Kind of surprised this hasn't been brought up yet, but the MNGRR has been forced by a real-estate developer to suspend operations for a waterfront development project, with the developer ripping up some of the museums tracks with little notice.

Apparently this was a thing that the museum knew was going to happen, but the agreed upon duration of the suspension was for only a few weeks, not months, nor apparently was track removal part of the agreed upon plan. The developer also apparently threatened to scrap any equipment that was left in their way.


More info
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28H4pQXfdCg&ab_channel=NEWSCENTERMaine

I learned a neat trick from this guy with a radio show named Shaun Thompson. Any time these weird private equity companies surface, look up their managing partners, political contributions, and "philanthropy". Sometimes they are shadowy, other times they have huge egos and leave breadcrumbs all over LinkedIn and such.
Can't say I am surprised with what I found in five minutes about Casey Prentice and Kevin Costello. THE BIG MONEY LEFT ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS.

The irony of "Urban Land Institute", "Green Building", "Parks Conservancy" etc. backers ripping up a historic railroad.

BIG MONEY ANYTHING isn't normally a friend.

[quote="rea_reefwagon"]The irony of "Urban Land Institute", "Green Building", "Parks Conservancy" etc. backers ripping up a historic railroad.[/quote]

How is that an example of "irony", and what exactly is "historic" about this particular railroad?

The money should have gone into making the WW&F better.

This move has been expected for several years. Most of the MNG has been shuttled off to the WW&F. And trying to pin this as another false political move was a stupid thing to do in the previous post.

The irony is where these "civic organizations" project themselves as civil, on the up and up, being for public good, promoting community, and particularly these having social benefits for living spaces. In actuality these Alinsky kinds of NGOs and the people, organizations, and movements they attract are not. They exist to project power, push agendas that line pockets, to crown themselves as experts, and as loyalty/favor systems. A certain brand of technocratic managerial statism is fundamentally integral to them. I am simply observing the kinds of connections that I predicted some private equity-hedge fund-real estate investment guys working in a place like Portland, Maine would have.

While the conflict with the tourist railroad is not directly political, my immediate background assumptions about the power structure were correct. This is the crowd that will regulate entire museum collections out of use for everything from emissions to journal oil (museums being a completely unthought of "unintended consequence"), for trolley museums in certain states having their electricity bill double the national average, or significant loss of patronage due to reduced discretionary spending or even families leaving because of high taxes.

The issue I see is that even if the developer reassembled their line (and it wouldn't surprise me if they vanished after competing the redevelopment but before reassembling the track, or magically run out of money to reassemble the rail line), they are redeveloping the area into "a luxury neighborhood." How long before the new tenets complain about the bells, whistles, horns, cinders, and smoke and the average Joes riding through their neighborhood and get the museum shut down or hit with all sorts of operating restrictions?