While I'm not a huge fan of Trains Magazine, here is an article a friend passed along to me. Worth the three or so minutes time it will take to read.

http://trn.trains.com/Interactive/Web%2 ... %20up.aspx

Warning: You probably have to be a subscriber to see the article......

Not a subscriber and it popped right up. It looks exactly like something I read very recently, probably from a link on this very board.

dave

A quote for every museum to remember.

"I've got a little list, they never will be missed" W. S. Gilbert.

I've suggested this term in other comments on railway preservation: Triage. It's familiar to anyone who used to see M*A*S*H on TV, and it shows up on some of the medical-emergency shows that my wife watches. It's the medical practice of making hard choices and not using resources on hopeless cases. It can be heartbreaking to cut up a streetcar, coach or locomotive that was saved from the scrapyard decades ago, but never found enough "friends" to restore it, but some of these "basket cases" have to be "put out of their misery" so they're A) not taking up space, and B) not drawing attention away from relics that do have hope of rehabilitation. This is especially true for a museum that doesn't have an "east 40" or "off limits" area where the "chicken coops" and "hangar queens" can't be seen by the visiting public.

The article mentioned cars "going home" and two that left Orange Empire. Last year my wife and I visited British Columbia and saw the work that's been done on BC Electric 1225; it looks beautiful and has greatly benefited from being an "only child" rather than one of many cars on a priority list. I've also seen and even ridden SF Muni 162, which is back in service in The City after much effort by Market Street Railway volunteers and Muni workers.

20 years ago I recall telling people that most museums are going to die of indigestion. Glad to see rationalization of the collections.

I recall that the Wilimington & Western, which at one time, had the largest PRIVATE collection of Steam Locomotives on the East Coast (if not in the US) took much heat from within its membership for liquidating its collection, along with several passenger cars, to help keep them afloat through rough times (recession of the 80's)...look where they are now...and even before the flooding, they took interest in seriously maintaining what they used, vrs what was stored and un-usable.

There is only one item I saw as a waste of a disposition, which now once again, awaits an uncertain future since its current location closed.

Otherwise, I'd say its common sense and proactive thinking. You cannot save everything.

That's why you NEED an "east 40". Yet almost none have them.

It's also why you need a willingness to let a unit go to someone more interested in it than you.

The "Back 40" may work in a benign climate like California, but for museums in most of the U.S., the equipment left in it will slowly scrap itself, especially for relatively fragile items such as streetcars. That is why we at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum have a policy of indoor storage for all of our collection.

The Trolley Museum of New York got a mention in the Trains article. Here's a link to a web page showing the Atlantic City trolley being moved and loaded for shipping to Shore Line: http://www.tmny.org/tmny0250.html.

A further thought on this discussion: from time to time, the news media report the case of a person who rescues unwanted animals: usually cats or dogs, but sometimes horses. All is well as long as the menagerie is within the person's resources, but sometimes it turns into one of these heartbreaking scenes of dozens of diseased, dead and dying animals in a house that has become a menace to health and has to be cleaned up by crews in "hazmat" outfits. Granted, we deal with machinery rather than living creatures, but sometimes the same mentality seems to have taken hold.

In the article it mentioned 6 BCER interurbans were saved. Actually there were 7 saved. Six went to the USA and one stayed in BC. It was BCER 1223, now fully restored as a static display located in Burnaby Village Museum. Indeed, all six have returned to BC: One, however, BCER 1235 is now in Ottawa, Ontario. Although stored in a building nothing has been done to it since it went east in the 1970's.

Robert Ashton, vice chair
Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society

http://www.fvhrs.com

National Capital Trolley Museum acquired DC Transit 1430 from Rockhille Trolley Museum and Washington Railway and Electric 650 from Shore Line Trolley Museum. These two acquisitons are similar examples of the trades, etc. discussed in Trains.

Wesley

The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum found new homes for a narrow gauge coach, a narrow guage locomotive and a broken back caboose (all slated for the scrapper when they were acquired). We've also recently acquired the S-2 from CSRM which worked the ATSF San Diego station, an RS-32 which worked on the SD&AE, and worked hard to save the M&ET 70 tonners from scrap with the hope of bringing one or more back home to the SD&AE.

I'd still like to find a good home for the C&O caboose that was donated to us years ago - it's out of place in Campo.

Looking at the trends among local groups, there is going to be a lot more slimming and rationalization of collections. Membership has declined anywhere from 15% to 30% in some organizations, including some of the single-railroad historical societies that were doing quite well a few years ago. The membership is aging, volunteerism is declining, and donations have in some cases slowed alarmingly. The railroad enthusiast hobby is getting smaller, influenced in part by security concerns, and the passing of older members with a lesser influx of younger railfans. Less obvious is the commercial impact, one measure of that is now evident in the publishing industry. Back in the 1980s the typical printing of some all-color books was 5000 to 6000 copies, now a typical printing run is closer to 1500 copies. It is a difficult situation all around, particularly since the hobby and the industry sometimes falls short on communicating with anyone outside the circle of current participants. It is time to catalog and document everything, publish as much as possible so there is a surviving record for future historians, while searching for new and more effective ways to advertise our interests and existence to the general public. Very urgently needed is attention to the "dead and dying" websites of some organizations, that feature outdated contact information, incorrect meeting locations and details, and announcements of events with people who have now died. Those make the entire industry and hobby look bad.

PC