Well, here would have been a better way to go with the LS&I 2-8-0. Rather than giving her the number of a former Western Maryland engine of the same number, give her the next number up from the last one. Still letter her for the WM, but with a "ficticious" number, there could be no confusion for later day historians. I understand though, WHY she got number 734; to somewhat reflect her heritage as LS&I number 34.

I was not familiar with the GP30's lettered for the WM, but if the railroad HAD no GP30's, then painting them for the Western Maryland actually represents no problem. Later historians would realize that these were not authentic WM locomotives.

My two cents anyway.

Les

Remember, interpretation is your friend - and key to most of our missions.

If the two cars really are the same design, I'd say the most professional thing to do would be to restore the artifact as a Southern car, and interpret it as an identical or near-identical copy of the Conrail car, which your hypothetical situation says it is.

Mass-production and copying of freight car designs was, and is, commonplace, and there is no reason you can't be entirely honest with the public and interpret this very fact through signage, docents, exhibits, etc - whatever you can afford.

If you are truly an educational institution, and if you have any faith at all in your visitors' capacity to put A and B together, you don't need the car to be painted Conrail in order for most of them to get the idea, and most will probably respect you more for being faithful to the artifact.

David A. Vago

Does identity consist of continuity of substance or continuity of essence?

If I repaint my 1957 Chevy BelAir a different color, or with a modern formula of paint, is it less a 1957 Chevy from an interpretive POV given the level of comprehension of the casual visitor at the auto show? What if I clean off the historic dirty grease encrustations? What if I replace the old dead battery with a new battery? Modern unleaded fuel in place of old leaded fuel that isn't obtainable any more? Water in the radiator that was treated differently at the water works than was done in the town where the car was built originally and filled for the first time and is not chemically identical?

Replication is a rational and morally and ethically defensable way to build meaningful interpretive displays. Paint is cheap and doesn't last a long time and will need replacement in any case - forget about the rivet counters and if you need to replicate a Conrail car with an identical hulk from another line, do it as well as you can, and document it as a former HPT&D car replicating a Conrail prototype (or whatever).

Why are some posters STILL misunderstanding the difference between tourist railroads and museums? Tourist railroads might run with obsolete hardware, but they exist to entertain through a creation of a new experience, not by recreating an earlier one. No requirement to replicate anything accurately in particular, just to provide their customers with a very enjoyable high value experience.

There are gray areas where the two crossover - here's where some policy needs to be defined in terms of what kind and how much practical and esthetic compromise with exact historic accuracy is allowable and for what purpose. Each organization needs to determine what that level is for themselves.

Due respect to Mr Vago, who (makes me proud and) I know is brilliant despite his idealism - our casual visitors don't have a clue or an interest as to what academic mental gymnastics we perform among ourselves in pursuit of warm fuzzies. They care about what they experience at our sites. We can set the rules in terms of defining the workings of the little worlds we create for them to experience within the bounds of the laws of physics, and they might notice where we fail to live up to our own rules in obvious ways if we are stupid enough not to cover for ourselves, but all in all if they have a good time and are happy they came all will be well from their POV.

Let's spend the time and effort doing a good job of taking care of them and not sweat the philosophical details too much.

BTW, I don't actually own a 1957 Chevy, it just seemed like a good plot device to help get the point across. Notice the lack of absolute accuracy here does nothing to change the value of the point in question.

dave

The point made previous to this post is in line with my belief. The history and life of an artifact doesn’t necessarily stop when it arrives in our hands. Its history doesn’t cease to exist because of our temporal proximity. If we decide to do something with an artifact then our decisions will be significant in 50 years and in some cases held in revere by future generations. So long as we don’t destroy it, it is all good.

Case in point would be a passenger car put out in a field and used as a tool shed and chicken coup. That very action opens that car to degradation and misuse (from a railroad perspective) but that action also keeps the artifact alive. Many pieces preserved today have more history as a non-railroad artifact than as property of a railroad.

If we choose to restore an artifact to a day-one appearance and discard all the railroad fabric which followed after that day are we destroying history or performing great work? The appropriate action is up to the discretion of the person who holds the artifact and not everyone will be pleased with that which happens to that artifact.

No kidding. Just about every piece of equipment at BAERA has been at a preservation organization much longer than it was ever owned by a railroad.

Not sure how to count the Boeing-Vertol LRV. Muni sure counts as a preservation organization.



I don't know about that. I can think of a lot of "decisions" that shouldn't even slightly be "revered" by future generations. Painting a tourist railroad paint scheme on a historic engine comes to mind... or modifying a classic scheme (Santa Fe, NYC lightning stripe) in a way only the perpetrator could love.

Or scorn.

And considering how poorly railroad museums* document restoration and preservation work, in the future putting things somewhere close to correct may not be an option.

I mean real documentation, up to professional museum standards - a bunch of digital photos on the web doesn't count. There are plenty of textbooks on this subject.

*OK, there are a few good eggs, but definitely more bad eggs.

--
Will