Most of us would agree that ISTEA/TEA-21 funding has enabled a number of worthy rail preservation projects to proceed, that would not have had a chance of obtaining funding otherwise. But news of a recent California depot project, plus a few others, has caused me to wonder if the system isn't being gouged a bit.

This project, which apparently involves three ordinary wooden structures, has a pricetag nearing $3 million, with about $2 million going for restoration of the buildings. A parking lot will cost about $500,000, and the landscaping about $350,000.

Meanwhile, the volunteer group in Santa Clara restored their nice wooden depot for about $35,000. I realize that planners, contractors and workers should not be expected to work for nothing, but I'm beginning to wonder if the costs of some projects aren't getting excessive enough to arouse someone to call for killing the TEA-21 program? If it is lost, we'll all be the losers.

Without starting a flame war over the relative merits of unbridled capitalism vs. government, I'd like to know your thoughts...

ryarger@rypn.org

The problem lies with the local authorities who determine how their share of the money is spent. It appears that a lot of the requests are for "rails to trails" and beautification projects. I saw one proposal for a rail-trail that worked out to over $1 million per mile! (Fortunately it was not funded.) The plus of this program is that there is a lot of local input. I guess that means TEA-21 is only as good as the local authorities administrating it

Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society
tstuy@eldsps.org

I think it is Citizens Against Government Waste that puts out an annual list of pork projects and here in Texas, TEA-21 funding was the largest single item that qualified as pork. I am as likely to complain about it as Archer Daniels Midland is going to complain about Farm Subsidies, but yeah, it has been occasionally corrupted in my opinion. You could get into a lengthy discussion over how much the Federal government should even be involved in subsidizing preservation projects, but even as an uber-conservative, I've always had a soft spot for transit/rail projects.

> Most of us would agree that ISTEA/TEA-21
> funding has enabled a number of worthy rail
> preservation projects to proceed, that would
> not have had a chance of obtaining funding
> otherwise. But news of a recent California
> depot project, plus a few others, has caused
> me to wonder if the system isn't being
> gouged a bit.


Dallas 2002 ARM Convention - October 23-26, 2002 -
tnold@bigfoot.com

The TEA-21 program is a good way for the railroad museums to get preservation money. I am always amazed by how little the Federal government is putting toward preservation and cultural projects.

As has been pointed out local government decides how and where to spend the dollars. sadly, the smaller states are doing the best job. Note the Minesota Transportation Museum which has projects funded in steam and traction restoration.

But California has put the dollars into the CAL TRANS roads and bridges. I think that the amounts of the federal dollar going into preservation is tiny and should be increased.

Ted Miles

PS The NPS is not eligable for the funds so Steamtown NHS is still well on its way to becoming
Dieseltown, last I heard.



ted_miles@NPS.gov

I think it is difficult for those not involved to understand the costs and difficulties which come along with public sector support. For every dollar which goes into bricks and mortar, 2 go into bureaucratic red tape. If funds can be raised in the private sector, without mandated bidding, reporting, and other requirements, more dollars from the grant do real work. TEA 21 is a mixed bag, but if you include enough to do the job and cover the additional costs, you can put the program to good use.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> I think it is difficult for those not
> involved to understand the costs and
> difficulties which come along with public
> sector support. For every dollar which goes
> into bricks and mortar, 2 go into
> bureaucratic red tape. If funds can be
> raised in the private sector, without
> mandated bidding, reporting, and other
> requirements, more dollars from the grant do
> real work. TEA 21 is a mixed bag, but if you
> include enough to do the job and cover the
> additional costs, you can put the program to
> good use.

> Dave
Or you could live in the fine state of Ohio,where NONE of this type of money goes to anything of the railroad flavor!!! NONE that we are aware of.


irss@eriecoast.com

> Ted Miles

> PS The NPS is not eligable for the funds so
> Steamtown NHS is still well on its way to
> becoming
> Dieseltown, last I heard.

"Upon these tracks

Is seldom seen
The 23 and 17

So Phoebe says
'It's sad to say,

It's Diesel Village, U.S.A.!'"



rrsteve@aol.com

There is pork, then there is plunder. When those we send to Washington bring home the 50 cents or so of the dollar we sent them, it's called pork. What was done by local officials in this case was plunder of the pork. I hope those interested in preservation of our transportation heritage who have the opportunity to vote the plunders from office do so. Take the money (otherwise some other community will) but spend it wisely.

DTerwil133@aol.com

> There is pork, then there is plunder. When
> those we send to Washington bring home the
> 50 cents or so of the dollar we sent them,
> it's called pork. What was done by local
> officials in this case was plunder of the
> pork. I hope those interested in
> preservation of our transportation heritage
> who have the opportunity to vote the
> plunders from office do so. Take the money
> (otherwise some other community will) but
> spend it wisely.

Although I haven't visited Steamtown in a couple years, I hope to do it this summer. According the Steamtown website there may be light at the end of Steamtown's tunnel:
-The #26 should be back running next year, as reported in a spring issue of Railpace
-The 3254 returns to operation next weekend, according to the Steamtown website
-The 2317 may be running after July 1, according to a recent update on the Steamtown website
-The 1361 may be running this fall, albeit for a short time in Scranton, with 4 to 8 full time people working on it (RRer's Memorial Museum, Horseshoe Curve NRHS chapter info)
-In something particular to this discussion, the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Chapter NRHS was recently awarded a $200,000 TEA-21 grant for the 3713. This may be a model for future work at Steamtown, particularly if they decide to restore another steamer down the road
-With class 1 railroads further tightening up, maybe a regular series of visiting steamers could be established if the D-L and/or NPS doen't have as high insurance premiums. If they rebuild the Cutoff, it would create some nice mainline possibilities.

JBeutel611@aol.com

I am not sure what three-building project is being mentioned. But, granting of TEA-21 funds is a political process. In California the agency receiving the money has to be a politic entity that can be partnered with a private (museum, etc) entity.

In California the granting process has been moved from the State level as it was with ISTEA to a county or regional level. In some cases one politic body per county other places in the State the agency overseeing funds for several adjacent counties. I believe that the state may be doing the same thing for other transportation fund disbursements.

One county that I know about expanded its county transportation commission to include a representative from each incorporated city besides the previous county supervisors. An advisory committee to the commission is made up of the various city engineers within the county. How, when it came time to decide the TEA-21 applications to grant, the applications were given to the advisory committee to rank. It turned out that there were more applications than there was money to grant. But, the ranking of the applications allowed at least one to go to each city within the county. So, no one went away empty handed and the Federal money was shared.

I don't know how the decisions were made in other counties within California.

Brian Norden

bnorden49@earthlink.net

One reason that "Transportation Enhancement" preservation project costs seem to be inflated is that projects funded through TEA-21 grants are, in effect, federal highway projects. They must be constructed to Federal Highway Administration standards, where applicable, and must obey all rules applied to federal-aid highway jobs, such as environmental standards and the Davis-Bacon wage law. A nonprofit society used to doing things on the cheap will have to shift philosophical gears to adhere to the rules of this program. Railroads did things on the cheap, too, so it may not be possible to use Enhancement money to repair in kind or replicate original railroad construction. Try to imagine a handcar shed or sandhouse built to the standards of the Interstate highway system.

This is not a problem for work outside the realm of highway engineering like, say, a 2-8-4's foundation rigging or a K-4 firebox, but for civil engineering works it can drive up the cost.

Aarne H. Frobom
The Steam Railroading Institute
P. O. Box 665
Owosso, MI 48867-0665

http://www.mstrp.com
froboma@mdot.state.mi.us

> The problem lies with the local authorities
> who determine how their share of the money
> is spent. It appears that a lot of the
> requests are for "rails to trails"
> and beautification projects.

Blamaing authorizing agencies for pursuing Rails to Trains when the Rails to Trails Foundation was the major lobbying driver in establishing and preserving the Transportation Enhancements funding in the the first place is a little strange to me. In my view all of us in railroad preservation are living off of Rails to Trails's table scraps, and should be grateful for it. The Rails to Trails Foundation put together the lobbying campaing to continue and expand the Transportation Enhancements Program when ISTEA was reauthorized as TEA-21, while we in Railroad Prteservation as an "organized" community didn't lift a finger to save or continue the program. Their lobbying brought home the bacon; we're lucky to get some of the spillover.

eledbetter@rypn.org

I have no problem with who did the most to create the program. I have no problem if a rail to trail project is funded, preserving these rights of way is valuable. But when a rail to trail project is asking for over $1 million per mile not including property acquisition then something is wrong.

tstuy@eldcps.org

> Or you could live in the fine state of
> Ohio,where NONE of this type of money goes
> to anything of the railroad flavor!!! NONE
> that we are aware of.

I remember a conversation I had with the late Vern Cook, then (late '70's) Assistant Majority leader of the Ohio House and a professor of mine at U. of Akron. It dealt with the ongoing (and still ongoing over 20 years later) battle to get state subsidized Amtrak service on the 3C corridor, but I think it fits the discussion. He said the debate in Ohio was not over highways vs. rail, but rather concrete vs. asphalt - rail was not even on the radar screen then and still isn't, even for preservation. If I sound a little bitter, maybe it's with good reason.

pww57@hotmail.com

I was at a very well done presentation last night at the Potomac Chapter NRHS by an officer of the Ma and Pa RR Preservation Society at Muddy Creek Forks, PA. He talked about the history of the railroad and the work of the Society in preserving and recreating the whole infrastructure of the village there. They have been awarded a TEA 21 grant of $325,000 to do major trackwork on the Northern part of the eight miles of the Ma and Pa that they own. This work will enable them to run excursions with regular locomotives and passenger cars, not just with the MofW speeders and track gang equipment they now use.

The matching funding requirement of the Society is for $100,000 for the engineering, environmental and other studies required by the feds, and discussed at length elsewhere in this thread. They have pledges for $65,000 of this, and if anyone is so inclined they can make a contribution payable to the "M&PRPS" at:

Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Preservation Society
P.O. Box 5122`
York, PA 17405-5122

These folks are trying to put together the kind of preserved total community environment that most of us only dream something like the EBT could be. I think that the membership of the Potomac Chapter will be adding to the contributions in the very near future.


pww57@hotmail.com