In at least one of the situations I cited in my previous message, the locomotive in question had been at the museum for almost 50 years. Its owner was no longer active, but the engine was. I suspect that younger officers and members were unaware the engine was only "on loan," and the arrangement may not even have been committed to paper. It must have been quite a shock to them.

YOUR ON THE RIGHT TRACK! I AGREE WITH YOU! Many of these people who paid $20 for their membership then become heads of these non-profit groups. Been, railfans for maybe 5 years and of course know all about railroading, and how to run a business too. Many are the same people who want everything for nothing.
If the government spends anything on trains that's terrible, we better stop that! Well here you have private parties who put their own money up for equipment. And this is the kind of treatment they get? In the begining, most museum equipment was gotten because some "NUT" bought it. Many things are not around today because these GREAT non profits didn't save it. Many of the members were millionaires, with $5 memberships! I remember as a kid. I asked groups I was in at the time. Why the PA's weren't saved? Why more steam wasn't saved? NYC Niagaras. DL&W steam. These cheap old millionaires told me, "Only railroads own equipment!" Not railroad clubs! A few people went out and did buy equipment. That's why we have many collections today. Many people today, do not remember the way it was at the start of many of these early museums. The way some museums are failing, I guess many are just bad business people.

Ah, yes. The long debate between the railfan-collectors, who believe a thing isn't preserved unless they possess the bill of sale... and the nonprofit museums who believe preservation means getting it permanently out of the private sector where it can't be ravaged by leins, bankruptcies and heirs.

I would like to say it's as simple as pointing at Knox & Kane, Leelenau, Trolleyville; countless cabooses and passenger coaches which were hauled to private homes, foreclosed on and scrapped, and of course, GTW 5629, to reveal the proven, abject failure of the railfan collector. However I must concede railway museums have their own problems, not least an artifact that sits out back and rusts away beyond plausible restoration. And the fact, at least before the ascendance of IRM, that the nonprofits often cannot afford a unit at the time it becomes available.

But of course, the context of this discussion proves the point of the non-viability of the railfan-collector business model. Our hypothetical involves a collector who has bought a piece of equipment and now has a predicament: he has nowhere to store it, and must beg buy or borrow same. The definition of "predicament" versus "problem" is that a problem is solvable, the predicament is not and can only be lived with. If the railfan (or a consortium of similarly situated railfans) could come up with storage on their own, they wouldn't be crawling to the museum now, would they? :) They wouldn't be kvetching and moaning about how the museum won't work with them, would they?

When the railfan-collector rails against the usurious storage charges the museum wants, he's really saying "I want it at an affordable price to me" and again if he could get that affordable price in the private sector, he would have. So he's really asking the museum to give him storage at BELOW market value. That's illegal. This tells me he doesn't appreciate the true nature of railway museums. Let me elucidate; words in bold are suitable for pasting into Google.

There are generally two types of membership nonprofit, as defined in the Model Nonprofit Corporation Act (the template for many states' law).

1. The mutual benefit nonprofit is not charitable; it exists specifically to convey a private benefit to members - the apocryphal example is the Homeowners Association. An HOA is not like a railway museum - I can't join your HOA for $40/year and use the pool and tennis courts, right? Or consider a food co-op which buys artisan produce and meats for resale to its members at sane prices. Benefits are ONLY for members, hence "mutual benefit". Benefits are substantial, so denying you them causes you sue-able loss. (your street isn't plowed or your restaurant can't get good produce).

2. The Public benefit nonprofit exists to provide a charitable public purpose. Apocryphal examples are the Jaycees, Kiwanis, Sierra Club, AAA, PBS, and your local railway museum. The purpose of membership is to support a worthy cause and to create a fraternity and structure for getting charitable work done. There's no private benefit allowed, nothing you can sue over.

For instance if a bunch of railfan-collectors got together and created a storage facility, that would be a suitable mutual-benefit nonprofit. It's not charitable, so wouldn't be tax deductible.

The local railway museum IS tax deductible. If you overload its purpose to include railcar storage, several tax problems could arise. WesternStar speaks of several of them. I.E.

* For a buyer, market value is what it would actually cost in the private sector for a monied buyer. The argument "I couldn't afford it if I had to buy in the private sector" holds no water. If the storage fee is below market value, it could be considered a private benefit to a member.

* The private benefit peril is double for a museum insider, which the IRS calls a disqualified person. In the old days, the IRS could only punish the charity by revoking its nonprofit status, which was unfortunate if the charity was manipulated. However, now they have a penalty called intermediate sanctions.

The museum might have a part of the contract that says the car cedes to the museum under certain conditions, i.e. arrears in rent or death of owner. That concession has a cash value that goes into the calculation.

* Unrelated Business Income tax. A 501(c)(3) charity pays that when they engage in business which is basically not charitable and competes with the free market. The tax rate is slightly higher than the tax normally paid by for-profit companies. And the nonprofit can deduct costs of doing business, but not as well. Anyway if the IRS says that car storage is a for-profit-y thing, you'll be sharing some of your revenue with them.

* I hadn't thought of the property tax issue. Aside from property tax on RR equipment, there's also the matter that nonprofits don't pay property tax on the premise that their operation is nonprofit. If you're using property for a for-profit venture, the city might want property tax on it.

Wow. This stuff is complicated and I can see why some museums don't want to touch it.

Market rates for storage of railcars are around $1.00 per car per day. So asking $30 bucks a month to store a caboose at a rail museum is not providing an excess benefit transaction, and is actually lower than what I would expect a museum board to ask.

One dollar per car per day may be an approximate rate for storage of a freight car, but it's hardly the going rate for a private car. Consider that the $1/car/day rate is generally used in a scenario where the customer needs to store a quantity of cars at that rate. PV storage rates are quite a bit higher. Yes, a caboose is technically a freight car, but when it's owned privately, it's a private car. Many shortlines that dabble in PV storage include cabooses as private cars in their tariffs. I can understand this, since that car may need a "cherry pick" switching move, and has unique handling characteristics such as hand brakes at both ends.

As the private owner of a caboose who has spend considerable money and time in the three years that I've owned the car, I think it comes down to an issue of stewardship. If a person is going to take on the task of owning any railcar, they need to consider it as more than a one time purchase, and look at it instead as assuming the role of being a good steward of this asset. That means budgeting for what it takes to store and maintain the car. If you can work out a sweetheart deal for storage then great, but don't rely on that alone. Finally, in the name of preservation , don't adopt an attitude of entitlement- it screws things up for all the rest of us who don't feel entitled to anything, but would appreciate a shot at making a fair deal.

This may or may not be relevant. Our organization accepted the donation of the 80 tonner that I've been posting about lately. We have no rail service at our museum site, so cannot take it there. I have just made an application to lease a 200 foot long siding at a local industrial park, and if we do lease that siding will erect a 20' x 48' x 14' pole type enginehouse to store the locomotive in. As some of you may remember I rant about rail equipment spending too much time in the open. This unit has almost no rust, practically unheard of for a sixty six year old locomotive. I want to keep it that way.

I am designing the enginehouse to be as inexpensive as possible. Instead of traditional pole type construction we are deviating in a few key areas. The first deviation will be the use of the Socket Systems design. http://socketsys.com/Default.htm . We will use the design but since I have a Marvel saw and welder will make up the components in our shop.

The second deviation is in the use of deconstructed lumber which is available for half the cost of new. Deconstructed lumber is lumber taken from dismantled houses. We have a pilot project here in Youngstown in which the city has contracted out some of the house demos to a deconstruction contractor with an eye toward salvaging and selling the lumber. Its cheap, and its good old growth wood.

I'm also not going to have commercial power installed, but will instead put a solar panel on the roof and use it to trickle charge the locomotive batteries, and then use an inverter to make 130 VAC for a couple of convenience outlets, maybe even an LED equipped security light.

I'll be documenting this entire project. It might be a blueprint for cost effective railcar storage solutions.

At risk of getting off topic:

Just a diversion in the "needing a building" subject....

One of the UK loco groups to which I belong was faced with the dilemma of having to erect or otherwise acquire a locomotive "shed" for one of our locomotives at a particular railway where it "resided." Over the course of a year or two, the society priced the options on the commercial market, then matters fell apart as the design requirements changed.

Then, lo and behold, one of our members, who worked with the National Coal Board, saw a building designated for removal on NCB property, and saw that it was a perfect fit for FOUR locomotives plus shop equipment. He immediately managed to get it "transferred" legally to the loco society, who paid a pittance for dismantling and storage.

The arrangements for that specific building fell apart, so it was sold (at a handsome price) to another party for industrial use. Then another building came on the market, closer to the railway in question, also with room for four locos. This building somehow fit the bill, and was brokered for use (bought in part with the proceeds from the last building, and other loco owners paid for refurbishment and erection).

I think there might be some "used" industrial sheds out there if you go looking for them.......

I have been looking for them, and have not found any such portable structures in the US that you can fit a railcar into. I suppose a quonset type building would qualify as portable, but they normally don't have the height to be of much use and are not normally available used at discount prices. DRMS searches occasionally turn up surplus buildings, but not enough to make it a viable option for more than one or two operations.

The first building put up at HVRM was a machine shop that was donated to the museum by a company about 30 miles away. It was a nice, spacious 60' x 100' structure, but was not tall enough for railroad equipment. We set concrete posts in the ground, raising the building up about 6 feet after it was re-erected on those posts. Corrugated metal was put around the bottom and end doors were built and Eureka! we had a Shop building! The bottom line is that there are old structures out there that can be adapted for rail equipment use at museums.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

For my caboose I pay $ 600.00 a year for storage.

That fee gets me storage within the fenced confines of a local family owned business in their old loading shed. The shed is basically a paved siding covered with a roof and a dock area that is enclosed on three sides and a roof. My caboose occupies the siding and the family rents out the dock area to their employees so they can store their boats and camping trailers over the winter.

My caboose has been stored there for seven years without incident. With a 24 hour notice I can have the caboose moved by compnay staff using their car mover to an area that is accessible from the parking lot so that I can access the caboose for personal use.

The storage agreement is 3 pages long and was drawn up by my lawyer in conjunction with the family’s lawyer. We renew the agreement every 3 years.

Some of the highlights of the agreement include.
- Payment due date and grace period.
- Penalties for failure to pay storage fees’
- Requirements to maintain the appearance and overall condition of the caboose.
- Access to and personal use of the caboose while on the company property. This includes my friends and my family. The verbiage also covers my access to the caboose while in its storage spot.
- Access and usage of the electrical service on the company property.
- Insurance requirements and hold harmless agreement.
- Additional cost for a second caboose or piece of equipment. The present agreement allows me to store a second caboose or railcar on site for a $ 250.00 per year increase with the same privileges.

I’ve been told that I’m paying a high price for storage. The way I see it, my caboose is behind a fence, on a covered siding with access to electricity and opportunities to have it moved when I wish. To me I think I have a pretty good deal.

Tim Wilson

Fifty bucks a month or $1.67 per day. Thats quite reasonable.