Something that came to mind with recent work in fields having way too much to do with public finance, and spurred on by that Texas State RR issue mentioned below:

Which private RR museums might deserve a chance at public operation, support, and administration?

And what would happen if a public museum (say, California or Pennsylvania) were somehow forced to go private?

I had more than one non-rail person suggest (rather naively) that perhaps the state of Maryland should "take over" the B&O Museum to "save" it in the wake of its roof collapse. (Actually, as it turns out, the B&O Museum was as well prepared from a financial standpoint as could be, even to the extent of carrying loss-of-business insurance to cover the staff salaries when no admissions are coming in.) Even though there's no way it will happen, I was forced to wonder what would happen if it somehow became the "Railroad Museum of Maryland"--or what would happen if the roundhouse museum in Hagerstown had gotten such support, or the WMSR.......

Similarly, I hear stories that the RR Museum of Pa. earns FAR more than its costs in tickets, which then "carries" money-losing parts of the Pa. Historic & Museum Commission. I don't care if that's accurate or not. But if it were so, can someone see either spinning off the RR Museum of Pa. as an independent? Ditto California? What would be different? What changes would happen?

PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT advocating any specific changes to the ststus quo (except someone saving the East Broad Top, but that's another debate....). I do not know enough of the TSRR situation, nor the C&TS, nor CSRM, etc. But one of my clients happens to be a California public-employees union, and the California budget crisis is before me almost daily (and I'm in Baltimore!). I would literally not be surprised to hear that the CSRM has to shut down for a year because of the budget crisis; if that were to happen, could a museum support group operate things independently short-term or long-term?

lner4472@bcpl.net

Large bag of fertilizer you are opening here Sandy but one worthy of spreading around.

Public subsidies are probably the only recourse for operations started to provide economic activity in locations without any other businesses going on. If the railroad is seen as the source of people to drive a local economy, it will probably not be able to go it alone.

Similarly, apart from IRM like examples located in major urban centers with huge volumes of visitors and volunteers to draw from, private museums are limited in what they can accomplish in times of slow business cycles.

Look at the Forney Museum in Denver - stuff turning to rust in the heart of a major tourist center for dacades, until the city wanted the real estate and gave them a new home and funding. It will now probably slowly decline again in its new home until some other outside influence acts on it.

We are now seeing the effect of a slow economy, insurance rate increases, and other influences on some long standing but marginal operations. The day of the Mom and Pop RR Museum is probably over, except if it is across the street from Disneyland or in a similarly blessed locale.

CSRM as private enterprise? It could never have been built that way. It may be able to exist as such for a while until it uses up the margin in its structures and collections and massive capital investment was required - like a new roof - unless granted funds were provided, which is another form of subsidy.

Generally, the public sector does a nice job of economic development projects and highly professional projects in a grand scale. Private museums generally have a much harder row to hoe, and are self limiting to a greater extent in my experience.

Perhaps the best and the worst are public / provate partnerships. Consider two railroads in Colorado: Georgetown Loop and CATS. Yeah, CATS has NM too, but in the same general territory.

Both operate on land, track, and buildings owned by the state(s). Both are operated by private contractors. Georgetown Loop owns and maintains their rolling stock, keeps up the track and structures to a high standard, and fills up a lot of trains and does well. CATS, OTOH, uses state(s) owned rolling stock, and has existed on slender margins for many years, and ran into a backlog of deferred maintenence that put it in a very bad way, so that losing part of an operating season due to environmental problems killed it - until public subsidy stepped in and saved the day, or at least postponed disaster for a while.

Are we talking about apples and oranges here? GLRR is for profit, CATS currently not. GLRR is located on a major interstate highway, CATS is in the outback. GLRR sells an impulse price and time commitment product, CATS a more costly, all day survival trip.

Maybe I just answered part of the question......

dave

Please keep this up ... I am learning!

Question: What is your prognosis for the upcoming "season" considering the effect of current events ???

lamontdc@adelphia.net

> And what would happen if a public museum
> (say, California or Pennsylvania) were
> somehow forced to go private?

I would argue that CSRM has already evolved into a public-private hybrid. My understanding is that the CSRM Foundation (the independent, nonprofit support group) already operates the on-site concessions and funds a plurality of the total staff. State and CSRMF employees work side by side, more or less as part of one intergrated organizaton.

Largely becuase of the stabilizing role of the CSRMF, I for one would be not merely surprsed by genuininely shocked if CSRM were to close for any length of time at all--I just don't remotely see it in the cards. They have way too many options to deal with reduced state support before that becomes an issue.

RRM of Pa has a similar (though perhaps not so far evolved) relationship with their own Friends group--which, for example, maintains their very comprehensive Web site.



eledbetter@rypn.org

>As a real live bureacrat, I'll step into the fray.

My preference from the inside, would be only to have the government step in when failing to do so would otherwise result in the sure impairment.

There are two problems I see with significant government involvement.

The first is the very nature of government is that of maintaining the status quo. Where order and persistency are the main objectives-Government does a reasonable job.

Armies, courts and legislatures and various archival functions are all typical maintained or performed by government for that reason.

If you regard old locomotives the same as 18th century constituitive documents, where the purpose of preservation is maintaining existence for its own sake-then government is the way to go.

I don't subscribe to that point of view. The 18th century document is a unique item. Physically, its a single piece and inherently static. It's true value-the words on it-can obtained without disturbing it in any way. Its small, and relatively inexpensive to store.

Locomotives on the other hand are inherently dynamic. Their meaning came from use-the power produced-the smells and sounds they made-the cars they pulled and the lives they affected.

The preservation ethics the government uses to preserve the Constitution will inevitably result in a stuffed and mounted engine, tucked away behind red velvet theater rope with a sign prominently stating "do not touch". For the most part-that is what the government operated museums do with some exceptions. Industrial artifacts and their dynamic nature are shoe-horned into the existing preservation ethics.

Maybe nobody will ever solve the original use/original fabric argument-but if they do, they'll be from the private sector-which embraces risk and isn't wed so much to convention.

The second problem-money deserves its own post.



Superheater@rrmail.com

I live here in califirnia and to the best of my knowledge they have not closed any of the State parks and Recreation areas.

They have a various times charges greater of lesser entrance fees. They have cut back the hours and days of operation.

This State has had a long history of ups and downs in its fiscal situation. nothing new there.

And yes there is a 501(c)3 foundation that is doing a lot for running the museum. They raised a lot of the money for building the museum's new transfer table.

The top crowd getters in the State Parks system are the Hurst home in San Semion and the State Railroad Museum. I don't think they hae much to worry about.

ted_miles@nps.gov

In your post you make objection to government sponsorship of rail museums because you see government sponsored institutions as being inherently static endeavors. I see objection to this on several levels.

Your most prominent example, that of documents like the constitution, represents only a very small part of government led conservation efforts. Government is involved in conservation, either as the sole proprieter and purveyor of a particular institution and its goods or as a partner with a private organization, in many ways and on many levels.

The federal government opperates not only the national archives to conserve doccuments, but the Smithsonian Institute to conserve ideas, the National Parks system and Department of the Interior to conserve lands and the natural environment, the National Endowment for the Arts to conserve culture, and many other branches.

The NPS takes a lot of heat around here, because of Steamtown, but in general they perform their mission, giving the average Joe access to the scenic beauties of the U.S., admirably. What's more, the natural environment is inherently dynamic, much like a railroad, and cannot be experienced without the observer having a detectable impact. The problem of access vs. conservation is inescapable. Trails intrude upon scenic areas visibly and physically altering them. People leave litter, and cause erosion. And do you really want to see urban throngs when your out in God's country? The NPS has to deal with these problems everywhere. A less developed trail allows a few people to experience more, but you have to limit their numbers, in order to limit their impact. A more developed trail will serve more people, but its not as natural, and thus the experience is less wild, and more mundane.

In this case, the Federal Government is the sole proprieter, but in cases like the NEA the government works with private organizations. (And if culture isn't dynamic and forward thinking, then what is?)

You'll find that most parks, even those that were begun as private enterprises, are run by some government entity, no matter how local. The only kind of common private park that I'm aware of is the amusement park.

Now I don't want to say that government is the solution to a given problem. They may not be. But I also don't want to see them dismissed out of hand. Government is there for those occasions when we believet that the societal benefit of something outeighs its cost or mere economic viability.

And by the way, armies need to be dynamic and forward thinking. When they're not they lose the battle.

Sincerely,
David Ackerman

david_ackerman@yahoo.com

> The first is the very nature of government
> is that of maintaining the status quo. Where
> order and persistency are the main
> objectives-Government does a reasonable job.

Again I hafta add. As the ONLY railroad operation in OHIO receiving federal funds the far from static Cuyahoga Valley Line built a 6 million dollar to die for shop and just received 3 million dollars to extend the line to Canton and build a rather spiffy station. Next in line is the Ohio Central (I don't think they get Federal Funds) and I think that is the sum total of the biggies in Ohio. The state does not have enough money to run itself and ALL the ISTEA goes to highways. Means the MA&PAs are going to have to work harder ... we do pick up a bunch of overflow riders when Cuyahoga Valley is sold out, and even that helps.



lamontdc@adelphia.net

> Again I hafta add. As the ONLY railroad
> operation in OHIO receiving federal funds
>

GE, I wasn't confining myself to federal funding. Also please see my response to Mr. Ackerman.

Superheater@rrmail.com

> In your post you make objection to
> government sponsorship of rail museums
> because you see government sponsored
> institutions as being inherently static
> endeavors. I see objection to this on
> several levels.

> David, I didn't mean they were static endeavors in the way you mean. What I was trying to say-albeit late and needing some zzz's...

Is that the state funded museums will TEND to have inoperative equipment.

As it stands, there aren't the fully agreed upon paradigms for industrial preservation that there are for "pure history" that's employed in preserving constitution. The vigorous debate this board has seen in the past gives testament to that.

Government is rarely innovative-when was the last time you heard a business attempting to emulate government? We are desperate need of industrial preservation ethics that balance the original use/original fabric considerations. That won't come from gov't-government's job is to stick with the proven, the established. In the absence of well established industrial preservationn ethics-they have to borrow from the next closest thing-which is the preservation that locks the item away from extensive public "touch".



superheater@rrmail.com