There's lots to think about on this subject.

For one.. let's look at the Smithsonian. They don't focus on one region, but rather on railway transportation in general. A CTA "el" car fits perfectly in their collection right alongside a Southern Railway steam locomotive.

Then there is a regional museum that displays a piece of equipment that did not operate in the region, but is the same type that did. A good example was the #5288 that was formerly on display at TVRM - while it operated in Canada, it was very similar to the type of passenger steam locomotives that operated in Chattanooga.

And let's look at PCC cars... if your city didn't have one, ok great - here is an example of a PCC car - many cities tried to "modernize" the streetcar by purchasing PCC cars, here in XYZ town, they did not for xyz reason.

I'm on the board of our local historical society and this describes our collections situation rather well. There are a handful of railroad items (station sign, lanterns), but they're lost in a dizzying jumble of farm implements and wagons and furniture and even a mock-up of a general store, all piled up without explanation or context in a non-climate controlled building that is literally an old tobacco barn. The collector/hoarder in me loves it (there's so much amazing stuff!), but it's not good. Thankfully our curator and other board members now recognize that we have a problem and have begun looking for outside guidance on collections management, which is the first step.

-Philip Marshall

So, instead of throwing stones and mockery, let's look constructively.

How does the "McRailroad Museum" happen?

One of two factors:
*A local history museum--the county, town, city, etc.--morphs into a partial rail museum. This is usually the result of a local depot becoming the local museum.
*A local railfan group develops a local railroad museum, either 1) to preserve a unique local railroad history (see: Nevada Northern, C&TS, WW&F, Pioneer Tunnel, etc.) or to put a general rail museum in THEIR backyard, so one doesn't have to go to Sacramento, Strasburg, Union, Chattanooga, Frisco, Denver, Baltimore, Orbisonia, etc. to "learn/see railroad history" or restore things. (This has a tendency to go hand in hand with the mindset demanding "when will they send UP 4014/etc. through my hometown [even though it's not even on the UP!]?")

The latter was often, but not always, at the instigation of NRHS/R&LHS/etc. Chapters back in the days pre-internet, for better or for worse.

The hit list of all the "must-haves" outside and inside ALL revolve around one central aspect: AVAILABILITY. Railroad would often be eager to donate redundant locos and cabooses if asked nicely "back in the day." It part of why SP and AT&SF steamers are scattered all over the West. Other pieces became available as railroads cleared out yards of old boxcars and camp car Pullmans. (I know of one museum that allegedly diverted a cut of FIVE camp-car Pullmans to their siding as they were rolling to the scrapyard....) The GG1s were made available to "qualified bona fide non-profits" for $5,000 each, over a scrap value of $17K+ back then. PCCs got liquidated by places like Toronto, Philadelphia, etc. and bought up cheap and on spec--and the Chicago "L" cars are almost mechanically identical, in most respects, so they're nice parts sources. The Lackawanna MUs and CN commuter coaches were the last-ditch chances to acquire clearstory cars "of old."

Then as you reach "critical mass" and appear competent, and start leading school groups through, the donations come, fast and heavy. Hardware galore--lanterns, whistles, signals, you name it--from estates and liquidating collections as tax write-offs, or just to get rid of it. Models, often in display cases or with a layout. Granddad's old uniform. Books, always the same dozen or two "coffee table books" from the mall stores or the "must-haves" of the local railroad(s) (unless they are rare and valuable, of course). Photo albums.

In all the midst of this, however, there is no curation. Nobody steps forth to decide that "maybe we don't need those books, we don't have an effective library...." Someone points out that the caboose isn't local and is completely gutted, and others say "so what? Paint it as a billboard for our museum!" Someone takes the initiative to discard hundreds of uncaptioned, blurry snapshots, most not even railroad subjects, and another member walks by the trash can and screeches "THEY'RE JUST THROWING HISTORY INTO THE TRASH CAN!!!"
Amidst all this, the rust accelerates..... No one leads a committee to paint the Pullmans or try to see if the Plymouth can run....... membership declines due to a variety of factors...... No one's willing to say "no" to another estate donation, and it, too, is stashed in the metal heat/cold box called a "boxcar".......

.... and then one day your efforts are trashed as a "McRailroad Museum" by a well-meaning writer.

So what is the alternative? How do we assist the ones on this "death spiral" track? How do we offer practical advice and assistance without being viewed as "bossy outsiders that want to take what we have worked so hard to save"?

There are possible approaches. I mentioned underwriting maintenance and restoration by locals. There have been cases where outsiders have had success, such as one operation buying the Pullman (or two) off the "back track" for restoration to operation elsewhere. As far back as 1959 the Baltimore Chapter NRHS saw fit to sell its Maryland & Pennsylvania coach to the then-fledgling Strasburg Rail Road, followed by another local group selling its "repatriated" Mack Railbus to them years later. It becomes incumbent upon larger museums/operation to not only make themselves a better "home" for such preservation efforts, but more importantly to follow through and prove themselves worthy.

We can also promote training, or insight into "the bigger picture." We don't need to send every museum board out to get a Master's or Doctorate in Museum Studies, but we DO need more effort put into collection management, curation, and organization. Often, that could mean bringing in a local "consulting group" from a local university as a project--but this only works if the outsiders are listened to. Too often, the "constructive" suggestions--sell off the non-local lanterns or loco, for example--are met instead with indignation, hostility..... or just plain silence.

So: what has your museum or operation done of late?

What is wrong with having a non-local lantern or locomotive as part of a collection?

I dunno. Do you want to be a LOCAL railroad museum--or just a random collection of railroad stuff in a random railroad station on a random line?

On the one hand, no one cares if the kerosene-burning lantern in your O. Winston Link-style night photo shot is from the Norfolk & Western or the Newfoundland Railway (the latter was my lantern in a 1995 NRHS Convention night shot--the only one I had with an intact lantern pot, and I refueled from Strasburg's own kerosene supply).

On the other hand, when you're trying to make people care about your local station and rail line, what works better--a random lantern from anywhere, or a lantern (or ticket punch or tool or baggage tag or uniform or whatever) that quite likely walked through the place 50-100 years ago? "Your grandfather had that...."

If you have no other lantern, it'll do in a pinch. But it also need not be that incredibly scarce lantern from the Elmira, Corning & Northern that will sell for thousands at some railroad auction, unless you have great security.

I dunno. Depends on the mission and/or goals of the organization as well as what is available to them how it tells a story.

I can think of many railroad museums that have excellent dining car china displays that show off the various patterns used across the country, not just on the railroads that operated in that area. If it's ok for dining car china, why is it not ok for ticket punches or lanterns?

If you have ticket punches of different styles from different railroads, highlight the local one and show how other railroads used different styles.

I think where Sandy's going is appropriateness of the mission being reflected in the collection. There's sort of a tendency to assume that sensible groups will want to define their mission in a narrower perspective with locality, line or regionalism being a major defining factor. [color=#000040][/color](ignore color changes I sneezed). Nothing wrong with a broadly based collection of lanterns, china, ticket punches or locomotives (MOT St Louis defines a national scope in their mission and collections policy) if that's what you want to be provided you can afford to do it well. Less sensible is the idea of trying to shoehorn a mission and collections policy based on justifying the junk you already have laying around. The mission defines the story you want to tell, and the scope of the story depends as lot on the resources you have available, so some limitation is prudent and sustainable unless you want to be part of the "everything from anywhere so nothing specifically good without adequate income to maintain it doomed to a slow painful death" brotherhood.

Funny you should mention them. Looks like they 'violated' their own scope to me:
https://tnmot.org/product/superhornet/
(that link is slightly old, the fighter is now on site at the bottom of the parking lot)
Fighter jets are not transportation......

The bottom line, is you need to have a focus, or you'll be all over the place. You'll absolutely be drowned in everything from wreck cranes to a dog eared collection of model RR magazines, and you have to prioritize and make sense of it.

Does your place look like a flea market?
Does your place look like a scrap yard?
Does your place look like it's abandoned?
Does your place look like a museum?
Don't answer for yourself, go find 10 random people, and ask them!
I speak from experience.....

There's nothing wrong with it, as long as keeping those items are in accordance with your museum's Collections Management Policy.

Having a curated collection is how you keep focused, which is an important step toward conserving resources - be it time, volunteers, or funds.

-otto-

I will dare to say that MOST of the places perceived as "McRailroad Museums" would have no idea what a "Collections Management Policy" even is--and it shows. And if you try to tell them and guide them to the right paths, there's too good a chance that you will be condemned as "an outsider trying to tell us how to run our place!", or someone trying to take advantage of them and steal that lantern/boxcar/tractor for yourself...........

Not every local museum, NRHS Chapter, county historical society, etc. will have the ability (or even the proper motivation, sadly) to hire, train, or recruit as a volunteer a "trained" museum specialist, collections management consultant, etc. And I hate to say it, but at least a couple of such "academics" in Museum Studies or the like I have met or known come off as socialized as the Sheldon Cooper character on "The Big Bang Theory": inflated "know-it-all" egos full of themselves. This doesn't help matters when a "local" museum is a project of many people's sweat, toil, funds, and tears.

Every so often, a question comes up about policy and procedure, and I have no clue about the right course of action. So I'll google, "Best practices for museum policy ____" and several links come up with FREE resources that are more or less templates you can copy and paste to at least get you started on the right path. You'd be surprised how much stuff is out there available at no cost.

For railroad museums specifcially, I'd also suggest the resources from the Heritage Rail Alliance: https://heritagerail.org/

-otto-

I think this entire topic is offensive to people who give their time to historical endeavors as a whole, thoughts like this lead to people staying at home instead of volunteering their time at the local Museum. Am I spending my hours at a McMuseum as a non-member who has only 8 hours a month to donate? These Museum do their part in preservation, PCC parts saved for years may help XYZ project down the road.
Putting to task or discounting any preservation effort makes those such as myself possibly put their time to for profit preservation versus non-profit i.e. should spend my time restoring this collectable ABC at XYZ museum or I could do it myself, and put on ebay/take to XFZ show to sell, collect a profit from a collector and still feel "good" that object is "saved" or even worse I can just sit at home a watch football and save on gas and not deal with reading online how my group is a joke/McMuseum.

I am agree that this topic was maybe of been posted in response to as PMC stated:
viewtopic.php?p=342481#p34248

And here is the classic "take offense," "indignation and hostility" reaction exemplified.

The plain fact is that there's no "inoffensive" way to tell someone "you're doing it wrong." Even after they break two wrenches, and ultimately the bolt head and bracket/caliper/etc., because they were turning the wrench the wrong direction. And if they keep refusing to listen, well, you can either wince or laugh (out of wrench's throwing distance) as they keep screwing up/the wrong way.

Those of us who have been in the trenches (okay, the cinder/drop pits) for decades get #(*&^!@ sick and tired of what has seemingly become the monthly "we have two weeks to save this or it gets scrapped!" appeals. And those typically happen because somebody did it wrong.

Some party got in way over their heads. Someone ticked off the locals with their "junkyard" clutter or slipshod operations/plans. Someone had impossible delusions of grandeur. Someone ran trains while completely ignoring all but the most basic safety and maintenance needs. A group never developed a succession or membership expansion plan, and got too old or died off without establishing heirs apparent. Or, worst of all, a project's entire "business plan" depended on someone giving them a huge sum of money for no apparent reason, or winning the lottery.

Just on the first page of this forum as I type, we have the Cumbres & Toltec lawsuit (warranted or not, it sure sounds like personnel issues/mismanagement), the scrapping of cars in Ontario, a surplus caboose, and a (mostly non-RR) warehoused estate horde being liquidated.

At this point, we are lucky that no one has been fatally injured (of note, of late, in North America.....) by a rail preservation project. We are lucky that events like the scrapping of GTW 5629 by Metra and the padlocking/eviction of the Indiana Transportation Museum remain incredible anomalies in this field--FOR NOW. But unless "we" address the systemic problems inherent in specific projects and the field/avocation as a whole, these events are going to happen again. And some of us are doing what we can to prevent them, or swoop in after the stuff hits the fan and before the "jaws"/torch's flame hits the metal. And we don't have winning lottery tickets, either.

I am on the board of directors at Old Pueblo Trolley in Tucson. Our two main vehicle collections have distinctly different policies that reflect our mission.

The streetcar collection is made up on foreign streetcars as our Street Railway Division mission was to provide service on our demonstration railway. As we needed cars ASAP that could easily be returned to operating condition. We knew where some original Arizona streetcars were, but also that we had no access to them and that they would need extensive restoration. Ironically, that also makes us somewhat unique. The first two cars we decided to keep them as original as possible. Thus when you go aboard our Brussels tram, you can't read any of the signs unless you can read French or Flemish. The Japanese car still has signs in Japanese. The third car we restored to represent a regional streetcar line as it is very similar to one of the Brill cars that operated there.

Our Motor Bus Division policy is quite different-any vehicle acquired must have an Arizona service history or it has to be a representative of a bus that ran in Arizona, but no known examples survive. We have several buses that ran here in town and have restored Old Pueblo Transit Company No. 135, a GM TGH-3102. It is currently in the shop for repairs, but will be back on the road later this year. We also have a GM TDH that ran for Tucson Rapid Transit Company as No. 217. It was built in 1953 and was the first bus in Tucson to have air conditioning, it being retrofitted in 1957. We do have a GM Super Scenicruiser in it's Greyhound livery to represent the interstate bus services that served Arizona.

I have found that having buses with local service histories has allowed us to really connect with our local community. OPT No. 135 is old enough to be of interest but new enough that older Tucson natives can remember riding buses like it and recognize the livery. Quite by accident, our main campus where the buses are stored is in the part of town that OPT served.

Our Southern Arizona Transportation Museum focuses on southern Arizona transportation history. Most of the museum's railroad related exhibits are related to the Southern Pacific Railroad, as it was the railroad that served Tucson until the UP bought it. Their collections policies prioritize local railroad history over more generic railroad history.

We could not have pulled this off without the help of many supporters and specifically the City of Tucson. The City has historically provided us with space to store our collection, permitted a volunteer group to dig up city streets to install our street railway, assisted us with insurance coverage and donated a number of retired city buses to be saved for posterity.

Are you sure about that ??

Maybe that's why somebody with a trainload of knowledge and great ideas consistently strikes out, or at least accomplishes exponentially less good than they should. While feeling superior to those less informed may be gratifying, actually doing something worthwhile with what you know would seem to be more gratifying than taking a lifetime of acquired specialized knowledge to the grave.

So, with all due and appropriate respect, I'd like to suggest that not pissing people off or insulting them might be the crux of our problem with McRailroad museums. My track record with unsolicited enlightenment of those who could benefit from my infinite wisdom isn't very good, I will freely admit. Right now it looks like I've spent most of my life acquiring useless knowledge, which is unlikely to be appreciated by any more than a few whose hobby interests are similar to mine.

Maybe if they tried, some of the brilliant folks involved with rail preservation could solve the problem of telling folks that they're doing it wrong without offending them. I think it's worth a try --- that perhaps we've been wrenching on the wrong things in our quest to make the McRailroad Museums better. For what it's worth, my personal experience as a performing musician yielded one idea which may be useful, and which may be improved upon by those reading this post: Listen to those folks that you would like to have listen to you. My music career took off once I gave up on the egotistical approach of trying to enlighten my audiences, and I began learning from them instead. It turned out to be a two way street.