Disclosure: I have no involvement of any kind with this museum or auctioneer. This post is for information only.




Auction of the Caldwell County Railroad Museum in Princeton, Ky - set for April 13, 2013. The auction will include both building and contents (sold separately).

Following is a direct link to the auction website:
http://www.westkentuckyrealestate.com/auction51.html

Here is a brief description of the Museum:
"The Caldwell County Railroad Museum is located next to the Trail of Tears park. The museum is small but there are many railroad artifacts packed inside. Most of these artifacts are from the Western Kentucky area and were donated by retired railroad workers or their spouses. One of the most interesting exhibits is the control panel from a diesel locomotive. You can sit at the controls and pretend to drive your train through the countryside."

I normally am an optimistic person in general, but I fear we'll see more of this occurring over the next decade-plus. Minnesota has at least 8-10 of these small railroad/depot museums throughout the state and I've visited maybe half of them. Some are private and some are city properties run by local volunteers. They're packed with goodies and open maybe one or two days a week. The staff that greets you when you enter are in their 70s and 80s. The artifacts are there with virtually no interpretation. When the old-timers pass on, who takes their place is always the burning question.

This has happened already in Dassel, Minnesota, a small farming community situated on the old GN mainline from Minneapolis to Willmar, Minnesota and Fargo. About 3 years ago the owners of the private museum decided to close it and auction off the artifacts. City or local historical society didn't want to take it over. It was located in the GN Dassel depot which had been moved to the main street through Dassel. Quite sad, actually.

Thanks!

There were some gems in the Princeton museum, including documentation of gold shipments by the Illinois Central to the Gold Depository at Ft. Knox. The IC mainline bisected the post, and came very close to the depository.

I hope this stuff ends up in good hands.

The auction was today. I did not attend, but had a close friend attend.

Prices were high for some items. A group from Union City, TN, called Discovery Park of America, website below, bid up a lot of items and artifacts.

Some items went rather cheaply. A single lung steam air compressor went for $45.00. If you are interested in this, the owner may be willing to sell, contact me via private message.

The paperwork, about 50-100 bankers boxes worth went for $1.00 to $2.00 a box. This was a lot of IC and ICG paperwork.

The owner of the museum was there, a man in his 80s. Said he was selling it all off as "kids don't care today" about railroads.

http://www.discoveryparkofamerica.com/index.html

This situation obviously wont apply to every small museum, but its something to think about:

Back in 1983 to 1992 there was a Railroad museum in Sayre, PA. located in the former LVRR Sayre passenger station. It was called the "Valley Railroad Museum" and it had gathered a nice collection of local LV, Erie and DL&W railroad history, most it donated by local residents. The museum did not own the train station they inhabited, they rented part of it for the museum..The stations owners decided they wanted to open a furniture store in the station, so they kicked out the museum..

Without a home, the museum folded..
but what to do with the collection?

Instead of selling it off, and dispersing it to the winds, they asked the county (Bradford county PA) if they would take it over..the county said yes! and the museums collection was stored away in boxes in a county office building in nearby Towanda PA..

For the next 14 years, the collection sat packed away in the darkness.

Times change..the furniture store in the train station quickly failed, and the Sayre station was empty again..It got new owners! this time the town itself, Sayre, took over ownership..A new historical society was formed, the Sayre Historical Society..in 2006, the society moved into the station, (now owned by Sayre itself) and started up a 2nd museum in the station..The collection from the first museum was brought back to become the starting point for the new museum! The entire collection of the first museum, donated by local residents, was saved! and back where it belonged..

Obviously this kind of thing wont always work..(especially for troublesome things like rolling stock) (although in the case of the two Sayre museums, an actual LV caboose was also saved from the 1st museum to the 2nd)..

My point? times change...sure, "kids today" might not care about trains..but in another 10 years? 20? 50? who knows what can happen..perhaps selling off everything might not be the best solution..a small town government (or even a larger city or county government) might be willing to hold on to its local history, and store it away for free in an empty room of a government building..(and these days, lots of governments have empty space..many governments aren't as big as they used to be..)
In a case like that, it doesn't really cost anything for the govt to store the collection, and perhaps it can sit in storage until another museum comes along in the future..which can happen...It worked for Sayre! :) It can work for other places too..

In 1992 the first museum, and Bradford county, had no idea that 14 years later a new museum would be open in Sayre..they had no idea what the future might hold..For all they knew, the 1st museums collection might sit in storage for 100 years..but that wasn't the point...the point was "lets try to save this! this is Sayre's history, we should do what we can to try to preserve it, even if "preservation" means having our stuff sit in 100 boxes for a decade or five.." and maybe someday, people will want this stuff again, and be grateful we saved it for them..

Scot