Maybe I shouldn't post my immediate gut reaction to this article, but here goes.

Aside from CofC booster-ism, what makes Galesburg, IL think they should be the site for a national railroad museum? I've been through there (last year), and while it is a busy crossroads for BNSF and UP, and has a huge BNSF terminal, it's hardly the railroad center that say Chicago is. Certainly not worth an investment of $60 MILLION! They have a nice little station museum and a static CB&Q Hudson on display. What would help them most is having a formal railfan park like Folkston, GA, and Deshler, OH have, and oh, having the museum open more than weekends only. I stopped at the town visitor's center, and the nice volunteer there really couldn't tell me much about anything railroad in town.

We've been down this road how many times, debating which museums are worthy of saving/expanding, what artifacts are worth preserving, etc.? I realize that centralized decision-making is not a very popular concept around here, but the preservation community has GOT to come up with some kind of impartial and fair way of determining how to rationalize and consolidate efforts and collections to best use whatever scarce preservation dollars are out there for preservation. Perhaps some kind of independent council or commission, made up of delegates appointed from the major railroad history/preservation groups, museums, etc. should be created to work this out. It doesn't have to be run or organized by the government, but if we had a united front, we'd have a much better chance of getting a (fair?) share of whatever grant money is out there for railroad preservation. We certainly could do a better job of deciding where huge amounts of money for preservation/museums should go than a small town Chamber of Commerce.

Having a central group for railroad preservation issues would give railroad preservation a much more credible platform and aura of expertise for such decisions in the larger not-for-profit community. If a group like this had been around 30 years ago, perhaps the entire Steamtown thing would have had a more rational outcome, and could have successfully countered the pork-barreling of Congressman McDade. (If you don't think there is value in this, might I remind you of the regard that Ross Capon and NARP are held in at Congressional hearings on Amtrak.) I'm not proposing direct competition with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This consortium should coordinate with groups like NTHP. A group like this would have the standing to take a position on wasteful proposals like the one in Galesburg, and refocus donations to existing efforts more worthy of receiving large sums of money. It would have to have a public face with the credibility of a Ross Capon (maybe Bill Withun would be willing to come out of retirement). If you want an example of what's possible with a little rational cooperation, look no further than the recent Cleveland trolley auction. Imagine decisions like that happening on a preservation-wide basis. With a group like this it might even be possible to avoid another Dick Jensen or Paul Spence situation. The thing is, the members of the board would have to have the wisdom and sense of purpose (maybe more so) of the delegates to the U. S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, putting the larger purpose ahead of parochial interest - at least the sense of purpose we were all taught in school they had.

Just my $0.02. Let me get my shield up before the flaming starts.

They do have a couple things actually going for them - for a town of around 35,000, they are big enough to get something done and small enough to be focused on the railroad. This is not a community that's looking to get an sports team in, or some other 'big ticket' item in for economic & tourism development. That's always been key. I see bigger communities completely loose interest in something this size and smaller communities just can't pull it off..

Galeburg Railroad Days draws around 15,000 in late June. Also not bad, a lot of people already associate the town with the annual rail event. That helps convince a community that the enthusiasts really do exist and spend money if something interesting is going on.

And there's rail traffic, a lot of it, as there's nothing sadder than a railroad museum where nothing moves - either your own stuff or the big guys. Kinda looses its relevance.

Mind you, I have to play 'Forensic Consultant' enough that I'm not advocating setting up any more railroad museums unless there is really something to be gained here and a realistic long-term plan. I've participated in two feasibility studies where I deep-sixed a 'conventional' railroad museum concept, particularly when the only reason a community wants a railroad museum is because they can't figure out what else to do with the old historic depot. Timetables stuck in a glass case is a recipie for disaster. And it's become borderline comic on the number of 'national _______ museum of ______' as if it had congressional approval.

The price tag appears kinda stunning, but then again if you've chosen a site that has environmental cleanup issues involved, its real easy to get into big money fast. Doesn't translate into acres of equipment on display.

The North Platte rail observation tower may as well be a lightning rod for both proponents and detractors, but there's another example of putting a plan together for a smallish town (23,000) on what you've got to work with. Big doesn't necessarily help; as you've seen, Dallas could now seemingly care less about their rail museum, Frisco actually wants it, piles of money needed.

So I'll hold my guns; phased approaches are always better than 'big bangs' - the question becomes whether there's a plan to actually operate it that makes any sense at all - that's the hard part today. I do struggle with the automatic 'lets build a railroad museum' as the automatic answer to 'so, how do we capitalize on the trains running in this place?'

There are also times where the most realistic answer is that a site and a collection really is in the wrong place and would do much better somewhere else. That's certainly a relevant discussion, and equally painful.

[quote]Timetables stuck in a glass case is a recipie for disaster./quote]

How so? Not every town or city can have a large train museum nearby. I've always thought that, if you have an old depot that is cut-off from rail, you might as well preserve a few local railroad artifacts inside it and make it a small museum or visitors center. If you have the money/supplies, you might be able to restore a short stretch of track outside the depot, and maybe even display a speeder or a small locomotive/caboose on it. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just asking you to clarify.

In cases where significant money is going to be spent - public or donated - with the concept that "X (hundred) thousand visitors will come to see this stuff" the all-static display-only railroad museum is not a sustainable model as a community catalyst. There are a lot of them out there that survive with a handful of local volunteers and a few artifacts, but relatively few of that breed draw 10,000 annually.

Something has to move - either yours or somebody elses - to provide sustained interest. Some places are landlocked. Some places are 'me toos', not far away from an established museum - and Illinois Railway Museum isn't that far away. Stuff that moves also attracts the volunteers to work on it, and that's an equally huge issue.

I'm working with one museum now that has found out that two functioning 25-ton critters on a few hundred feet of track can pack 'em in for an event, after 20 years of effectively flat attendance on a good-quality static yard of display equipment.

There's some historically significant stuff out there that has effectively died as a static display.

I agree that in order for a train museum to be successful, it is very important that train rides of some sort be offered (be it on steam, diesel, or handcar). However, I believe that there are two operations where old depots can contain railroad artifacts and can get along just fine. These are:

1). The Visitor's Center model. In this situation, the depot is turned into the town's visitor's information center. It's primary purpose is to let tourists know what there is to do in town, but the depot setting, enhanced with a few small railroad artifacts in display cases) lends a historical ambiance to the place.

2). The local museum. This type of museum may be housed in he old depot, but contains artifacts from the entire region/ town's history. Again, railroad artifacts may find a home here, maybe even a couple pieces of rolling stock (as they have at the Black Diamond Museum in Black Diamond, WA). While not technically a railroad museum, it is preserving railroad artifacts.*

*Again, I've thought of what the Black Diamond Museum could do in the way of extending their track a short distance and operating their plymouth coupled to their caboose. However, that may be a long ways off, and perhaps impossible.