In the progress of this discussion the participants brought out some very interesting points about the GG1. So the history is known, the people who contributed to making that history are identified, and there is an interesting story that can be told.

How many of the museums that have GG1's tell that story?

PC

Whenever I host visitors at the Tod Engine Heritage Park I tell the story behind our Kling type hot metal car. Sure it already has a story as being built in Youngstown, but the story that engages my visitors has to do with Mr. Fred Kling, the man who invented this type of car. Fred Kling emigrated from Germany in 1904 and went to work at the Carnegie Steel Youngstown District plants as a draftsman. A few years later he became an engineer and then chief engineer of the district. He designed the machinery for two of Carnegie's big plants in the valley. Along the way Kling also invented several improvements in blast furnace operation, and in the mid 20s one of those inventions was a different type of hot metal car that kept the molten iron hotter than existing designs.

So by telling this story I have turned a cold inanimate abstract piece of rusty metal into a story about a man who lived the American Dream! If we could find the stories attached to each artifact that we own we could make museum visits fascinating for the average visitor.

How many museums have enough room on a sign to tell that story, or a docent well-trained enough to talk that far, or a script that long?

Certainly, the opportunity should be there--and for a place like the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, which has both GG1 4913 and a mission devoted to the people involved, it should be a high priority. But to be perfectly honest, that story gets shuffled down to the fourth to sixth paragraph, when you really start to lose most folks' interest after the second paragraph.........

That's why a few weeks (months?) back, I broached the topic about a sticky or some other means for Interchange participants to share ideas about interpretation.

Lots of railfans love hardware; but (as others have stated before) the masses-who account for ~90%+ of museum visitation-need relevance, hence interpretation. My earlier example was how LCL freight around the year 1900 was the UPS/FedEx of the day. Think about a physical or artistic comparison-a UPS truck in your driveway, or a boxcar. Heck, think of the same items shipped both then and now, then show the comparison.

To interpret the GG1? Even though Raymond Loewy seems to have been discounted fairly recently (Classic Trains magazine) as the designer of the GG1, he does have relevance to it. He also had some nifty design credentials. Think about signage that shows some of the more familiar design credentials-stuff Mr. and Mrs. Everyday might understand-then show the GG1, and start the story.

How to interpret a caboose? Change it from a static display to one showing paperwork-the waybill for that previously-mentioned LCL freight; introduce the scent of an operating coal stove (and put red light bulbs in it)...heck, introduce the scent of a meal being cooked in the caboose (yes, the olefactory police might complain-deal with it).

This is sounding a bit like Freeman Hubbard of "Railroad" Magazine with human interest stories Vs David P. Morgan of "Trains" Magazine with just the facts.

If the person preparing the interpretive information cannot get around to identifying the designer(s) by the fourth to sixth paragraph maybe the museum needs to find another person to write their presentation materials.

Correct on the observation that many of the organizations have a team of people working on these projects, but in each instance there is usually a program engineer or administrator with overall responsibility. It is not like the local business meeting at a historical society where everybody is in charge, or thinks they are in charge, equipment builders cannot afford to do business that way. The historical society can't either, they just don't realize it until they go under.

A passenger locomotive design team in recent years was headed by a Program Engineer reporting to the Manager of Engineering, along with a Contract Administrator, four design engineers, and six project engineers each with specific areas of responsibility. Thats a dozen identifiable people (thirteen if you include the Manager of Engineering) in a very large organization.

Many of these projects leave readily researchable trails of patents that provide a good overview of who did what on the project. In some cases you can find out all the members of a design team if you can find and ask the Training Manager, because he had to deal with all of them in order to put together the training program for the equipment. I did not include him in the list above because he usually does not have any influence over changing the details of the design.

In the end it comes down to whether the writer or person doing the interpretive display materials is willing to do some research and put in a little effort to try to produce something excellent, or just get by with regurgitating the statistics from the equipment data sheet.

Does anyone recall the "Wings" aviation series that used to run on Discovery Channel about ten years ago? Virtually every episode identified the primary designer of the aircraft.

PC

I realize that Mr. Cook started this discussion because he feels that the people who made this industry possible aren't getting their due... and I agree. However, in defense of the authors who don't attempt to assign names to the inventor/ originators... there is often contradictory information published, and the research required to find who truly deserves to be named often goes far beyond the scope of the article. Case in point, the GG1. everybody KNOWS it was Lowery... but was it? Recent articles call this into question, and rightfully so.

So, how about the lowly BL-2 we were discussing a few messages up? If I wanted to cite the originator, I could simply cite Dick Dilworth, after all, the official EMD publication, the Dick Dilworth Story states that Mr. Dilworth designed it to be so ugly so that "no railroad would would let it out on the mainline, but would keep it on the branchlines, where it could do useful work" (Disclaimer, quoted from forty year old memory). Is this truly the reason the locomotive looked as it did? EMD said so. Does this mean we should stop looking for the real story? What about the author where the reference to the locomotive is just incidental to his story?

Let's take a hypothetical example here: a GG1 on display at the museum in Altoona, Green Bay, or Dallas.

Your first paragraph is going to be spent just telling them WHAT it is--a PRR GG1 which handled the crack passenger and freight trains on the PRR's electrification, etc. The "make 'em care" paragraph.

Now, remember where you are. You've got a second paragraph just telling them what electrified railroading IS. Not everybody is from the Northeast Corridor or SEPTA-Land.

By the third paragraph, we might have room for the fact that this loco was built in Altoona, or the designers, as part of the whole story of the particular locomotive in question.

Yes, by all means, go on and on about the designers, etc. in the website page on the locomotive, or the pages of the rolling stock booklet you sell or hand out in the gift shop. But I'm afraid the "cult of personality" popular with British loco designs isn't that big an element here. Should it be? Brother Cook has some strong feelings on the matter, for reasons that anyone who knows who he is should be able to discern. I, on the other hand, have a considerable disdain for such "celebritydom" even in the case of Sir Nigel Gresley.........

Depends on how you view history too, some of the folks that designed equipment had a lasting effect on how the industry looks and operates. Seems to me they should be afforded some sort of credit as authors usually are.

PC

That was the GP7, not the BL2. IMO, Dilworth had an interesting perception of "ugly;" I always thought the high nose Geeps were some of the most well-proportioned, handsomest diesels around.

Walt Lankenau

The BL locomotives were designed by H. G. Mc Clean.

PC

This has been an interesting topic. I see Preston's point of view, other than the early pioneers, the designers are ignored at most museums. At the same time, I see Sandy's point of view, the attention span of many if not most visitors makes it tough to interpret this aspect. Even if you are good at interpreting the human aspect to visitors, it also raises the question of what to focus on, the men who designed the machines, the workers who built and and ran them, or the people whose lives were impacted by them. Using the local equipment at VMT as an example, who do you talk about? Frank Noel, who designed the streamlining on the Class J's? My late friend Frank Miller, who did much of the drafting work on "the big three" of N&W power? My Grandfather, Buck Gray, who helped build the first "J's" and drove the rivets in 1218's boiler? Or the folks along the line, whose story is told well by the O. Wiston Link Museum? Bringing the human aspect in is a hard thing to do, but to do our jobs well, it is something we need to focus on. While working on 614 at VMT a couple of weeks ago, I met a very nice lady whose father was a C&O engineer. She was back this past Saturday for her "official" debut. She waited in line for about 40 minutes to visit the cab. These are the stories we need to tell. Below is a link to her "Facebook" comments. Scroll down to "DeeDee Bruce"

http://www.facebook.com/#!/VA.Museum.Transportation

I would suggest that any relevant human interest stories you can research and present are likely to be a worthwhile use of the time and effort to develop them, since they help to differentiate your museum from the others in the field. And while there may not be room to permanently display all such items, perhaps rotating the "paper" display materials from time to time is a good way to add some variety to your presentations. I have been in a few museums where it looked like the interpretive display materials had been printed in 1947 and never updated, changed or cleaned since then, a shame since some of the equipment on display was quite unique and deserved a better and more detailed supporting presentation.

PC