I am sharing an column I wrote about how to interpret the world of railroading to non-railfans. I hope this is valuable insight for those developing programming or displays for their museums and organizations.
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File comment: Meet your typical museum visitors! Good museum displays need to communicate quickly and clearly to a range of educational backgrounds and interest levels. We are standing inside MDT No. 14053, an ice-cooled refrigerator car on display at the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum near Rochester, N.Y. The exhibit housed inside relates the history of nearby Despatch Shops, where cars like these were manufactured until the plant closed in 1970.
typicalvisitors.jpg [ 97.56 KiB | Viewed 5263 times ]
typicalvisitors.jpg [ 97.56 KiB | Viewed 5263 times ]
Trains are fascinating. Doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s on rails, chances are we’ll go check it out. We also have enough shared experience that even if we don’t know the exact heritage and history of a particular piece of equipment we are looking at, some primal part of our brain registers train and good and we’re happy all the same.
Such is my experience at many railroad museums around the U.S. There are thousands of pieces of preserved railroad equipment scattered across the country. They were all saved by people who have an interest in trains or history or both. For some, a display is nothing more than an old locomotive with a fresh coat of paint and a sign identifying the piece as “Old 97,” for others it involves interactive pushbutton multimedia and a laser light show.
What we are talking about is called “interpretation,” or how you present historic artifacts and explain them to your visitors. Usually you might associate “interpretation” with a foreign tongue, and you’d be correct. Think about the language of railroading that includes a world of boomers, brains, cinder dicks, hogheads, dynamiters, crummies, highballs, hotboxes, shoo-flies, and gandy dancers. Moving past the jargon and “inside” expressions, you already have the knowledge to help your visitors better understand the significance of the items in your collection. Remember that the average visitor knows next to nothing about trains and does not understand the difference between “conductor” and “engineer.” You won’t convert them into instant experts, but at least you can help unlock some of the mystery and share what makes trains so interesting and historically significant.
I like to visit museums, learn about their collection, and discover what makes them historically significant. Some displays are very good about sharing information, others not so much. Some displays focus too much on the railroad aspect. Locomotive builder, date, location, model designation, lot number, horsepower, number of cylinders and bore diameter, rebuild date, unloaded weight, inside height, names of trains it pulled, name of the last engineer to run it, and so on. All fascinating to you and me, but guaranteed to make little impression on the average visitor.
This begs the question of how much and what kind of information are you supposed to share? Even if you could explain every single fact and figure, would that make for a good visitor experience?
There is no one answer that fits all situations, but there are some good professional guidelines out there to help. After poking around the internet for a bit, I found a great outline from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the world’s largest collection of art with more than 4.5 million pieces in its collection. Their curators probably know a thing or two about engaging visitors, and I’ll paraphrase their advice here.
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File comment: The interior of this Lackawanna baggage car serves as an open gallery space hosting a variety of displays related to railroading in and around Rochester. Volunteer Dave Coon is leading a tour and providing interpretation for the visitors, highlighting important aspects of each exhibit. Questions and answers follow from the visitors to round out the tour.
BaggageCarDisplay.jpg [ 94.84 KiB | Viewed 5263 times ]
BaggageCarDisplay.jpg [ 94.84 KiB | Viewed 5263 times ]
1. Write for your audience. Work with the understanding that your visitors don’t have much railroad experience, but do have a good educational background. Don’t talk down to your audience, but don’t be aloof, either. Not every exhibit will have the same tone of voice. A display dedicated to diesel technology will have a different feel from an exhibit of vintage travel posters.
Remember that your visitors are curious to learn, but also have a short attention span. Parents visiting with young children or elderly companions won’t have a lot of patience for long-winded or confusing explanations. Avoid using jargon or other shortcuts to clear explanations. You have about 30 seconds to get your point across.
2. Organize your information. Your visitors are there to see trains and related objects, not read long, boring texts on a wall. New concepts can be introduced by following a simple system presenting topic, theme, and message. For example, a topic could be “Refrigerator Cars in America.” The theme in this case is the role of these specialized freight cars and how they were used to affect daily life in America. “Early refrigerator cars used blocks of ice for cooling and required frequent servicing. They were used to transport fruits, vegetables, and meats across the country, greatly extending the market for perishables. The American diet changed as fresh produce and meat were available year ’round from a variety of sources. Refrigerator cars were operated in groups of cars called ‘blocks’ to ensure efficient movement across the national railroad network. Today’s refrigerator cars employ on-board refrigeration units that have remotely monitored temperature controls for maximum efficiency.” The message is what you want a visitor to take away. “Refrigerated freight cars play an important part in transporting our food.”
3. Engage and explain. You want to encourage your visitors to examine your subject, and allow them to make observations, discoveries, and conclusions. These little rewarding moments when a visitor exclaims, “Wow! I never knew...” are part of the entertainment value your museum provides.
Your first goal is to explain anything that might be confusing or unclear. Imagine a display that contains a “Derail” sign. Your visitor might not understand why there are times you might want to intentionally derail a train. “These safety devices are applied to the rail and are designed to force the leading wheels of a train off the track at low speeds, preventing a runaway car from entering a main track where a serious collision could take place.”
Don’t over-explain or state the obvious in a way that deprives visitors the chance to draw their own conclusions. A poor example would describe the sign, but ignore the purpose: “This derail sign is yellow with black letters about six inches tall, affixed to a black post made from an old steam locomotive boiler tube about three feet high.”
4. Don’t make stuff up. This should go without saying, but if you don’t know the answer, just say so. Your visitors will respect you for being transparent. “All uniformed employees of the New York Westchester & Boston Railway wore hat badges marked agent, despite their role on the train crew. One possible explanation is an obscure clause in the railway workers’ labor agreement that has been lost to history.”
5. Include the human element. The majority of your visitors have never been on a train before, let alone seen one up close. Make your collection relatable by including the story of people. Who would ride this train? Where were they going? Were they traveling for work or pleasure? The story of a streamlined Pullman will be different from one about a heavyweight day coach, even though both were used for travel.
Using imaginative and descriptive language is another method to interest your visitors. We can see things in a museum, but talking about how something feels, smells, or tastes adds yet another dimension of experience. “Cool steel canisters filled with milk could weigh up to a hundred pounds each...” or “Musty and worn burlap sacks of mail mixed with polished trunks and luggage in the baggage car...”
6. Be enthusiastic, be direct, be active. If your explanations lack enthusiasm, your visitors will be bored as well. Try reading your text aloud. Did you stumble or pause? Is there an extra word you can take out? If an industry term is used, make sure it is explained right away. Always put your subject first. If you’re talking about people, “Passengers ate breakfast in the dining car,” sounds better than “The dining car served breakfast to passengers.”
Museum displays don’t need to be fancy to be effective. There are many professional guidelines posted online that can guide you along as you review and refresh your exhibits. After all, you never know which visitor will be tomorrow’s new railroad expert!
- Reproduced with permission from the January 2016 issue of Railfan & Railroad Magazine, ©2016 White River Productions.