"We probably have more railroad museums and train rides than the "market" can support."

This was a recent post on another thread.

I'm interested in your comments. Are there too many railroad museums? If so, how could/should they be combined?

Well if the mission is to preserve history, there can never really be too much stuff saved or displayed, can there?

If the question is to market train rides, there might be a different answer. To a visitor, one 2-5 mile train ride in a slow train, maybe not very pretty, is much the same regardless of equipment or location. If that is all we are selling, hmmm? But I am guessing that geography may not be as important a player as the fact that perhaps only 1% of families will have any interest in this type of history.

Let's not talk fans, since there will always be a small population who will go to any Museum, just as I suppose there are miniature golf fans who want to play every course on the way during their next drive to Florida.

When you look at a large rail Museum, collection, or operation and do it critically, there is probably more to see and do already than any casual visitor can take in, or wants to. In the case of IRM over 400 cars and locos, and as many as nine different operating trains, trolleys and rides on a busy day. Yet a typical visit might be only 2-3 hours.

Of course I suppose no one visiting a "REAL" museum such as MSI in Chicago, or any of the other venues, plans to see every exhibit on a visit, either. So we may need to put some thinking behind displaying, marketing, and entertaining a visitor, first time; and hooking them for a repeat visit - at least on an annual basis.

Bob Kutella

Yeah probably, at least in certain areas.

Mission creep - several competing to interpret the same history in similar geographic regions. Missions seem to devolve into specific lines, industries, or regions, or combinations thereof.

When more than one share too similar goals, what resources are avilable for that mission are divided. Either or both may survive an agonizingly long time before attrition removes one or both as a result. During this life span, every customary task such as replacing ties or painting cars becomes a "heroic effort" despite its being daily life on railroads for decades. Railroads were too smart to work without the required resources to do the job efficiently being largely for-profit ventures. We can learn a lot from them.

OTOH, as in Portland, when similar groups can join and cooperate, wonderful things can be made to happen. The state of Pennsylvania had a statewide marketing plan a few years ago - how did that work out?

It may make sense to combine with another poor museum that doesn't do railroads - obvious would be industrial heritage served by railroads, less obvious local history, putting a more earthy component into the "little old ladies in tennis shoes" house museum survival treks husbands get dragged through while travelling.

I'd like very much to see regional repositories for the dead lines of stored equipment we refer to as "preserved" which are really undergoing a long, natural scrapping process. Everything acquired and not used or planned to be used for a specific purpose with a funding plan included by any contributing group would be at least held out of weather, and fair game for use proposals from any other contributor.

I'd also like to see owners and operators of mainline steam build a cooperative whereby each locomotive gets its turn for a national tour and exposure and is used intensively enough to earn its next rebuilding before being replaced by the next in line. Wherever people live, they could experience different locomotives from different railroads on an every couple years basis, rather than the same engine coming through every now and again. Variety is more interesting and captivating and newsworthy than repetition.

dave

I certainly agree with Dave's comments on Mission Creep, like organizations competing for the same customer and resource base and finally, on the advantages of like organizations supporting one another rather than competing. The long lines of slowly detiorating equipment are are real problem as the cost of preservation or restoration seems to rise exponentially with each year.

The ability of many of our present day organizations/museums to survive another decade or two will likely depend on well we do on addressing these issues.

As a member of an operating museum in the Southeastern U.S., I sure would like to see any interested organizations in these states get together for a day long session to explore what might be done to increase our mutual support for one another.

"Too many" or "just enough" museums as an absolute number is hard to define.

I think we definately have too many museums without a clear mission statement, collections policy, facilities plan, and interpretive plan. A museum of any size and subject can be a success if it figures out a compelling story to tell, understands what audience it wants to/can reasonable hope to reach, and right-sizes its collections and physical plant to fit within its means.

On the other hand, a museum large or small becomes "one too many" when it collects without a plan, has no interpretive strategy to explain its collections to the public, expects that "if you build it they will come," is undercapitalized, and is dependent on the excessive generosity of a small cadre of (usually aging) volunteers.

A decent start would be a sincere effort by all railroad and traction museums with rolling stock collection to seriously read, reflect on, and implement the ARM Recommended Practices for Railway Museums at

http://www.railwaymuseums.org/Practices.htm

This is an amazing and still underappreciated document. It represents the best thinking about good fundimental museum management customized to the unique needs and situation of railway museums. Nothing in it is prohibitively costly to implement in monetary terms, though implementing it does require time, thought, care, and attention from a museum's managers and governors and staff, volunteer or professional.

If we could get more organizations to put in place these kinds of policies, we would find more institutions putting themselves in a position to succeed, both in economic terms and as repsonsible stewards of their collections.

Tourist railroads are another subject--here, market discipline works more directly. Personally, I fully expect to see a severe culling over the next 15 years as the operations which have completely depreciated their physical plant without raising the capital required to renew it fall away, and the more soundly managed businesses carry on.

Are "history" and "stuff" the same thing?

Apparently many railfans think so, because they equate the quantity of rolling stock and buildings "saved" with success.

Ask your target customer what they want to see, though, and I think you'll get a different answer. Correspondence, photographs, clothing and tools, context and interpretation - a "museum" where the total experience is "that's a boxcar" or "that locomotive is historic because I remember it from my childhood" is hardly a museum, if "preserving history" is your goal.

One more 0-4-0T or MP15 saved probably won't materially improve the preservation of history.




I heartily agree.

We have plenty of generic RR museums, and while they are better than nothing, it is sad to see real historic RR sites falling each year, with scarcely a whimper from our community. Witness the recent destructions of the Redondo Jct. and Altoona roundhouses, while the prized, operable locomotives that were previously housed in them sit under tarps outdoors. I hope I live long enough to see this attitude and our priorities change, but I have to wonder if it ever will. How long before before Frankfort, Stevens Point, Greenville and others fall to the wrecker's ball?

Bob, I understand your frustration over the shops sites we've lost, but I think fairness demands that we acknowledge success stories where appropriate locomotives are preserved and displayed in association with the shops or maintenace facilities at which they were serviced.

These include:

EBT-Rockhill Furnace
Nevada Northern-Ely
Rio Grande/C&TS-Chama
Sierra-Jamestown
WP-Portola

I believe you don't count either of these as the kind of preservation you advocate, but I would also include

Southern-Spencer
DL&W-Scranton

It seems to me that we slight the importance of these sites and the hard work of their custodians if we do not acknowledge what has been achieved there.

Great topic!

Let us all face a very simple fact. There are more items collected (at museums, historic sites, and tourist railways) than will ever be adequately preserved. That statement is not an indictment of the people who saved these pieces in any way. It is just the truth. A walk through the collections of a number of places will bear this out. And it doesn't matter if you are discussing public, non-profit or private collections. There are too many examples that can be pointed to at all of those.

Mission statements and collection policies are indeed a good first step, but egos and sentiments far too often will override what should be the reality of the situation, even after the adoption of these strategies.

A great example of this issue was an auto collection. Famous it was and well admired for the craftsmanship of the restoration crew by peers. Yet was it really necessary for every model year of a production run to be preserved and restored? Ford's Model T was the best example. The collection had one of every year Ford offered them to the public. As neat as it was to see them all lined up in this museum, there were other items in the same collection that went unrestored. These were of equal or greater signifigance to their local area and they never got the attention they deserved.

As neat as having a complete train of whatever is to us, the museum geeks (and we all are -- admitted or not), the public will never see then in the same way we do. For example, yes a complete train set from the California Zephyr would make a great display, in operation or just static. Yet one or two cars can convey the story of the train just as easily and perhaps more effectively for museum visitors. It's really all about making the best use of your resources to interpret your museum experience for them.

Perhaps the most tragic thing any railway museum can do is fail to present it's collection in a meaningful way that connects to it's visitors. A classic example was that of one location where a young child balked at boarding a streetcar, saying he "didn't want to ride the bus."

Now having said all that, I frankly don't see much changing. The same egos and personalities that led one group to form and set themselves apart from another is the monster that doesn't go away. Smile in public (at the ARM Convention), but in private, well... that's another matter. "Over my dead body" is all too often the sentiment.

As the one who made the original statement, I will try to explain. (Although some of the pervious responses have done that very well).

There are two ways of approaching what we do.

On one extreme we need to be business like, creating budgets which match expenses and revenue, look at long term needs, reach out to the public in engaging ways, and ultimately create value (not necessarily economic value.)


On the other extreme is our passion for railroad history. The passion gives us the drive to work endlessly to save what industry had cast aside as obsolete and valueless.

Unfortunately it often it appears we save things because of the emotional tie, forgetting that at some point in the future we need to pay the bills.

These business vs. passion decisions are made everyday by railroad museums. Do you invest in a building to put the cars in, or do you buy more blue tarps and roofing tar?. Do you clean the contactor and give the PCC car another touch-up paint job, or do you pull it into your shop (you have one don’t you) and really restore it.

The steam guys have hit the wall and are being forced by new federal rules to rebuild engines which in the past would have been patched up once again (this is not to say that the patches were badly done, or unsafe). The new rules have caused a crisis at more than one site (look at the Cumbers and Toltec for example)

In the San Francisco Bay area we have three groups, within a 30 mile radius rebuilding Southern Pacific 4-6-2’s to be operated. All are “goodâ€

You might also add the Altoona Railroader's Memorial, and hopfuly the new Railroad Technology museum at CSRM as adaptive reuse of historic railroad shop space.

The problem lies not in the similar appearance of any generic railroad museum, but the context in how each artifact is presented toward the general public.

Although we may cringe at the thought of "McRailroad" museums, we must be aware of current population trends. Most of the general population was born long after the age of steam. Additionally, we are rapidly approaching the time when majority of the population was born AFTER the Amtrak's arrival in 1971. Equally of note, an increasing number of our fellow residents were born in other countries. As pointed out many times on this board, the only awareness most people have of railroading is that of a grade crossing.

Before we can feed an appreciation of railroad history and perhaps "save" these remaining historical sites, we need to create an awareness of railroading in general. Unfortunately, that may lead to generic railroad museum appearances.

[quote="Randy Hees"]

In the San Francisco Bay area we have three groups, within a 30 mile radius rebuilding Southern Pacific 4-6-2’s to be operated. All are “goodâ€

Spencer and Steamtown are more adaptive reuse than historic site, especially if Spencer continues its future as a generic transportation museum. Scranton didn't have much to start with, so it would have been pretty hard to "turn back time" there without some miracle cloning of Lackawanna 4-8-4s. Both are better than the adaptive reuse at say, Keene, New Hampshire (outlet mall), but I doubt the old timers who once worked there would think they were the same today.

The EBT, NN and Jamestown are the jewels, mainly because those in charge have had sense enough not to try to turn them into something they never were. Chama was a historic jewel, but the new engine shop should have been built in Antonito, and there is still talk of various "upgrades" there. These places, though in need of more funding and manpower, have at least been recognized for their importance, and will probably survive.

Other sites fall in between these examples, including some I've mentioned before. They usually ended up as private storage and lack some historic elements. The storage use lasts until the roof needs work, then they lie abandoned until torn down, with little notice from anyone, nor with anyone even making an attempt to save them. Some are not suited for reuse as rail museums, but others are. I've never bought the arguments about polluted soil or asbestos making them unusable - these problems have to be dealt with even if the buildings are razed. I've never bought into the "bad location" arguments either. We're a very mobile society today and if something is really worth seeing, people will come even if it is off the main road - the preserved ghost town of Bodie, California is an example.

Great discussions. Thanks to all who have contributed.

Here's my take:

Most railroad museum's visitors are local in nature - around 1-2 hour's drive. Therefore, if there is another museum within a one hour drive, there is an overlap.

There is a totally under-appreciated volunteer effort at most railroad museum in running the business end of the coroporation - board meetings, finances, check/bills, filings, membership, newsletters ..... Each museum duplicates that effort - over and over again.

Many museum's share the same equipment and duplicate efforts. A specific era or special railroad or type makes sense. I hope I never see another Big Boy away from a Union Pacific Railroad again.

Combining the railroad museum asests in the LA or Bay Area's would make an unbelievable exhibit. Now you have to travel to Perris, fairgrounds, travel town, La Media (?) and find #3751 somehwere to find it all. Same with bay Area. WOW - if they could pull it all together, combine financial and volunteer resources - that would make one truly outstanding museum.

Regionalization of resources makes sense - bring back equipment native to the surrounding environment and get rid of stuff that doesn't belong. In San Diego, the PSRM has started down that path with the wooden Kennecott car and acquiring an RS-32 which ran in town. We'll continue down that path as we can.

Well, that's my take. I appreciate yours.

Jim