I have been absent from a number of substantial railroad museums in my adult lifetime and plan to rectify this in 2010.

What are some unique and creative museum displays or installations that you have seen or experienced at your own or another museums/rail organizations/etc? Do many outfits rotate displays, alter them semi-annually? What else is out there beyond the preserved roundhouses and daily train trips that really leaves impressions?

I'm talking about the kind of installations that really make the visit or showcase a creative ability to show off a piece of the collection or tell a particular story.

A few examples come to mind immediately:
- a locomotive overturned to illustrate sabotage during WWII (this example is in France)
- a sectioned locomotive (Steamtown comes to mind)
- sound effects play at a static locomotive exhibit (CSRM, Smithsonian)
- recreated vignettes of the railroad era (static figures dressed in period clothes, streetlights, brick walks)

What have you seen that would ideally not only appeal to the rails, to engage just about anyone?

Cincinnatti, Ohio has a fine history museum in the old Union Station. Railroad related highlights include a restored streetcar body, HUGE HO gage model railroad of the city as it was in the 1920's, and lobby display machine tools from the manufacturers - old tools in new condition! The most effective inter[retation is what you go into after the machine tool hall - walk through a door into a gas lit riverfront night in 1880.

The Indianapolis Children's Museum downtown has a pretty effective sound and light show in the basement room where REUBEN WELLS is displayed, as well as some interactive stuff.

Pure interactivity in its most intensive is available - and taking at least a half a day - at the EXPLORATORIUM in San Francisco.

Atmosphere and context are predominant at RAILTOWN in Jamestown, CA. EBT might be the best left in the East.

These are among the places that have viscerally affected my as a visitor the most.

dave

Three exhibits immediately come to mind for me. The first being the aforementioned cut-a-way steam engine at Steamtown in Scranton. An outstanding adjunct to teaching steam theory to a newbie. As an amateur radio operator, my second highlight was the operating American Morse key at the station exhibit inside the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. This ubiquitous communications device deserves more attention in telling the history of railroads, and this exhibit puts it in perspective for the viewer. Finally I don't think there is any better exhibit of the way things used to be, (east of the Mississippi), than the backshops of the East Broad Top Railroad.

de Don n2qhvRMLI

Yes, the Cincinnati museum has an incredible railroad display, BUT!! It is NOT HO, it is S gauge/scale! As some of us say, "There's a reason Superman doesn't have 'HO' on his chest!" :)
Not completely railroad related, but the museum has a full-sized diorama complete with a steamboat, and there is a functioning demonstration machine shop too. It's all about transportation, and Cincinnati's contribution. Cool place!
S'
David D.

I submit two exhibits at National Capital Trolley Museum.

Our new expanded O-scale model of the Chevy Chase car line includes two new interactive features and a number of new scenic features. Visitors now start the operating car using a switch in a modified K controller. Visitors also operate a hand crank to generate electricity in order to light several buildings in the backdrop. Finally, our scale modelers have added a number of "people" to the layout including a Good Humor man with his truck, a dead skunk in the middle of the road, various people waiting for the streetcar, and a police officer writing tickets.

Over ten years ago we installed an interactive computer exhibit based on an exhibit designed by volunteers at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum. Visitors use this program to find 17 features on a PCC body (doors, roll sign, etc.), view pictures of three DC streetcar lines, and compare now and then photos with LRVs and PCCs in locations such as San Francisco, Toronto and Pittsburgh.

Wesley

Well if you’re ever in Chicago don’t miss the Museum of Science and Industry’s...
The Pioneer Zephyr
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/ex ... er-zephyr/
Almost as good as a 1935 train ride.


And the Great Train Story/train exhibits
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/ex ... ain-story/
Besides the wow-sized layout they sometimes have an operator at the CTC panel that runs the trains.

How about #60000 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia?

I have seen several displays that come to mind as unique experiences beyond just the train.

Though not exactly a museum, historic trolleys in context on the streets of San Francisco and New Orleans are very interesting. Maybe add in a few of the new heritage trolley lines such as Dallas, TX, Memphis, TN, Kenosha, WI, and Portland, OR... etc.

Roundhouse/shop tours at Ely, NV, Rockhill, PA, and Jamestown, CA. Also preserved facilities at Chama, NM, Houghton, MI and Laws, CA.

The recreated CP Depot at Sacramento (which had, when I first saw it, recorded sounds coming from various points of the platform, and a steam generator creating small wafts from the front of a 120 year old locomotive).

Also at Sacramento, the displays of the state railway museum are good interpretations for the public, though not as gritty as the real thing. Better than that found in a huge barn with equipment parked bumper to bumper. (I would rather have the latter than equipment nicely displayed outside, though).

The PRR GG1 located at the depot in Harrisburg, PA.

At Union, IL: the interlocking tower with working CTC (mostly on display via webcam), the operating signal display, the working neon railway signs, streetlights, a diner, as well as a rapid transit station which gets used on occasion (member's weekend being the best time). There is more there to be seen, but many of the other elements are interesting in their own way, and just add to the whole of a visitor's experience.

A short section of operating street railway at Perris, CA.

Preserved depots with rail displays are interesting to me... Chattanooga, Kansas City, and Salt Lake City come to mind. Each have some unique ways to explore the depot experience, as well as serving other functions.

There is probably more, but that is all I am coming up with now.
O. Anderson

I would add that the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark displays several pieces of rail equipment that were once used at the blast furnace plant, including a pair of Pollock hot metal cars that are the only ones of that kind ever built. A Baldwin switcher and a couple of side dump cars round out the mill equipment.

A Frisco steamer is also there.

I was recently impressed by the changes B&O made to inside the roundhouse train tour. An impressive sound system in the cab of Clinchfield #1 really makes this hands on (for the kids) experience come alive (almost to the point of scaring my 6-year old) and entry and explanation of the Jim Crow (Ma&Pa?) car does a good job of tackling a difficult period and the role RR's played.

This weekend, after my 10-year old did a unit at school on time, we spent a few minutes in the "clock" room at the museum. I seem to recall the old upstairs room having more clocks, but nonetheless, the current display does a nice, simple, job of explaining the role RR's played in the standardization of US time.

Despite all the bad press lately, the National Railway Museum in Green Bay has some nice exhibits. The Big Boy is very well presented, in a way that you can really appreciate the size of the locomotive. Being able to visit the cab and marvel at all the valves and guages is also neat. Having an engine that large nicely displayed indoors is impressive.

However, the really unique and well done exhibit is the Pullman Porter exhibit they also feature, which has video screens displaying Pullman Porters telling their stories. It's inside a Pullman car, so you have a real nice sense of both the equipment and the people. It's probably one of the better exhibits I've seen lately.

Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern is a fairly small operation. The line isn't very long, and the round trip takes about an hour. The engine is also fairly small, an 0-6-0 Saddletank if I recall correctly.

But what makes the line unusual, at least to me, is the total package they present. The place feels like a movie set. The train, the surroundings, the station, it all fits together perfectly. You feel like you're riding a branchline in the 1940's. No Walmarts or McD's to blow the illusion either, the surrounding countryside is a wonderful setting.

I don't know if this qualifies as unique, but it's a great little railroad.

Dear Kelly:
Two of the best exhibits that I have seen are :
California State Railroad Museum's "St. Hyacinthe" an open section Pullman car that rocks back and forth to give the feeling of movement. The docents that staff this car are excellent, each with their own story. The car used to smell like a Pullman car too, but a few years ago they cleaned it up (too bad).
Minnesota State Historical Museum's Northern Pacific box car. Although the primary function of the car is to be part of the exhibit on wheat, there is an interactive aspect of the display where you get a check list and inspect the running gear of the car for defects. At the end you find out what the consequences would be if you had missed one of the defects. A nicely thought out exhibit.
J.David

Adjacent to the 60000, is a hands-on display that shows the relationship of maintaining water and boiler pressure. As I recall, a pump and hand crank "fed" the boiler with accompanying pressure gauge. Below a certain pressure level, the display would not operate.

While not a railroad museum, the Steinbeck museum in Salinas, CA has an interesting display approach on the working conditions faced by farm workers. For this particular exhibit, pictures and text are at, or below, waist level forcing the visitor to bend over much like the farm workers.

An often forgotten sense, and one of the strongest, is smell. The visitor experiences at EBT, Jamestown, and even the Steamtown Roundhouse are heightened by the various "shop" smells. I have been told a WWI trench exhibit in England includes an artificial aromatic element that greatly adds to the experience. To avoid a sterile display environment, perhaps one could artificially duplicate the unique railroad odor of a creosote/grease/coal mixture.

Ken

Ogden Union Station Museum has a cutaway Kennecott Copper caboose (with access to the interior) and the cab of UP GP-30 No. 860 (fully accessible), both located inside the museum building. These hands-on attractions are especially good for the young folks.

Craig Lacey