How 'bout a "RR petting zoo?"

Sloan · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:03 am

There was a recent posting on this board—I don't recall where—lamenting the absence of exhibits geared to children. Travel Town seems to have discovered a way to reach that demographic. I am, however, not sure what a railroad petting zoo is.

If a museum were to have live critters, I suppose that opens up some operational issues such as liability, care,feeding and veterinary oversight, and scrutiny by animal rights activists.

http://www.laweekly.com/2008-10-02/la-v ... in-heaven/

Sloan

Bob Davis · **Joined:** Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:25 am **Posts:** 1025

I think the term "petting zoo" is metaphorical, and does not mean a menagerie with actual animals. In the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, there's a collection of old houses, a church and a railroad depot saved from the wrecking ball and gathered in a park called "Heritage Square". Many years ago a critic referred to the park as an "architectural petting zoo", meaning, one presumes, a collection of specimens removed from their natural habitat and available for interaction with the general public. Heritage Square is open a few days a month; some of the houses are available for inspection and one even has a 1904 calendar on the wall. Thus a trolley museum offering rides would fit into this category. At OERM we have a "signal garden" with various types of signals on display, many with pushbutton controls which visitors can use to activate them--very popular with our younger visitors. Many people, young and old, do not respond to things that "just sit there", but if the lights change or the wigwag starts swinging and clanking, this is "neato!"

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

Jdelhaye wrote:

IRM has a few "pettable" artifacts
(Disclaimer: artifacts in question are "pettable" only when and if the artifact in question chooses to come out in public and allows itself to be petted)

"Tiger" and "Tux": http://www.irm.org/gallery/album82
"Alco": http://www.irm.org/gallery/Alco
more "Alco": http://www.irm.org/gallery/album49

(Not Pictured: "Slurpy" & "Sox")

"Karl", "Frisco", "Gizmo", "Fairbanks", "Macintosh", "Seymour", "Spooky", "Cy"(aka "Cyclops") & "Whitey" (aka the "4 Legged Tour Guide"), among many others have all either been adopted, and/or passed on.

Jeff

Jeff -

Add Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana to the list. Our Signal Department has befriended some of our feline friends and was recently "rewarded" with a new litter under the departments NKP boxcar. Of course, I don't know how pettable they are; they are usually pretty skittish.

Les

Randy Hees · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2008 2:26 am

I visited the Kauai Plantation Railroad today... They operate a line through a demonstration plantation... The most popular visitor activity is feeding the pigs... the train stops... the guests get off... they feed the pigs (and a few goats) climb back on the train and continue their ride. It was not planned... but guests on the early test trains asked to stop... it evolved.

We have a collection of farm animals at Ardenwood home of the SPCRR... guests like to interact with our hay burning locomotives... (yes, we use horses to pull out trains) so after each train ride we bring them over to the fence... In addition the farm has a collection of other farm animals, chickens, turkeys, cattle, goats, sheep and yes, even pigs...

If we assume we are there to please our visitors, and if you have a farm theme the animals do tend to steal the show.

Bob Davis · **Joined:** Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:25 am **Posts:** 1025

Some of the above comments reminded me of the old days at Orange Empire, when we had a neighbor who kept a small band of sheep. Sometimes they'd escape and wander onto the museum grounds in search of things to eat. Usually they'd high-tail it back to the neighbor's property when visitors would start to show up, but sometimes they'd hang around. Guests who had come to accommodate the trolley fan in the family would find the livestock more interesting than the streetcars. "Oh look! Sheep!" I wonder if anyone ever came out after church on a Sunday when the text was Psalm 23.
On a recent visit to Rio Vista Jct., I encountered a sheepherder while waiting at a rural grade crossing for the interurban car of the day. He was loading up his critters to take them to another pasture. (no, he was NOT using a "Ewe-Haul trailer).
Last time I was there, some of the pastures had cows, providing a look at rural America for the city folks.

Randolph R. Ruiz · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2008 2:27 pm

In my mind this is the relevant part of the article:

Quote:

The institution, which is managed by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and the Travel Town Museum Foundation, could use some curatorial and physical sprucing up. At times the interpretive program closely approaches paeans to the corporations that built the railways and donated most of the collection, with little in the way of critical history. The attractions are also, frankly, really dangerous. Climbing inside the Oahu Railway and Land Company caboose, or the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe locomotive requires some perilous maneuvering — no small feat if you’re managing overly excited kids. Though some cars are undergoing restoration, an army of conservators is nowhere to be found, nor is there a list of who’s-who board members posted at the entrance.

Randy Hees · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:40 pm

Of course, Travel Town does not have a board, being operated by the City of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department.

Rather than an army of conservitora there is instead a few volunteers and various park maintenance staff.

They erected a significant and very attractive car shed several years ago which has helped, but the wooden cars especially the three from Oahu and a few from the SP narrow gauge were well into a state of decay before the building went up. At least one narrow gauge flat/gon simply collapsed.

Travel town was not really created as a railroad preservation project. It was much more of a child's playground amongst the trains (and at the time airplanes, fire trucks and to transportation devices). As such there was little thought to collection plans or preservation as we know it... that came later.

Brian Norden · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:45 pm

Randy Hees wrote:

Travel town was not really created as a railroad preservation project. It was much more of a child's playground amongst the trains (and at the time airplanes, fire trucks and to transportation devices). As such there was little thought to collection plans or preservation as we know it... that came later.

This concept is supported by the "Western Railroader" issue from June, 1956, in which G. M. [Gerald] Best writes the history of Travel Town up to that point. This is now he started his story of the first four years and the acquisition of the steam engines, etc.

Quote:

In the spring of 1952, just four years ago, Charles Atkins, employed in the Maintenance Department, was down at Los Angeles harbor on park affairs when he noticed two small saddle tank locomotives in a storage yard there. .... [W]hen Atkins saw them they were ready to be shipped off to the steel mills for scrap.

Atkins thought how nice those two little pots [two 0-4-0Ts that once worked a city quarry on Catalina Island hauling rock for the harbor breakwater] would look in Griffith Park, perhaps near the miniature diesel railroad at the Los Feliiz Boulevard entrance on concrete pedestals behind wire enclosures, but where the children could see them. So he spoke to Orin Wennersten, Supervisor of Park Maintenance, and he told Atkins to see William Frederickson, Jr., Supt. of Recreation for Los Angeles.

Frederickson liked Atkins' idea tine, but he suggested that first they get in touch with Ward Kimball owner of a private railroad known as the Grizzly Flats, in San Gabriel, and see his layout so that they might pick up some ideas for the park. Kimball showed them around and suggested that instead of fencing in the engines, that they make it possible for the children to climb into the cabs, play engineer or fireman, ring the bell, and have a wonderful time just pretending. Kimball commented that in all the years the Grizzly Flats had been in existence, his children and their playmates had spent countess hours playing on the engines and cars without getting hurt or seriously damaging the equipment, and also keeping out of Betty Kimball's way. The trains did not have to run; they wasn't necessary for imagination brought to life the inanimate [Grizzly flats] engines and cars, even through they were inside a closed shed. Kimball felt that several engines of fairly good size would be a great attraction int he park and with this thought in mind, Frederickson and Atkins contacted the three truckline railroads which serve Los Angeles, asking for the donation of any old locomotives they might have around, of a size suitable for a children's playground in Griffith Park.

Al Stangenberger · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:59 pm **Posts:** 650

Bob Davis wrote:

On a recent visit to Rio Vista Jct., I encountered a sheepherder while waiting at a rural grade crossing for the interurban car of the day. He was loading up his critters to take them to another pasture. (no, he was NOT using a "Ewe-Haul trailer).
Last time I was there, some of the pastures had cows, providing a look at rural America for the city folks.

On non-operating days, we also allow the local farmers to use our ROW as a fenced driveway to move their sheep from one pasture to another. It's too bad the city folks can't have the opportunity to see a dog herding sheep, it would be a good show. (Sign of the times, some shepherds ride ATV's instead of horses.)

Sometimes there is a real "petting zoo" at our annual Pumpkin Patch. I'm not sure if there will be one this year, but folks in the area can come out and find out for themselves on the last three weekends in October.

Sloan · **Posted:** Thu Oct 16, 2008 1:11 pm

Fort Smith Trolley Museum has adopted some cats and has restored a Missouri Pacific track speeder shed as well.

Sloan

http://www.fstm.org/newsletter/n094.pdf ... r/n094.pdf

steamfan · **Posted:** Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:41 am

I remember in the 80's into the early 90's that the orginal Edaville had a petting zoo on the left side of the walk from the main entrance to the station. I believe they had a couple of goats and If memory serves a deer. They also had draft horses pulling the trolley around. When Edaville reopened later on, the petting zoo was gone, most likely because of the insurance.