How many railroad museums have a satellite location that is physically disconnected from the museums primary location? Be it a piece of historic railroad equipment, a building, or whatever? And how do these locations work? Do they end up becoming "orphans", and slowly whither on the vine? Do they at least hold their own? Or are they successful in their own right? Do the members of the primary museum location consider these disconnected spots as "outcasts" and consider them as "stand alone" sites, and therefore let them secure their own funding for maintenance and preservation? Or do they actually contribute to their upkeep, and if so, under what type of scenario?

Thanks for any input.

Les

Hi Les:

The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum has our La Mesa Depot Museum (http://www.psrm.org/la-mesa/) which is 40 miles from our main museum in Campo (www.psrm.org) Both stand by themselves. One is "in-town" and one in the country. We started the La Mesa Depot museum before we purchased in Campo. Two totally different experiences and both an asset to the community.

Jim

Thanks Jim.

Functionally, the Ellicott City Station Museum in Ellicott City, Md. is a "satellite" of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore; as I recall the property is owned by Howard County but managed/administered by the B&O Museum, in a deal that was struck a few years ago--you can buy joint tickets at either location. If you're really doing a case study of satellite museums, you really want to investigate this arrangement.

Illinois Railway Museum doesn't operate other museum locations per se but does have two libraries off site. The Pullman Library in beautiful downtown (ahem) Union, IL, about a mile from the museum campus, and the Strahorn Library in Marengo, IL, the next town to the west (about 5 miles from the museum). This is the IRM official library and donations which are duplicative then get sold at the used book store on the museum grounds. The Strahorn building used to be Marengo's public library until they moved to a new building.

Steve

It would be nice if someone could comment on the Twin Cities experience. I was never a member of any of these organizations, but I recall the two trolley locations, the Jackson St. Roundhouse, a depot, the heritage RR ride at Osceola, WI, and the former Twin Cities Rapid Transit steam launch were all operated by one umbrella organization. It appears not to have worked, as there are now three separate organizations that administer the sites. the basic history is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... ion_Museum

The history is there, but no information about the decision to split the organization, a subject that could shed a lot of light on this question.

Les,

I suspect that the breakup of the Minnesota Transportation Museum into three separate 501c3 groups is probably the most recent example of what you are looking for.

Short history on MTM. The organization was incorporated in 1962 to save a single Twin City streetcar. Operations started 40 years ago with that one car at our Museum's Como-Harriet Streetcar Line, our Museum being the Minnesota Streetcar Museum. In the 1970s into the 1980s, the railroad oriented members of MTM started to collect railroad rolling stock, restored NP RR 4-6-0 No. 328, ran excursions all over the place, etc. Much fun for all concerned and everyone pitched-in to help out with the excursions, including the streetcar people. In the late 1980s MTM purchased the Jackson Street Roundhouse property in St. Paul. That was the first instance of MTM owning/leasing separate parcels of property. MTM then purchased a portion of the right of way of an old Northern Pacific RR branch running west from Stillwater, Minn. Now MTM had three separate parcels of property, two of them purely related to railroad operations--Jackson Street RH and the Stillwater excursion trains. And by that time (i.e., late 1980s) the "us versus them" attitude started to become an issue. And, interestingly, there even was an "us versus them" conflict internally amongst the Railroad Division folks, with the Railroad Division people in conflict with the people who ran the excursion trains out of Stillwater. This eventually resulted in the banishing from MTM of several people from the Railroad Division and resulted in the forming of the Gopher State Railroad Museum in the central part of Minnesota.

In the 1990s, MTM agreed to absorb a group of volunteers that had been formed to restore and operate the streetcar steamboat Minnehaha that had sat on the floor of Lake Minnetonka (west of Minneapolis) for over 50 years but was raised in 1980. That operation became the "Steamboat Division" of MTM. MTM was forced off the Stillwater operation in the early 1990s by NIMBYs but quickly gained approval from then Wisconsin Central to operate their tourist excursion trains out of the ex-Soo Line Osceola, Wisconsin depot. So by the mid 1990s, MTM had FOUR operating sites, all physically separated, with the distance between the two farthest operations (steamboat on the west and the Osceola & St Croix Valley RR on the east) being about 55 miles. Oh, I almost forgot, in 1999 MTM under the management of the Steamboat Division built and started operating a 1/2 mile streetcar line in Excelsior, Minnesota, which is about 15 miles west of Minneapolis and the home port of the streetcar steamboat, Minnehaha. MTM also managed the ex-Milwaukee Road "Princess Depot" in south Minneapolis for the state Historical Society, although this exhibit site was, and is, basically a one-person minor side-show. Got all that so far? If all you've read so far sounds crazy, you're stating to catch on to the problems facing MTM in the new Millennium.

To recapitulate the above, by the late 1990s, MTM had three "operating divisions:" Railroad, Traction and Steamboat, with the Jackson Street Roundhouse being a separate entity under the management of the Railroad Division. By the year 2000, MTM had five, count 'em, five operating sites, all physically separated, managed by three "divisions."

By the late 1990s and into the new millenium, it became abundantly clear to some of us, in all the operating divisions save the Railroad Division, that MTM was unmanageable and the geographical separation of the three major operating sites created psychological barriers to a cohesive organization. Even with with the "help" of a full-time paid Executive Director who's office was located at the Jackson Street roundhouse, MTM was broken and almost everyone knew it. The Executive Director's location says it all about the "we versus you" attitude that was all pervasive by this time. MTM's finances became muddled to some of us in the Traction and Steamboat Divisions, with some of us feeling that the operating surplus from our divisions was being used to pay for poor decisions in the Railroad division and even by MTM's Board. In addition, the annual financial assessment to the divisions to help support the MTM office, including the Executive Director's salary & benefits, seemed way out of proportion to the benefit we (Traction and Steamboat) received from the MTM "front office" at the roundhouse.

By early 2004, the Steamboat Division's leadership decided it was time to part ways from MTM for a variety of reasons, some of which I've listed above. Initially, MTM resisted this move vigorously but quickly realized that the steamboat folks needed to go their separate way. By late 2004, the Traction Division folks realized, based on recent happenings in MTM's Management, that they could not be a part of MTM either. The MTM Board held various special meetings the last few months of 2004 to sort everything out, with no real results. The Railroad Division leadership opposed any separation by the boat and traction divisions, primarily on historical rather than practical reasons. There was even some reported talk amongst the Railroad Division people about packing the MTM Board so the votes would go their way when the time came. Shades of President Roosevelt in the late 1930s.

A general membership meeting of MTM was held in early 2005 and by a two to one margin, the separation of MTM into three separate organizations was endorsed. In a subsequent MTM Board meeting the Railroad Division refused to recognize the wishes of the membership, and basically ignored the vote of the Board and the voting members. That was the last straw. The Traction Division and the Steamboat Division continued with the separation process and made the legal and financial arrangements with the appropriate MTM Corporate Officers culminating, in our Museum's case, in the termination of all legal and financial connection with MTM in August of 2005.

The Minnesota Streetcar Museum operates two railways: the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line, located in southwest Minneapolis; and, the Excelsior Streetcar Line, located in that suburban town on the south shore of Lake Minnetonka. This arrangements works well. We are financially sound and just celebrated our 40th year of streetcar operations at our Como-Harriet Streetcar Line demonstration railway in Minneapolis.

The steamboat Division became the Museum of Lake Minnetonka and is doing well on their own.

MTM still runs tourist trains out of Osceola, Wisconsin and operates the Jackson Street roundhouse exhibit and appears to be doing well.

Long-winded reply to a fairly simple question. From 1998 through 2005 I was the General Manager equivalent of the Traction Division, and was smack in the middle of all this turmoil. Just recalling the tension in 2004 and 2005 over the separation of our organizations makes me want to go get a dram of my favorite single-malt, and it's only 1:30 PM in the afternoon.

Thanks!

The WW&F Ry Museum has deployed a reproduction flagstop station called "Prebles" -it's located approx 8 miles away from the museum, within the Maine Heritage Village on Rt 1 in Wiscasset. And there are more such things in the pipeline...

Stephen

Jim -

Thanks for the explanation. Very interesting, to say the least. So...now two different organizations, each one with two physically separate locations.

Les

Stephen -

Thanks. Does the WW&F govern the "Prebles" flagstop station, or is that taken care of by the Maine Heritage Village?

Les

While not "satellites" of each other as they are separate entities, VMT and the O. Winston Link Museum (4 blocks apart) operate as marketing partners, selling joint admissions. If the Federal funding already awarded ever makes it through the bureaucratic process, our Virginian Ry. Passenger station restoration, about a mile to the south, will incorporate satellite displays on the VGN. Yet another site in the Roanoke area has discussions under way for possible development, although they are confidential and in the preliminary stages at this time.

It's up to the museum to take care of it...but there isn't much maintenance other than refilling the brochure bins. There are large, heavily laminated black & white photos inside, with bold, easy-to-read captions. The cedar shingle exterior is unpainted and weathering nicely.

Stephen


Photo -Allan Fisher Collection

Seashore Trolley Museum has a satellite museum display in Lowell, MA, and one of their streetcars runs on the National Park Service line there. West Coast Railway Association in Squamish, BC runs the 374 Roundhouse Pavilion in downtown Vancouver. California State Railroad Museum has its separate Railtown 1897 in Jamestown. New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn has an outpost in New York's Grand Central Terminal. Illinois Railway Museum maintains separate library buildings in Union and Marengo, IL. Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec has a remote restoration shop in Colorado Springs. Electric City Trolley Museum has (I think) two remote shop/storage locations. Adirondack Scenic Railroad runs trains at both ends of its long railway, separated by miles of track not yet returned to service. Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum runs the satellite Hiwassee Valley freight and tourist railroad. Market Street Railway has its restoration shop at one end of Market Street and its museum at the other end. Edmonton Radial Railway runs two separated streetcar lines. Mid-Continent has been having an internal debate over whether to create a satellite location.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
Trainline/Railway Museum Quarterly

Aaron -

Thanks. I'll add some of these to the list.

Les

The Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, PA doesn't own a satellite museum per se,
but they do manage Horseshoe Curve N.H.S.