In my first submission to the interchange section of rypn.org titled MidContinent Blogs - Introduction”, I made the following statement, “It has become evident from recent blogs that even after 51 years of existence MCRHS apparently does not know what it is, how it should be governed, or where it is going and my experiences support this.” This submission will present information supporting my view that Mid-Continent does not know what it is. Basically, I will address the following questions. Is Mid-Continent a club or a society? Does Mid-Continent operate a tourist railroad or a museum? Is Mid-Continent different today than thirty years ago? Is the operation for the benefit of the members or the public? Are the leaders competent or incompetent? And do the members show respect or disrespect for the historic collections and do they even know what stewardship means?

The following is the fifth paragraph of my first submission. “Mid-Continent started as the Railway Historical Society of Milwaukee, incorporated in Wisconsin on April 29, 1959. As stated in the Articles of Incorporation, ‘The purpose or purposes for which this corporation is organized are: to Maintain and operate a museum and historical organization perpetrating the memory and history of railroading, including the people, equipment and geographical locations therein involved, and to engage in, assist and endow such literary and educational activities and undertakings as will aid and abet in preserving said memory and history.’ Their board of directors established Mid-Continent Railway Museum later in 1959 and changed the name of the Society to Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society either just before or just after purchasing the North Western spur that left the C&NW main line in Baraboo, Wisconsin.”

What is Mid-Continent? The only corporate entity is the Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society and the annual financial report reflects this fact. I have memos from the president stating he is president of Mid-Continent Railway Museum and this is not correct; he is president of the Society. And members refer to the organization as the “Railway”, which is also not correct. The Volunteer/Member Guidebook (midcontinent.org/members/gbook2009.pdf) defines “MCRY” on page 3 as “Mid-Continent Railway[,] the operating railroad subsidiary of Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc. and “MCRM” as “Mid-Continent Railway Museum[,] the museum subsidiary of Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc. These definitions are not correct. A subsidiary is defined as “A wholly-owned subsidiary is a company whose stock is entirely owned by another company. A wholly-owned subsidiary is a separate entity for legal purposes… Thus the laws of the state or country in which the wholly-owned subsidiary is incorporated apply to the subsidiary, but not the parent company.” (dogsofthedow.com) Actually, the Museum is physically owned by the Society and the Society does not separate museum and society income and expenses. As for MCRY, my understanding is that MCRY was the designation for any railroad equipment that traveled onto common-carrier railroads. The mission statement clearly states the principle “to operate a demonstration steam passenger train in an historically accurate environment of a turn-of-the-century rural railroad.” To put MCRY on the cabs of Pullman #4, John Morell #7, and Army #1256 is contrary to the principles of the Society.

Is Mid-Continent a club for the members or a society dedicated to railroad history and does the museum benefit the members or the public? As I mentioned several weeks ago, members have voting rights. The question is: do the leaders set high standards or do they cater to the members desires? It appears to me that the manager, by often stating “follow the money” instead of the mission statement, is offering the museum for sale to the highest bidder. That bidder apparently is the president, who favors Diesel locomotives over steam. Furthermore, it appears to me that Mid-Continent has become a place for wannabe trainmen who consider the collections and operating equipment as their play things and the track as their large-scale model railroad.

Is the physical plant of the Society a museum or a tourist railroad? Signs direct visitors to Mid-Continent Railway, MCRY appears on the cabs of the Diesel locomotives (will the Lackawanna coaches have Mid-Continent Railway painted on their Letterboards?), and brochures advertise a train ride. Plans are in place to replace the original boiler of C&NW #1385 with a welded boiler with fake rivets and to take an unmodified 1924 Pullman sectional sleeper/buffet/solarium car, cut holes in the walls, remove sinks of the men’s lounge, and turn the car into a dinner train car. All the while, restored wooden railroad cars are left outside exposed to the elements for years. The website for Mid-Continent states “Mid-Continent is an outdoor living history museum and operating railroad recreating, preserving, and interpreting the small town/shortline way of life from the ‘Golden Age of Railroading’ spanning the years 1880 to 1916.” Is this good stewardship? All living museums I know of shelter their collection equipment at night and during the off-season. Is it fraud to solicit donations as a museum under these circumstances?

Is Mid-Continent different today than thirty years ago? It was clear to me and many other members that the original purpose for the Society was to establish a railroad museum and they began gathering large and small collection items to fulfill that goal. Towards this end, members obtained one of the largest collections of wooden railroad cars in the nation. It appears to me and others that the train operation was intended to attract visitors to the museum and raise the necessary money to fund the museum. However, no funds have been budgeted for the museum from 2000 to the present and the train now appears to be the sole focus of the board of directors. I believe this statement can be backed up by board meeting minutes.

The Mission Statement published on the website, on the back of the annual calendar, in the Volunteer/Member Guidebook, and in the Railway Gazette further mentions that the Museum adheres to the following principles: (1) to collect and preserve rolling stock, structures, and other artifacts that meet the Museum’s focus; (2) to restore the equipment based upon sound scholarship; (3) to operate a demonstration steam passenger train in an historically accurate environment of a turn-of-the-century rural railroad; (4) to interpret, through Museum display and educational programs, the history, equipment, skills, and the human facets of the rail industry; (5) to maintain a library and archival collections in the interest of promoting historical studies of the industry; and (6) to hold the Museum’s collection in the public trust, ensuring long term care of historic objects entrusted to its collections. Yet, there have been no collection acquisitions since the Copper Range locomotive #29 about five years ago; those who care about the collections are restoring Copper Range combine #25 with member-donated funds; Diesel locomotives pull the trains; interpretive museum displays have disappeared from the depot and right-of-way maintenance shed; the library is seldom open and donated books have disappeared or appear on eBay; the archives and small collections are in storage somewhere off-site; and I believe leaving collection equipment outside for years does not qualify as long term care.

Are the leaders competent or incompetent? Spare parts are stored in wooden freight and baggage cars instead of secure steel buildings, unrestored and many restored wooden cars are stored outside, $150,000 of steel for a new boiler for C&NW #1385 is in storage somewhere in Minnesota, the tender for #1385 is stored on a member’s property, the drive wheels for Western Coal and Coke #1 are stored in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the archives and small collections are stored in rented spaces somewhere in a nearby town. As water rose into the basement of the depot on June 5, 2008, the president was on site but chose not to move the operating fleet or other equipment to higher ground when asked by the engineer. As a result, the traction motors of all the Diesels were flooded. No trains ran and little income was realized most of that year. The leaders chose to operate one Diesel locomotive without properly cleaning the traction motors, thus burning out the coils. Hired flood cleanup workers succeeded in stealing over 5,000 pounds of brass and bronze parts and tools over a 6-week period ($40,000 in scrap value). Most of the parts were retrieved from salvage yards around Wisconsin but several injectors, brass bearings, bushings, and steam valves were lost. Furthermore, the long-term debt of the organization increased from just over $100,000 in 2000 to over $800,000 in 2010 and the visitor numbers decreased 40% in the same timeframe without any improvements in the physical plant of the museum. I will ask the reader to make their own call about competency.

And do the members show respect or disrespect for the historic collections? I received a response from one of the members after sending a letter to as many members as I could. This member of the engine house crew wrote that they repair the engines to “run the snot out of them and we do.” Would you want to donate your hard-earned money to the steam program after knowing that? Another member wrote recently that the wooden display cars should be used to haul tourists. Would you want to spend years and thousands of dollars restoring a 110 year old wooden coach in order to see it filled with tourists who came to ride behind a Diesel locomotive?

My topic next week will focus on where Mid-Continent seems to be going.

The Society owns the line do they, they can put Railway on the equipment if they so choose, its not a commercial interchanging line, call themselves or the said "building" a museum if they choose, its part of their state of being. Some things just become cultural instead of legal lawyerable trife.

I presume the group wants to attract riders like any other line, run a train and have fun operating it for happy fans and so on.

Sorry to hear about the thefts during the cleanup, better do your own cleanup next time. Yep, sounds kinda dumb to run the diesel without cleaning the motors but if your talented able to rewind your own motors, you have to do that anyways after the flood, so there ya go, burn it out, then rewind the motor. Probably they had to do some manuevers and simply risked it. So run it to death.

A lot of hypotheticals in there, but the society is probably many things for many people.

I think the wooden cars are risky for operations, but like IRM you do what you can with the people and funds available, IRM still has outside equipment and just got a new building up, and they continue to work on trying to get more inside protection.

I am a member and engineer of MC. The reason for putting MCRY on the cab is that it needs to have reporting marks for FRA records and using that 4 letter combo is what we are registered under. The tender that is on someone's property is the tender of the Western Coal & Coke #1.

I think all of the parts we have in storage should be inventoried to make a list of what we have in case things become missing again.

I sure do miss the days of the Friday nights when we would wait for those who were coming for the weekend and when they came we spent time with our friends, got up the next morning and worked on the train or in the shop.

As for the locomotives people that ride the train can see... Even though they are in need of repair, I think if they sit there in open view they should be "re-assembled" somewhat to look like something in the meantime. The 1385 is a rusty boiler shell with the smokebox front open. Instead of having the front face lay in the mud why not put it back on the smokebox? Make the 1385 look like something while it sits there instead of a wreck on a frame, set the cab back on it.... All the time I spent on the road with that engine, it makes me sad to see it torn down that far when nothing else is being done with it in the meantime. Would we be allowed to assemble a group of guys to clean the thing up a bit? I spoze now if we wanted to do that as a project we would be told no? Other engines have pieces around, could they be put back on to make it look like a better display? Just my thoughts...

I feel I must ask if Mr. Long is competent, incompetent, or merely poorly informed.
Spare parts are stored in cars and wherever space can be found. The steel buildings available are stuffed to beyond capacity. In Mr. Long's tenure on the board I did not see him bring in a donor to sponsor another building nor did I see his name on a check to accomplish that.
Steel for the new boiler for the 1385 is being stored at the shop that will build that boiler. How much additional money must we spend trasnporting materials?
The statement about the tender is FALSE. The tender used with the R-1 since before 1994 is still attached to the engine. There is another Northwestern tender being held in the material storage yard of a nearby manufacturing company. In conversations with the curator emeritus I was told neither tender was original to the engine. According to what research he could do, the original tender was scrapped long ago. Like other railroads, the Northwestern used what was available and appropriate at the time.
The drivers for the WC&C#1 are in TN is secure dry storage. Had they been brought back when thy were finished they would have been inundated by the 2008 flood and the fresh journal surfaces might possibly have gotten damaged.
According to the NOAA river gauge, the Baraboo river did not hit flood stage until early morning June 9th, 2008. The president was on the grounds and the operating fleet was moved to the highest ground available. By the time they could get the cars moving, water was already over the tracks leading up the hill toward Ullrich Road and the bridge leading toward North Freedom already had a severe weight restriction and was an unknown with the additional stress of the floodwaters. The fleet was trapped on the hightest rail available. This rail had never seen water from the river in the 45 years of operation of MCRY. Stated in a flood mitigation report filed by FEMA, the Baraboo River hit 27.51 feet on June 13, 2008 which was 10.01 feet higher than any other observation on record at that station (1917). How can anyone anticipate or prepare for that?
As Mr. Long, by that time, was no longer a member of MCRY, how could he know what procedures were used in cleaning the traction motors? The motors were flushed & blown out with compressed air and the engine was tested lite & under load before being released for service. After the rebuilding, the motor rebuilder told the Society the motor that had grounded had been assembled with improper parts even before it came to MCRY. Those parts had allowed gear lube to spill over and soak the motor windings. It was his opinion the motor was ready to go at any time but that, yes, the flood did it no favors.
The cleanup workers accused of the theft came to the Museum via the State Department of Workforce Development. With the disaster declaration, some of the worker's wages were covered by the state and with the huge cleanup needed, it seemed to be a prudent opportunity. I'll also note that some of the stolen goods were privately owned parts for a privately owned engine taken from their privately owned coach.

When a donation is made to a museum, it properly, legally becomes the property of the museum to be handled the the best benefit of the collection. MCRY has sold DUPLICATES on ebay after they were identified as such by our archivist, properly deaccessioned and the proceeds then went to buy more materials for the preservation and archiving of the collection. This is an accepted standard procedure of musuems and archives around the country.

I will ask the reader to make their own call about competency.

mldeets

A couple of thoughts about these posts:

It amazes me that MCRY hasn't run steam for 16 or 17 years now, and still doesn't seem to be any closer to having operable steam than, say, 10 years ago. If I had to set priorities, I would say restoring a steamer, or acquiring an operable one, would be a higher priority than the passenger-car restorations they have done since 1385 last ran.

Considering nearby museums such as IRM and MTM, among others, are in the same boat when it comes to having operating steam, is pooling resources to keep at least one operable engine among them a possibility?

As for the point about libraries: just about any older organization, including the large NRHS Chapters, have large libraries and book/slide collections. The demand to use these collections has largely evaporated over the years for a variety of reasons, and this isn't unique to MCRY.

Chris.

Chris,
It may seem much longer but the actual last steam was Snow Train(tm) 2000 with the last run of the Polson #2. I know that doesn't help much but it has been just over 10 years.
The idea of a group effort is a noble thought but if you consider the discontent Mr, Long is expressing and the fact that MTM split apart a few years ago doesn't encourage me greatly. If we can't get along with ourselves, how can we get along with others? Just an observation and worth what you've paid for it.

mldeets

Correct Mldeets.. #2 ran last in 2000, and #1385 was done in 1998.. Not that long Chris..

Furthermore, it appears to me that Mid-Continent has become a place for wannabe trainmen who consider the collections and operating equipment as their play things and the track as their large-scale model railroad.

I would like to comment back on this sentence.. It applies to more then just the mentioned brakemen, as all of us engineers are also brakemen. Despite all the stuff going on I still come up to give some time as engineer when I can.

When I was a child coming up with my dad many thought I was a wannabe fireman/engineer. I wanted to do it and proved them all wrong. I progressed to an instructor role at MC, working for a steam contractor and now work on a privately owned steam locomotive that provided me a chance to run a Circus train. Other people have volunteered at MC and have moved on to successful railroad careers. MC gives people who do not work for railroads a chance to live a dream or do something they normally do not do. Under FRA rules and FRA accepted programs we do not have room for wannabe goofs or fakes, and I know all of us that are instructors then and now have done real well working with standards, safety and the rules. We focused allot on engine crews back when we had steam since 1996 more at that time then any time before that and developed some great crew members.

yes we had our share of window wavers, and people who simply did not have it in them, and others who found out they were not cut out for what they gave a try at. We also took the time to help others who needed help and wanted to progress. My long have you ever pulled a throttle or double stretched a joint to realize what we do?

Our track at MC is a railroad, and not a place to play or think of as a large scale layout. The comment did apply to me as well as many of our other crew members. if I am a wannabe and do something wrong I lose my card. Operating the physical train is not the problem or the issue as we have had many many safe years of operating. We have lost some to illness or age, but still have a good group . We even used to run our engine all around the state. Now I will say this as it was before your time.. I was firing 12 hours a day days in a row with WANNABE first class car hosts riding in the 440 in Wausau, and while they ate, provided us in the engine with a measely can of soda, but never in my years on the property have seen ';wannabe" brakemen or engineers allowed to be qualified. In fact we lost one real GOOD crew member because of all this "bulls*&t" going on .

Just my thoughts..

Friends,

This subject has been tip-toeing along the edge of the guidelines. I have to say that everyone has done a pretty good job at keeping the discussion within the guidelines. When we start using "incompetent" to describe specific people the line is being crossed. Discussions as to the best practices, direction of an organization, and membership structure and voting are all worthwhile and welcome. Please keep our guidelines in mind when posting.

Thanks,

Tom Gears
Moderator

The steel buildings Mr. Deets refers to are box cars on the ground. I was referring to a 40x60 foot steel building. Some background is needed here and I quote from my response to the Mid-Continent blog of May 3, 2010 titled The Master Plan(s).

"With the plans Bill Armstrong put into play, Mid-Continent built what you see today. In pretty much chronological order, the members moved the depot, built the engine house, laid the north yard, laid the south yard, installed the water tower and coaling station with under-track conveyer and elevator, constructed the office, had the southwest quadrant graded by the SEABEES, filled the annex parking lot by the SEABEES, constructed the coach shed, constructed the freight house with freight platform, constructed the car shop, and erected the crossing tower. All of this took place between 1963 and 1992 but there have been no additions to the physical plant of the museum since 1992. If you walk south on the main line past the car shop, you will see the grade under the weeds for the lead track to the display building and roundhouse planned for the SW quadrant and the Milwaukee Road turntable is up there across from the business office. Does Mr. Meyer want to move it to Mazomanie?"

"Contrary to what Mr. Meyer said, the most comprehensive Strategic Short and Long Range Plan report was drafted during the summer of 2001 and approved by the board on November 4, 2001 and not 2004. This report is about 100 pages long and was composed by the Strategic Short and Long Range Planning Committee made up of about five members with interests in building the museum and about five members with interests in running the demonstration steam train and was amended in 2002 to include an engine house for the Shay and a parts storage building."

I tried to get this plan moving when I first joined the board in 2002 but was told by the president we could only focus on a steam engine. At a 2004 board meeting I Proposed moving forward with the large collection storage building planned and approved for south of the current coach shed. I was informed at the next board meeting that the Strategic Shourt and Long Range Planning Committee had moved the Display Building location from west to south of the present Coach Shed. This move was in conflict with the 2001 master plan and made no sense from a visitor traffic point of view. My friends and I believe this was nothing other than a blocking maneuver to prevent development of the SW Quadrant.

Early in 2005 I presented a proposal to move forward with the plan to build a 40x60 foot storage building with a concrete floor for about $19,000. I had firm pledges for $20,000 from members I trusted, and this included $5,000 from my own pocket. I had catalog prices for the building at about $17,000 and $2,000 for the floor and the building would be assembled by volunteers. This plan was blocked by a board requirement for a $16,000 plus water mitigation study for the entire SW Quadrant even though this building was on the fringe of the 10 acre property and was too small to require this plan. There was no effort by the leaders to work something out to make this happen.

My friends were fed up with these obstructions and started another not-for-profit organization. My $5,000 and more have gone to Lake States Railway Historical Association and my friends have contributed about $120,000 to this orgaization.

I think it's time to close this thread. Too much negative ranting about certain individuals is getting tiresome.

Trolleyguy, here is an easy way for you to close this thread. Just do not read any more posts. Its so simple even a caveman can do it (to quote GEICO). The rest of us who find this thread engaging will continue learning from it, while you can move on to other things.

Thanks.

Mr. Long:
What is a water mitigation study? Was this a government requirement or something internal required by the board? When I constructed my building I had to have a civil engineer prepare a stormwater retention plan and I am wondering if that is a similar thing. It cost us $3,700 for that plan which produced a rather thick report and five drawings, and requires us to build a stormwater retention pond.

Um... I hate to break this to you, but...

that's kinda normal everywhere.


That right there says it all. The percentage of railway museums running steam has declined precipitously. Get a Steam Directory from 25 years ago, and a Steam Directory today*, and go through each state. See who running steam back when still runs it. Factor for new steam groups (?) Gosh, if 80% of the former steam operators are now no longer running, I would not be surprised at all.

* No longer called that... which is, itself, a case in point.

I appreciate your question. The water mitigation study is pretty much as you described for your building. The South West Quadrant is about 10 acres on a slight hillside and has ground water seepage. A civil engineer prepared plan would be needed in order to develop this entire property. My proposal to the board clearly mentioned that I and my supporters would comply with any requirements of the county or any other governmental agency for construction of this relatively small building. The board made the study an internal requirement. Nothing has been done since and the Milwaukee Road turntable continues to sink into the dirt.