There has been considerable discussion about too many museums having to many donations for which they have neither time, money, or space. Is there a clearing house, so to speak, for organizations to offer a spare combine, coach, or baggage car, to other groups or museums as a donation (you take it, you move it, just save it) sort of thing?
"It's more than we can handle", "It's not part of our mission", "It was going to scrap and we accepted it". I'm thinking of hypothetical situations like, the sheathing requires work, the bearings are friction, the steel is good but the steps are rusted out and require a rebuild.

Your thoughts?

Talk to each other? List your stuff and decide what you want to keep and what you want to stop spending money on keeping? Take pictures and the lists to ARM / TRAIN and informally discuss possibilities with other people?

I don't see it as disturbing, just as rationalization.

dave

You can also post notices of equipment availability on RYPN classifieds, making use of some of the features of this website. Maybe not the most effective way available, but any additional visibility for the message helps.

PC

Besides the RYPN classifieds, there is Railswap which was created just for this sort of thing, in my opinion.
http://railswap.org/osc/classifieds/

The ARM recommended practices went into disposing of surplus artifacts in detail. It use to be on their web site. Do not know where it is any more.

One of the great benefits of annual meetings, seminars, and the like is that it's often the great opportunity for people to meet and discuss such situations on a one-to-one basis.

I've been involved in enough of these that I admit it's one of the more personally (if not financially) satisfying things I've done because I'm a preservationist at heart but an accountant in head. Museum A no longer has room for the Middle Forks & Northern caboose and it doesn't fit the plan, the guys I've met in Middle Forks five years ago are very focused and have a spot for it and are here....let me introduce you all, lets make a deal. Despite the publicity of some rather acrimonious situations, the number of discoveries, exchanges, and deals that have taken place and been implemented are far more the norm.

I'm working on one swap now that's a relatively complicated one because there's grant money involved and eligibility of the artifacts involved at the states level, but even when that crops up there's probably more willingness to make it happen today than ever before. Museums are really trying to be more focused on what they keep, restore, etc., and to have some relevancy on mission and theme. The big problem today is transportation, not willingness.

Here is the relevant section from Recommended Practices.

Wesley

ARM/TRAIN is now the Association of Tourist Railroads and Railway Museums (ATRRM). Our organization has a working group called the Parts Committee or Parts Group. Moderator of the group is Rod Fishburn of Orange Empire Railway Museum. Send an e-mail to Rod with your list of items and he'll then re-broadcast your list to almost all of the tourist railroads and railway museum in the US and Canada. rodfishburn@earthlink.net

The next ATRRM annual conference will be held at Orange Empire October 16-19, 2013. Should be an excellent conference well-attended by reps from many railroad museums and hosted by a world-class railroad museum. Go to the ATRRM website to sign-up for the conference. http://www.atrrm.org/

Thanks!

Back when I got into railway preservation (50 years ago this month), terms like "deaccession" and "mission statement" might as well have been in Etruscan to the typical railway museum member. Every now and then I get questions about why Orange Empire has a double-deck tram from Ireland, and have to explain that in the early days, we didn't have a "Mission Statement" charging us to stick with cars from closer to home. OERM has "deaccessioned" a number of streetcars in the past ten years and sent them to more appropriate locations, and in two cases, the cars have been restored to better-than-new.

Richard,

Instead of waiting for cars and locomotives to be listed as surplus, be proactive and go looking for them.

At least one person in your group should be searching online for any existing rolling stock for your railroad(s). When you find one of 'your' cars or engines (or a closely related piece) at the XY&Z Railroad Museum, contact them to inquire about the condition of the car or locomotive and what plans they have for it.

That is how the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society acquired the floor, running gear and trucks for B&O coach 20 (Wason, 1868) to use in the restoration of Central Pacific coach 29/NWP 123 (Wason, 1869). Coach 20 had been smashed when the Baltimore roundhouse roof collapsed. The parts described above were in danger of meeting the scrapping torch when we made contact with the B&O staff. We were able to salvage them for our use, but only because we searched for the car and made contact with the owner.

You may find that every single piece is spoken for and has a good home, but you are now on the radar of the museums that have the equipment in their collections. To keep in contact, trade publications with the other groups. If and when the time comes that a piece must find a new home, your group will be on the short list of possible new owners. And now is the time to start raising funds for the future equipment acquisition.

Also, have your members scout around the neighborhoods along the ROW for cars that were repurposed into storage sheds, restaurants, offices or houses. Contact the property owners, by mail if necessary. Keep in contact every year or two.

The results can be worth the effort. Our group has acquired the following cars in this manner:

Northwestern Pacific Caboose 13 - donated by the owner.

Petaluma & Santa Rosa Caboose 1 - turned into an office building in the 1950's, salvaged by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in the late 1980's, acquired by the NWPRRHS in 2005 for reinbursement of salvage costs.

P&SR Boxcar 2: donated by the owner 10 years after initial contact.

Central Pacific 29/NWP 123: donated by the owners 9 years after initial contact.

NWP Baggage Car 605: donated by the owners at least 5 years after initial contact.


Having said all that, it is time for me to write another letter to the owners of an NWP baggage car that is part of a house near San Francisco.



Mike

You make a good point. Pro-action is best way to advance the cause. Thank you, all for your thoughtfulness and excellent opinions.