a complete emotional divorce from any artifact in our respective collection and instead deciding how and where it's story is best told. In other words, we would once of for all understand what the role of a 501c3 is.

I agree the Magellan is truly the "people's car." However, my argument stands that it's proper home is truly in Hyde Park. Why? Simple - it's story can be told best and appreciated by most. No longer does your prerequisite interest have to include railroads but rather American history itself. How many more families and tour buses stop at the presidential library compared to their local railroad museum? Beside the original homestead, it would be by far the largest and most impressive artifact in the collection and be treated as such. Again, could his 1936 hand-controlled Phaeton be placed in Michigan at the Henry Ford Museum? Of course. But after seeing it in it's current context one can picture Roosevelt cruising along the dirt road to Top Cottage with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the back seat. The car's story is one of freedom for a man who had very little. For FDR the Magellan was a hearse, a podium, a tank and even a "bordello" as it provided the means of seeing his long-time love Lucy Mercer. It could even be argued it was one of the first loosely compliant ADA rail cars in history. My point is this - it connects with visitors on multiple levels and is cared for by a group of professionals who can interpret it as such. It's an important piece of the FDR puzzle while in Florida its really just another piece.

I like debating you all. Is it theoretical to some degree? Of course. More importantly, it creates an academic and historical atmosphere where true preservation (through education) is at the heart of the discussion.

If your thinking, Brent, was followed to its logical conclusion, it could cause such an upheaval in the museum world as to bring the 'business" to screeching halt. Imagine the chaos that would result if every museum everywhere was compelled to go retrieve artifacts in other museums deemed to be rightly their own while at the same time they respond to the demands of other museums to return artifacts (be they locomotives or works of art or geological collections or antiquities or whatever) that those museums deem to be rightfully theirs. It makes my head ache to think it!

Let's take one example. Suppose the new museum in the depot in Cheyenne, Wyoming, thinks that it has a rightful claim on the Big Boy displayed at Steamtown. Suppose that Steamtown decides it is best to give the Big Boy up. Who pays for the move? And how would you even move such a monstrous artifact that no railroad would want to touch, let alone move? Gets really tricky real fast, doesn't it? Now multiply that by thousands upon thousand upon thousands of artifacts scattered across the globe. If nothing else, it would bankrupt every museum of every sort everywhere.

No, I think the Ferdinand Magellan should stay where its at. Our governing rule in this matter should be "where it is at is where it is at." Let's put our resources to work, not moving big pieces of historical "furniture" from room to room, but preserving well what we have right where it is at.

IMHO, of course.

Mike

Speaking of ostensibly misplaced artifacts, I would LOVE to see GCRM's ex-CZ observation car 'Silver Crescent' displayed somewhere close to the actual California Zephyr route, which, coincidentally, would make it a lot easier for me to get to see it from my home in Salt Lake City. Shoot, we even have a decent railroad museum right up the road in Ogden-- or there's always CSRM (well, maybe not) or CRM in Golden. Do I really think it SHOULD happen? Of course not- for many of the reasons already mentioned.

Mike wrote, "Our governing rule in this matter should be 'where it is at is where it is at.'" Of course, I disagree. You are totally missing the point Brent and I are making about the purpose of artifacts. Let me give you an example given you live in Colorado.

What if a rich guy in New England had bought all the Geese and had them in Bangor, Maine. That would be an education disaster. They belong right where they are close to their home in Colorado where they can be loved and shared -- where they can teach about railroading in the mountains decades ago and not in the forests around Bangor.

And if Steamtown's deteriorating Big Boy could teach more and be loved more in Wyoming, a way to get it there should and would be found.

Context is the action word, and many are forgetting that point. There are eight Big Boys, and several are located out along Union Pacific routes. Distributing 4012 and 4017 to collections of representative railroad motive power makes very good sense. In the case of the GG1's, having one in Wisconsin or Frisco, as representative pieces is a fair choice as part of a great collection.
In the case of anybody who is will to expend the money and time to preserve and conserve an artifact in immediate danger, well duh! Of course they should take possession.
I see no place or funding or desire to move the "Magellan". It should stay where it is. In context, a statue of Truman holding up the infamous newspaper could go on the open platform. A statue of FDR in his wheelchair could go inside the car. That would be context in my mind. And I am a teacher.

Marty - how many hard core railway museum volunteers do you think believes that they are actually caretakers of American history for the public and not saving "their" equipment????

Speaking of equipment that should go home, what do think about the only SD&A combine left? Should it return home?

[Seashore has two Southern California trolleys. Do they belong here? It's a mute question. They are both beyond redemption and have no teaching value. Orange Empire is over loaded with stuff anyhow.]

At one time Seashore Museum had a mission to be a national trolley museum. A truck was run all over the United States to "rescue" abandoned cars and car bodies. Seashore collected far more cars than it ever could preserve with the theory that "If we don't save it now, that car will be gone forever."

Today Seashore has far more cars than it ever can hope to preserve. Seashore does a good job of protecting cars within the limitations of money available.

A better question would be what are foreign cars doing at a museum with a mission to be an American national trolley museum? You can make an argument that some show technology, such as double deckers, that was little used in the United States.

Here are some more "thoughts"

This isn't a debating forum. You are not in a decision-making capacity at GCRM, nor at the FDR Library, so neither you nor any of us are in a position to "divorce" any attachment to said artifact.

We can talk this issue to death on RYPN, but unless the stakeholders at issue here meet, discuss and reach and agreement, it is just that, talk. Fancy, academic talk.

"We" on RYPN can "decide collectively" as much as we want to, untill we are blue in the face, but "we" cannot "decide collectively" what other organizations do with their artifacts, or how they manage their collections. Even if they are 50-1(c)(3) organizations, "we" have no FIAT power over them.

Can we learn best practices? Sure. Can we apply them to our organizations? Sure, and I recomend it. Howver, galivanting around the United States, and thinking that you know best where artifacts are best displayed, involivng organizations that you do not belong to, nor are involved with is a level of narcissim that even I do not have.

I try to change and improve what I can, and do not waste time on what I cannot. As I get older, I realize that I don't have all of the answers, in railway preservation, or otherwise, so I decide not to offer such advice.

I totally concur with this statement. This whole discussion is interesting, certainly. But it's all theoretical/academic and not based on reality. I doubt that anyone on this board could even contemplate a big, country-wide reallocation of our artifacts, although I'm sure our friends at Silk Road Transportation would love to help us all out. No, the economics, if nothing else, will prohibit any such mass movement of our rolling stock to their "correct" locations. Now, this doesn't prohibit the Ferdinand Magellan from being moved to Hyde Park (if someone is willing to pay, of course). But I doubt any other railroad/trolley museum has the financial means to do anything like a mass move of rolling stock.

I do want to point out that our colleagues at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, Connecticut have been very good at doing exactly what we're talking about. I present as evidence the Washington, DC sweeper swap between multiple museums and the movement of two cars in the Shore Line collection to sister museums in Maryland (National Capitol) and the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, the car's "home states." This was all accomplished thanks to the good offices of the Shore Line group and one Bill Wall (remember him?). I wish more Museums would emulate what Shore Line has done.

Thanks!

Make up your minds. Conflicting info.

I've been told by officers from one museum, who have made a motion to Seashore to acquire one particular "more car than it can hope to preserve," that the majority of the voting membership voted in favor of the proposal, but that one member with a majority of votes continues to block the proposal. Reportedly, this kind of situation is more common in rail museums than we may want to think.

Of course, this forum can be a debate forum. Communication is key in this world. Moreover, you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is!!! :-)

Someone starts with a "what if...?" That leads to discussion. "Why not..?" The small rock starts moving. Sometimes it keeps moving and leads to actual action. Sometime that period is MANY YEARS! Sometimes someone had to die first!

Nevertheless, first, it started with a "what if...?"

I think the Big Boy idea is a little absurd, those are owned by the organizations they were donated to by UP, so Cheyenne would have to buy the steamtown Big Boy and then get it to Cheyenne !
However we already have 4004 in the park and its a struggle looking after that one. We should however have the UP turbine 18 from Illinois...it would serve a great purpose here educationally. And the 9000 from California and.........


I own 1913 UP CA caboose 2516 and have just been offered 1909 UP CA 2455......so if i restore them at my own expense...who claims them after that ?


Mike Pannell
Cheyenne