Many museums now have provision for visitors to park campers and motorhomes "out front" along with the tour buses. But how many museums presently have parking for campers, trailers, or motorhomes close to the equipment so that their volunteers can come and stay for a week or a weekend to make best use of their time?

Could we hear from any groups that encourage their volunteers to come with campers or vehicles and stay close to the equipment (rather than in cabooses or passenger cars on the property), and what sort of provisions do you make for it? Open parking, designated parking space only, and do you make any electrical support accessible for them?

This is becoming an increasingly common topic of discussion with groups that have some volunteers who could use their campers for local lodging while working on the equipment, so I am just curious how many organizations are planning ahead to take advantage of this kind of volunteer availability.

PC

I like the Mid-Continent Railway Museum Camp Car track. It's real convenient to stay the night in a caboose on the property, especially when working those night steam heat shifts!

I would ask if the money spent to make the improvements be worth it? Would it encourage more people to volunteer? How many current members have RVs that are wanting parking? I have no idea what the costs would be but, it would seem like a lot of money spent for the enjoyment of a very small amount of members.

If you were talking about paved parking and permanent hookups, I can see where the expenditure might be too much. In most cases though, it would be a parking area that is adequate size and level, and perhaps having some electrical outlet that can be reached, without having vehicles or extension cables foul any roads or work areas.

Just asking this as the potential value of making space available is a current discussion subject in one local organization located in a place where lodging is often inconvenient or seasonably can be very difficult to find. I am curious whether others have experience with this and what their results have been.

Hauling their camping equipment back and forth to the museum does involve a pretty substantial financial investment on the part of the organizations members who are interested enough to want to spend their days and nights on the property. In a lot of areas buying nights at motels is more cost effective.

PC

I would caution you to also quietly look into the zoning implications of providing amenities. Some counties or towns or townships have stricter views of what they classify as "proper use". I mention this becasue I personally know of one muncipality has taken a dim view of installation of power taps by saying a permanent campground has been created and the area was not zoned for that.

mld

The Western Railway Museum has a nice RV parking area next to the bunkhouse. It can accommodate three, maybe four RVs, and regularly has two. They run electrical lines from the bunkhouse. If you're Google Map'ing, it's the northwest corner of the campus. This is also the former site of the SN depot.

Since I started volunteering 47 years ago, I've slept in cabooses and bunk cars, in a Volkswagen camper van, in the back of a Chevy Suburban and in a Coleman camper, as well as on a cot in the gift shop. When it's all said and done, unless the nearest motel is 40 miles away, that's where I want to lay my head after a hard day. I can spend a lot of nights in a motel for the cost of owning and operating a motor home or trailer.

Not giving specific details because of, yes, that "zoning" question, at least one place with which I've worked had an aging camper donated to them for just such use, and I know it did dramatically raise the productivity of the volunteers that were there at the time by letting them work an extra 3-4 hours per weekend per person.

I seem to recall that the Railways to Yesteryear/Rockhill Trolley Museum had a large, well-equipped kitchen installed in their restoration center. As I recall, a spouse or two of regular volunteers would take on "mess hall" duty to feed other volunteers dinners and breakfasts--once again, important when your only food options are a pizzeria in town, a drive-in to the north, or firing up the kitchenette in the Electroliner/Liberty Liner........

Several outfits I know bought an adjacent house.

In WRM's case, three of them "came with the property", were subdivided into what can best be described as "miserable hovels". The volunteers made a bunkhouse out of what's now the worst, while they restored the original farmer's residence to its proper configuration. It is now the bunkhouse. The county is fine with it.

The local rules can certainly be quite confusing. In my area, you can have a camper or motorhome parked anywhere on private property without restriction, but if you want to stay in it overnight you are supposed to report to the town hall a week in advance and apply for a special permit with related fees. Of course the primary situation where trailer and motorhome owners would want to use them in their own yard would probably be the first few days after a hurricane when all the home utilities have been put out of service, and in that case the town hall staff might not be present to write special permits.

Thanks to all of you for your input, this discussion is very interesting.

PC

I know one museum that has an area with electric and water hookups available in a section of the property not normally open to the public. Some members will "dry camp" in a members' parking lot near the front of the museum, but away from where visitors are likely to be. I would guess that quite a few museums have enough space to allow overnight stays or stays of a few days. What can cause trouble is people taking up semi-permanent residence or using old and decrepit RV's where the public can see them.

TVRM houses volunteers in a company bunkhouse and has (on occasion) permitted volunteers to use sleeper accommodations when cars were spotted in front of the shop. Back then, none of the cars had retaining tanks, so honey buckets had to be set under the hoppers. If a car was being occupied, it would be watered and hooked up to standby power. The bunkhouse is actually a room located in the quieter area of the shop-between the air brake shop and the locker room and crew room. The crew room does have a full kitchen, so it's pretty comfy-as long as no one accidentally turns on the alarm when the bunkhouse is being used. One of the old engineers was staying in the bunkhouse and set off the motion detector one night when he got up to use the facilities. He was pretty annoyed about the alarm to say the least.

I believe that the Monticello Railway Museum put up a new building which includes a section for volunteers to stay overnight. Perhaps I have that wrong. Maybe someone from MRM can tell us for sure.

Les

Maybe this is not quite what you mean; but the Seashore Trolley Museum has a Men's Dormatory with kitchen etc for volunteers who are spending more than one day at the museum.

This kind of overnight activity has been going on for many years and of course is a strong reason behind their year round volunteers working in the Townhouse Shop activity.

Maybe someone from Seashore who has stayed can chime in on the activity.

Ted Miles