Also from a Yahoo group discussion

From logging and NW railroad historian John A Taubeneck

“Unfortunately railroad equipment is seen by most "museums" as raw
material for a tourist railroad. Is a steam locomotive a historical
artifact or just used machinery? That is the question.â€

I think so. Looking at museums such as Mid-Con in Wisconsin, you can see that they do both - operate and stuff and mount.

Absolutely.

Most museums that think they are tourist railroads don't do either job well. I assume they are only called museums because it isn't easy to get a 501C3 for a tourist line. OTOH, there is a legitimate place for providing the experience of railroading to visitors as part of a historic interpretation.

Having different collections for different purposes is a common way of dealing with it - some artifacts are conserved for study, others used for operating interpretive purposes. Nothing wrong with that approach, provided a rational basis for the distinction.

I figure if an organization is primarily interpreting history, and providing a reasonably accurate interpretive experience as part of that interpretive mission, it is a museum. If the title "Museum" exists only as the basis of providing tax incentives for accumulating stuff for members to play trains with, it isn't a museum, and probably isn't much if a tourist railroad either, more like a 12" scale model railroad club. If it doesn't call itself a museum, and runs trains to entertain visitors (rather than members) from a market driven POV, it is a tourist railroad.

I like tourist railroads that are unabashedly trying to be good tourist railroads and provide a quality experience. I also like museums that actively integrate the visitors experience into the history being interpreted. Both are noble callings - botching a mix of both and doing neither well is not, and reflects badly on our industry in the long run.

Now, as to the question of the two operating in a cooperative way - seems to be done well in Strasburg. That might be the best model for mixing the two different approaches.

dave

[quote="Randy Hees"]Also from a Yahoo group discussion

From logging and NW railroad historian John A Taubeneck

“Unfortunately railroad equipment is seen by most "museums" as raw
material for a tourist railroad. Is a steam locomotive a historical
artifact or just used machinery? That is the question.â€

I like the terminology that has been used by the Illinois Railway Museum since long before I was a member there; the organization is a MUSEUM that operates a DEMONSTRATION railroad. Now admittedly, in practice the demonstration railroad swings between operating dedicated equipment to demonstrate what a railroad is/was to sometimes demonstrating specific delicate pieces of historic equipment, but the phraseology at least keeps the idea that this is a museum to the forefront.

Once you take that view, you come to realize that the demonstration railroad doesn't have to be fifty miles long and have lots of scenery; that's not its purpose. IRM is operating five or six miles now, and in my view, that is long enough. Longer rides not only mean more capital expense and more wear on the equipment, they also mean fewer trains. And when you think about it, being in the station when a train arrives or departs is part of the visitor experience too. One of the things that always made IRM look so vibrant when it was only operating on only a mile and a half was the fact that there was always something going on at the depot, with some sort of train or interurban departing every couple of minutes.

Our museum has the following included in its restoration guidelines

"Equipment is restored to operate if possible... but we may chose not to."

We believe that railroad equipment is technology, and technology at its core exsists to function. Preserving the functionallity is part of the preservation process (of course that is not allways possible.)

Folks,

in Traction preservation, the sights, sounds and even the smell of operation is widely regarded as part of the preservation experience.

Almost all traction museum groups have a demonstration railway line that visitors can ride. It can be noted that the streetcar is a function of city living and would best be exhibited in an urban setting. Due to land prices most trolley or streecar museums are in the country.

The Western Railway MAuseum has a 22 mile segment of the Sacramento Northern Railway where we operate Interrurbans. We also have a museum loop where we we operate city cars. We rarely operate city cars on the SN tracks.

We treat the cars as artifacts. The current restoration of the SN 1005 is being documented with photography, paint samples wood and steel samples and a mountain of historic photos leading to the way the car was in 1934, but not 1912 when it was built nor 1949 when it was last in commercial service. And most definately not as it appeared in excursion xervice in the 1950s!

Ted Miles

This is a great topic, the sort of thing I have discussed at length many times. I am very clearly in the tourist railroad camp. I think that some of the "artifact interpretation" talk is a form of intellectual snobbery. I have listened to a historian pontificate on an artifact just to prove that he didn't have the slightest clue how it had been made. And I think that a locomotive under steam pulling cars will show far more people the way things were than 100 locomotives sitting dead and cold.

Having said that, I'll hit home with marty with an example ---

As many know, we have the third-oldest Porter at our museum, a Porter Bell 2-4-0. Sans all the usual preservation/ interpretation arguments (which I'm not totally against; I'm a Curator for Pete's sake!) would YOU put an 1878-built lap-seam boiler under steam? Or, conversly, would you pay a couple hundred thousand to put in a new one? Sans running gear thats probably 1910's at the NEWEST?

I can here the FRA-guys laughing now....



TJ

First TJ, whoever bid 200K to build your coffeepot is way out of line. I'd be amazed if it couldn't be done for less than half that.

Running gear? Haven't laid hands on it, so I don't know. I'd think a replication of a little Porter like yours wouldn't be unthinkably expensive.

Now if you only had a place to put it to use....

dave

Well, yeah, there's that too. ;-) Heck, even figuring out the "where" and "how" of displaying is up in the air right now, as most of our effort is concentrated on the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse/ Port Huron Coast Guard Station Site. I'd like to see it displayed on the old PH&NW headquarters grounds, but there's really nothing left to represent around it there except the land it ran over.

Truth be known, there's a certain PH&NW/ F&PM heritage narrow gauge coach in Rhinelander, Wisconsin to display with it I'd lover to get my hands on, but somehow I don't think it will happen.

TJ