A great many museums (well, close to all museums) do not publish rosters of equipment. Most have info on some of their collection, but there's almost never a fully complete roster. Stuff in the backlot or back carbarns are not generally listed.

Is there a reason to keep these rosters secret? Or is it merely that everybody's got better things to do than fully catalog the rolling stock in the collection?

As someone who once did a gawd-awful amount of (ultimately futile) research into preservation rosters and who still has scads of them stuffed in file drawers at the Maryland Rail Heritage Library, I would probably come down as one of the ultimate supporters of published rosters, both on paper for handout and online, or for sale in the gift shop if applicable. Almost every British line has a booklet for sale with data and photos of almost every item on the line, usually including stations and signal boxes.

However, I've been at this long enough to know all the quandries raised by such publication. Among them:

*Do you acknowledge the existence of that "chicken coop" out back that stands slim chance of ever getting restored, and you're just waiting for its main lobbyist to die so you can conduct a mercy scrapping?

*What about the pieces that aren't owned outright by the organization? Suppose Joe the Loco Owner gets mad and wants to leave, and lawsuits ensue over repairs, usage and storage fees, etc.? What about instances where actual ownership is downright murky, sometimes for business reasons? Does the Reading & Northern own 2102 and 425, or does Andrew Muller personally--and is it even any of our business? Ditto Juniata Terminal, Bennett Levin, and the PRR E8's.

*What about this beautiful wooden dining car that, oh just incidentally, was built up practically from scratch upon a derelict B&M coach frame? Do you acknowledge the B&M history and call attention to the inauthenticity of the experience?

*PRR 1361: Enough said?

*How about the stuff out in the "back 40" that you're trying to deaccession? Do you call attention to your surplus to find it a good home, or do you let it distract from your museum's core mission?

The Roster Corollary to Murphy's Law: As soon as you go to press with it, there will be changes necessary.

I think it may be that most organizations don't think it is important. Also, some may not have a complete roster of what they have in one place...a note here...a partial list there, the car dept has their list and the power dept has theirs, etc.

A physical inventory of all of ours was taken this year and put on a spreadsheet. I would post it here, but I get "extension xls not allowed" when I try to attach it.

There is a partial list with links to pictures is on our website: HODRRM.org

Bill Houston
Heart of Dixie RRM
Calera, AL

At Orange Empire we've had people interested for years in documenting our collection and identifying the motors, controls, air pumps, brake schedule, length, weight, builder, date, etc. This first manifested itself in several sheets drafted with lettering guides. Then it moved into the electronic age in several forms.

You will find our railway equipment collections listed by railroad on our website with the basic information about each car.

In reality, every Museum should have information on file about its collection and how title was obtained. In "mainstream" museums this is called registration records and accession records. Sometimes the files are combined and at other locations they are separated. From presentations I've attended "found in collection" and "found on doorstep" are acceptable notations.

Back in the 1970s there were several guides prepared for privately owned passenger equipment in various forms of display or use.

And in 1974 Harold Cox published "The Railfan's Guide to Museum & Park Displays" compiled by Randolph Kean. This is quite a work as it attempts to identify all the locomotives and cars with fit within its title and where possible to give former owners and numbers.

Robert -

I personally keep an all time roster for our museum and update it on my computer quite often. This information sheet is broken down into the following categories; Motive Power; Passenger Equipment; Cabooses; Freight Cars; Maintenance-Of-Way Rolling Stock; Maintenance-Of-Way Equipment; Buildings & Non-Rail Equipment; Signal Department; Artifacts. I also list 14 Keys to the listing (such as: To be restored, Not HVRM property, etc.) and a section with railroad abbreviations and various other explanations. I have the same problem as Bill Houston of the Heart of Dixie Museum in that I can't post the latest copy here. The museum itself DOES have an equipment roster on its website which, unfortunately, has not been updated lately.

I agree that museums should have at least a roster of equipment listing. It is frustrating to check out a museum website and not be able to find out this info.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Ours has been on our web pages for many years:

http://www.psrm.org/roster/

No secrets - nothing to hide.

Sounds like I should consider the Ct Eastern RR Museum lucky.

The guys that maintain the website have kept the Equipment & Buildings page up to date with basic histories and current photos, while another member has been maintaining a roster & info booklet that we sell in the gift shop with more in depth histories of the equipment, buildings, site & local railroad histories, and the data pages in the 3 ring binders we take to the Train Shows & local Ag Fairs.

Rich Cizik
Ct Eastern RR Museum
Willimantic, Ct 06226
http://www.cteastrrmuseum.org

The Trolley Museum of New York has a complete roster at http://www.tmny.org/tmnycars.html. And then there's the "Roster of Preserved North American Electric Railway Cars" at http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html.

Brian,

i think that you are right, rosters should be more available. I too found that Preserved Equipment Guide by Kean very valuable.

Your OERM has also done two editions of a gude to the museum that has covered the territory very well. Now how about a 3rd edition?

For us "juce hans' there is the Preserved North American Electric Cars web site. I wish there was one for steam passenger cars and of course there are several places to look at steam locomotives.

Ted Miles

Our group has a resonably complete, but occasionally out of date roster including the Chicken coops and car-bodies...

In many groups including ours there is an occasional disconnect with the curatorial side, including the roster writers and the group managment and web designers, leaving long periods between updates and corrections.

In our most recent internal roster we have added a catagory, "significant fragments" for those collections of parts which were once a railroad car, but will never be restored, instead being held for their research value or as parts for other restorations. It acknowlages their presence for the academics and researchers without making any claims that we really have a railroad car to restore.

In my opinion, any institution or organization so casual and cavalier as to not have an inventory of physical assets is derelict in its duties as an organization, be it non-profit, charity, or even private property. Ever heard of insurance documentation and corporation assets? Nonprofit management probably requires asset documentation as well.

If you are supposed to be a historical organization, is it not intuitive to offer historical documentation? Certainly the operators of, say, the Copper Canyon tours in Mexico, and maybe such operations as the Verde Canyon and Grand Canyon RRs, may see their rolling stock as more expendable or consumable assets than an operation like the Strasburg, EBT, or Cumbres & Toltec, and I'm not expecting every ex-DL&W Boonton Car or MU to be presented as such. But if this is all about history, and not people-moving a la Walt Disney World, why not make the history available for the curious?

The Smiths Falls Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario maintains a full roster on its web site, as well as extensive photo albums on Fotki:

http://www.sfrmeo.ca/roster_loc.htm
http://www.sfrmeo.ca/roster_freight.htm
http://www.sfrmeo.ca/buildingsmisc.html
http://www.sfrmeo.ca/collection.htm

http://www.sfrmeo.ca

http://public.fotki.com/elliottd/sfrmeo/

When our webmaster finds time, he is adding information on specific equipment, for example CP Business Car 23 and CN First & Second Class coach 5802:

http://www.sfrmeo.ca/CPRcar23.html
http://www.sfrmeo.ca/cnr5802.html

Steve Hunter,
Cardinal, Ontario

On the theory that information has value, even if just modest value, TVRM put out a printed roster available at the gift shop. They sold well and every dollar helps. The challenge, of course, is finding someone to keep such information updated.

Highly recommended is Mid-Continent's "Compendium", an outstanding effort and a bargain at $5.00.

Alan Maples

Ted,

I'm told that two of the volunteers were to be working on an update (or were they considering a re-write?). But it appears to have fallen by the wayside. One of the two people has much more in his "real" life than he did before.

We would like to have a booklet about the museum and its collections to sell to the visitors. But like so many projects it needs someone to do the work.

A published roster is quite different from an internal inventory list. I personally enjoy looking at what’s out there, but I am uncertain as to any real value of a printed roster other than bragging rights. I’d be interested in finding out if anyone can document a significant number of visitors who said they came to a museum because they wanted to see, for example, a certain 1947-built Santa Fe caboose. I’m sure it happens, but there may be better ways to advertise. Rosters may be a way to snag a volunteer, but they usually are folks who know what’s on the property from site visits. A roster’s greatest value may come in parts exchanges or, as with the recent single-truck Birney project, in arranging cooperation for reproductions.

Why is a published roster critical for a rail museum and not for an art or natural history museum? Most non-rail museums do not publish inventory lists, although I’m sure the good one’s have them. Moreover, it seems a safe bet that most professionally-run operations keep better files than volunteer railfan outfits. To me, it is much better to spend time on good internal files than to publish a roster. A master file should hold the title/donation certificate, background for future fundraising, details on past restorations, and lists of everyone that gave a restricted donation for the project. I should list where applicable blueprints, shop record and photos are located, if not in the same location. It may also include photos of parts that a vulnerable to being lifted, such as horns- all the better to make an insurance claim. That’s my two cents, but then again, don’t ask me to be the file clerk.

Fred Ash