I am seeking intelligent, knowledgeable comment on the following scenario, which is actually happening. Comments from real experience appreciated.

Our university has been offered a modern two unit diesel high speed train set as a donation. Various opinions have been expressed about displaying this outdoors or converting it into a classroom or cafe. There are many examples on RYPN where this has not turned out very well.

Your comments on problems we are likely to face, and proper setup for long term outdoor display, proper conversion to a usable space, etc. are appreciated.

Universities and rail preservation is an interesting topic. My first thought about this was that adaptive reuse does not equal preservation, though some restored streetcars were previously downgraded to cabins and the like. That said, none of the Arkansas Valley Interurban cars that were turned into dormatories at Bethel College have survived, to my knowledge. An interurban car and several locomotives that were at Purdue University were early additions to the National Museum of Transportation (now Museum of Transportation). Stanford University benefactor Leland Stanford had a locomotive named after him, and after display in a hall for many years the locomotive was moved from the school to the California State Railroad museum. One locomotive on display at a campus was taken under the wing of a school railroad club, which began restoring the engine to operation. Before operation began, the group separated from Michigan State University. I understand that today, Pere Marquette 1225 and its supporting organization holds close ties back to its days as a university railroad club. There was some talk of a community college program forming in Maine to build or restore railroad equipment, but I do not think anything became of that effort.

The only active railroad preservation at the university-level that I know of, outside of valuable library archives, is the vintage miniature railway equipment that the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) holds title to and is maintained by a railroad club of the school. In this case, the entire railroad was collected and built to operation, provided intact at a large property along the California coast in donation to the university, with the caveat that the railroad be maintained and improved as part of the donation. Since many acres of agricultural and forest land came with the donation, the provision was accepted. It also helped that several higher-level officials in the university supported the donation, including a professor of Civil Engineering who was active in the ad-hoc group that worked on the railroad - friends of the donor.
The Swanton Pacific lives to this day:
http://sprr.calpoly.edu/

I would like to know if other universities are taking active roles in large artifact railroad preservation.
O. Anderson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/18inch

If the equipment is "converted to a classroom or cafe" the university management will come to view it as just buildings, and responsibility will be foisted on the building maintenance department. Unfortunately, railroad equipment stored outdoors tends to require a LOT more maintenance than a permanent building, the the equipment will eventually become seedy looking, and the maintenance dept. will push for disposal. The University needs to be made to understand that if they want these for display pieces, they are going to have to spend money to provide at least a roof or more elaborate shelter, and a permanent budget for paint and glazing maintenance.

Unless you can find a very good reason to accept it based on the mission of the university, I would recommend you politely decline. Classrooms built like classrooms work better than repurposed high maintenance railway vehicles, and cost much less in the long run. If you offer degrees in engineering that could use them for practica, perhaps it would be worth it or not - if so, partnering with a preserved railway where your students could not only apply their engineering skills but also demonstrate them in service might be the most reasonable alternative.

In regards to university adaptive reuse, there probably is no other example as complete as the conversion of Quaker Square, a railroad-themed shopping mall, into the campus expansion of the University of Akron. Over the years the school has been converting more facilties to their use, and de-accessioning portions of the railroad collection and tearing down railroad buildings.
http://wksu.org/news/story/34571

If the donor is willing to provide for the care and protection of this high-speed train, it may stand a chance in preservation at the school. Otherwise, unless they happen to own an old train shed to store and display the train, I too think it may suffer from slow decay until it becomes unwanted.

It often looks to a restaurateur or institution that a railroad car will make a good bistro or classroom, but it's quickly discovered that there's a reason restaurants and classrooms aren't 70 feet by 10 and on wheels.

We have discovered that it's impossible for a person to talk to even half of a coach full of people and be heard. The rows of occupied seats absorb sound. Amplification and multiple speakers would be needed for classroom use.

In our case a university was wise enough to realize it had no use for a locomotive, and the steam-engine project seems to be working out nicely independent of the school. Lectures and entertainments aboard the coaches, not so much, unless everything is repeated at about 20-foot intervals.

Aarne H. Frobom
East of East Lansing, Michigan