Our group is spending this winter working in part on restoration planning... including restoration reports, historic research, documentation, and budgeting… Some of the planning is catch up, some short term, some long term.

We have been talking to others at other museums… and have heard some common issues and complaints…

With that in mind this brings up questions….

Does your museum have a formal requirement or tradition of a pre-restoration report. If so, what do you include? How does your organization approve a project? Is an approval required prior to work starting? (really or just on paper)

How do you budget for a specific restoration? Do you only budget for the next years work or do you have a project budget which you work to. If you create a project budget how accurate is it (some we have talked to claim they can’t budget a restoration project since they don’t know what work will be required before disassembly)

Do you budget labor? (this is more a question for the volunteer groups) Do create a time line? Again, how accurate is the planned timeline…

How far out do you plan your restoration program… only the current car or loco, do you know what is next, and are you doing pre planning for that, what about the following…

Do you use bench marks which must be reached before starting the next project?

In our case we have a requirement for a pre restoration report with a budget prior to work starting. We also require board approval (via the budget process) for any significant work. We find our budget are pretty good, but our labor and time estimates stink… We are currently planning the next 6 projects. This is likely 20 years out. The next project has a much more defined plan… the further away the less defined.

Yes, you must have approval for a project before starting. That said, there are some projects that were started long before our Collections Policy was in place and continuing work on them falls into a gray area. Any newly considered projects must submit a restoration proposal that must pass through our Collections Committee, Officers, then the Board of Directors.

Our complete policy can be found on our website at www.oerm.org under "Museum Information"

Randy;

At the Western Railway Museum a restoration project starts with a survey. The survey should include a detailed history of the artifact, details on its construction, and details on its current condition. The history needs to focus on the service the equipment was in and all the modifications made to the equipment over its operating life. Based on the survey, a detailed restoration plan can be developed. One of the difficult questions to be answered is what era to take the artifact to. Our preference has been to leave the equipment as closed to its final appearance as possible, as this retains the most original fabric. But there are practical considerations to be considered as well. For some of our cars, if we restored them to their as built appearance, there would be little or nothing of the original left.

Based of the restoration plan a detailed budget and schedule are developed. These are usually the same Excel document. There are columns for volunteer hours, paid hours, hourly rate, extended cost, material description, quantity, unit price, extended price, and contract service costs. For the rows I break the car down in to subsystems like the interior, exterior, roof, seats, doors and sash, air brakes, foundation brakes, propulsion system, auxiliaries, couplers and draft gear, current collectors, painting and lettering, etc. Then under each subsystem all the tasks are identified and an estimate of the hours and material for each task is developed. This is done in great detail and includes things like the raw lumber, every nut bolt and rivet, paint by the gallon, etc. This may go on for many pages. It is a good exercise to work on with the restoration crew over dinner.

By estimating how many hours will be spent on the project each week, volunteer, paid and contract; the duration of the project can be estimated using a sum of the estimated hours for all the subsystems.

Because the entire scope of the project will not be known until the artifact has been dissembled, the estimates are usually short of the final costs and man hours. But this limitation is noted on the budget and schedule. The advantage to having prepared a detailed budget and schedule is that it forces you to consider all of the details for the entire project before your start. The other advantage is that your potential funding sources are probably going to want to see this detail before they fund your project.

Before starting to dissemble anything documentation is needed. The artifact is photographed giving overall views of every surface. Than it is photograph in a grid, usually three by three feet, over every visible surface. This includes interior walls, ceiling, floor, exterior sides, ends, roof, and under frame. Many close ups photos are also taken of any details the may be unique. The digital camera has made this task much more affordable. Drawings are also made to record as many dimensions as possible. In several major restorations I have worked on, just determining the proper length of a car has been a problem. These details should be worked out in advance. Then samples are taken, mostly of wood and paint, but also anything else of interest. These are preserved and used as needed as the project progresses.

The last item prior to starting a restoration is to have a place to safely store all the items that will be removed from the car as work progressives. Nothing is ever thrown away until the project is complete. Then we evaluate what is left over and decide what needs to be preserved and what is thrown out.