Report raps transportation museum
The findings are blunt, but essentially accurate, museum officials acknowledge.

By Kevin Kittredge

The Virginia Museum of Transportation is in trouble, says a consultant's report, and museum officials don't disagree.

The museum, the report says, suffers from lax financial oversight, outdated exhibits and low attendance, and is disconnected from the community it serves.

Museum archives are "in dire condition," and artifacts are inadequately protected, says the recently completed assessment by Museum Management Consultants Inc. of San Francisco, which was released by the museum on Friday. The $50,000 report was requested by Mayor Nelson Harris and funded by the Norfolk Southern Foundation, city spokeswoman Melinda Mayo said. The consultant was hired by the city.

The museum's financial viability is in question, the report says. "There is not enough staff to address essential concerns. ... The museum has lost its way within the community, and attendance is at an all-time low. There is a serious need for a new mission and vision for the VMT to survive," it says.

Museum leaders disputed several of the report's assessments. But they characterized the report as a positive development that highlights the financial problems facing the institution that best chronicles Roanoke's blue-collar past.

"It's a fair report, I think," said Bev Fitzpatrick, the museum's executive director. "We pretty much knew a lot of this. Other museums in the valley are far better funded. ... That's something we need to know more about and try to fix."

"It really does validate a lot of things that we've known for a very long time, and it gives us a chance to speak out about it," said Tom Cox, museum board president. "It's always at the end of the day because of a chronic lack of money."

Attempts to contact Harris on Monday were not successful. City council members have not received copies of the report, Mayo said. Stephen Horn, senior vice president for Museum Management Consultants, declined to comment beyond what is in the report.

Museum at crossroads

The museum's troubles are nothing new. Many area museums suffered when the state cut funding to nonstate museums in 2001 -- but the transportation museum, which relied on the state for 48 percent of its budget, suffered more than most. It cut back hours and services, and slashed staff.

Then a freak storm that tore off part of its roof in 2006 made matters worse. Damage was estimated at about $200,000, prompting Fitzpatrick to say the museum was in crisis.

Fitzpatrick said they have explored the possibility of becoming an official state museum (despite its name, the museum is not state-run), but the odds the state will take them on right now are not good. He also called on the city to step up support for the museum, which it once owned. The city still owns some of the museum's marquee exhibits, including the Roanoke-made steam engines the 611 and the 1218.

"We should be a line item in the budget," said Fitzpatrick, who also is a city council member. "There would be no government without this history here."

The consultants spent several days in Roanoke and interviewed dozens of people inside and outside the museum. They also looked at other transportation museums for comparison. In their report, they praise the museum for "telling the story of Roanoke's rich railroad heritage," and for its strong bonds with rail buffs and friendly staff.

Other portions of the report are scathing. It cites "clutter and disregard for standards of storage and collection care," and notes current staff members were unaware of an inventory of the museum's collection done several years before.

Staffers also could not find three major studies conducted by outside groups for the museum in recent years, the report said. "It is troubling that these reports have gone missing, as it forces the VMT staff ... to solve every problem anew when recommendations have been made already."

Fitzpatrick blamed the loss of the documents on staff turnover and lack of continuity. "We have no institutional memory," he said.

To the consultant, the museum faces a crossroads:

"The leadership of the museum must make a fundamental choice between staying the same, and thereby continuing to fade into obscurity, or dedicating the organization to change," the report says.

Improvements under way

The report suggests, among other things, that the museum inaugurate a rail excursion program, and consider converting part of its cavernous home into office and residential space. It also recommends a sharper focus on railroading history, noting the museum's emphasis on other modes of transportation, including the recent opening of a car gallery, has not increased attendance.

Fitzpatrick and Cox said several of the shortcomings pointed out in the report have been corrected, including financial oversight.

"This place has probably never been as tightly fiscally controlled," Cox said. "We're literally trying to spin gold from straw."

Security also has been improved, they said. And Fitzpatrick said their own figures show attendance is up, not down. He could not account for the discrepancy in numbers.

The museum has already begun renting out unused portions of the building as office space, Fitzpatrick said. And it is arranging to have its archives transferred to the Norfolk and Western Historical Society, which has storage facilities on Salem Avenue that the museum lacks. "We'd rather have the big trains" than the archives, Fitzpatrick said. "That's what we do well."

As for a rail excursion program, the museum acquired the Zoo Choo from Mill Mountain Zoo last year, along with a track, and hopes to have the miniature train up and running around the museum's rail yard by spring 2009, Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick also revealed Monday that plans are under way for a rail excursion program in the city. The train, which would likely consist of a historic diesel locomotive and a single passenger car, would leave from somewhere in the vicinity of the Ramada Inn on Franklin Road and make a two-mile trip over a little-used Norfolk Southern rail line. The project could be a joint one involving several organizations, he said, including the O. Winston Link Museum.

"We've made significant changes here," Cox said. "We are postured to move forward."

I would venture that at least one third of the railroad museums in this country are in this condition (or worse).