The Nevada State Railroad Museum's McKeen Car is as good a renovation as they come. It's superb. I have add some of John Smatlak's pictures to the ones I took last Saturday to make this detailed album.

She's a must see. Except for charters, she is out only twice a year. See the Friends of the Museum's Web Site for dates.

http://railfan44.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... x?id=73546

The McKeen car is probably the most Steam Punk looking piece of railroad equipment ever built. What a beautiful restoration.

Thank you for the positive feedback on the restoration of the V&T McKeen Motor Car No. 22. Next week I will travel to Washington, DC to testify at the National Park Service National Historic Landmark Advisory Committee -- to defend the nomination of the McKeen Car for individual listing as a National Historic Landmark (NHL). If approved at this level, the nonmination will be subject to two additional reviews. If all goes well, the car might be approved by mid-2012.

The McKeen Car is scheduled to operate in 2012 on the following dates:

Saturday, May 12
Sunday, June 17
Wednesday, July 4
Saturday, October 27

Additional operating days may be added pending the outcome of the NHL nomination.

Peter Barton
Administrator, Nevada Division of Museums & History

Thank you Peter. The membership of this site would be quite willing to be an "objective" review panel for the National Historic Landmark Advisory Committee. (-:

Great photos, Marty! They caught my eye, as did this car when I was younger. What is some of its past history before coming to the museum?
Thanks!

Phenomenal! Thanks for the link.

Stephen

A concise history of the V&T McKeen Motor Car may be found within the National Historic Landmark nomination which is now posted on the National Park Service website at:

http://www.nps.gov/nhl/Fall2011Nominations.htm

Peter D. Barton
Administrator, Nevada Division of Musuems & History

Thanks Peter! And good luck, I'm a fan of it & the ferry Badger!

Beautiful restoration. Pity one of the 2 McKeen cars imported into Australia by the Victorian Railways did not survive.

Wes

I note that all the replies used the word "Restoration" and the R44's post originally used the word "Renovation." Perhaps this needs to be a FAQ for this site. I recall being kindly set straight about it by a senior shop crew member at a railroad museum. If I recall correctly, this is about how the description goes (feel free to correct this if I am wrong):

Renovation is what you do when you renew a kitchen. It is converting a car from one service for another, for your tourist railroad when you need that other service. Making a 2-4-0 out of an 0-4-0ST. Even if you did it with an authentic bent. There is nothing wrong with it, per se, but it re-starts the clock on the history of a piece. Hopefully a renovation did not happen to a one-of-a-kind and very interesting piece, such as a 2-foot gauge 3-door baggage/RPO, as Edaville did under Blount in the 60s.

A replication is a high quality restoration, as good as the original would have been. It used the same materials and the same process, save for adding power tools instead of hand tools, etc. It is just from new, with zero or very little original fabric to start with. Because they are new, many replicas are used for interpretive service.

A restoration is as true to original, in some particular era of the car/locomotive/etc. It
begins with an object that might be hopefully 75% of the bulk of the original. In best cases the object is complete and it just needs refinishing and cleaning. The improvement in condition is desired because weather/sunlight/wear and tear has worn it beyond display, or it is needed for operational interpretation. Because a restoration is undertaken by modern people in modern times, there will likely be some slight changes in appearance and/or materials used in the project. Well-executed restorations will document these changes, and strive to correct them if practical and if ever re-restored.

An artifact is an object in any condition which is preserved intact, as is. The best case is a railcar pulled from service years ago and forgotten inside a secure building. The value in these vehicles is that they show how things were done, without the intervening experience of a restoration.

Good practice in undertaking restoration work is to trade resources with other members of the restoration community. If you are going to cast replacement parts, or make a large order for fabric or milled wood, see if anyone else needs the same and can act on your time schedule. If you removed a modernization element off your vehicle and don't need it, but it is still usable for perhaps another restoration, if possible share that information and the parts.

The McKeen car is one of a handful of craftsman restorations of a railcar body that sat on the ground somewhere. I believe the chapel car at NWRM and the West Towns car at IRM will both be released from the shop in a year or so, for you also to marvel at.

Olin Anderson

So, the V&T McKeen car is the restoration of a historic body, but the renovation of the car to service, using a modern, non-authentic engine and drive. The power truck is a replication, as far as it goes.

Whatever you want to call it, it is very well done and photos simply don't do it justice. I stopped and visited about a month ago and it was almost as impressive as seeing the "Inyo" for the first time in person.

Cheers, Dave

Peter,

I read on another site that SS BADGER was recommended for approval for Landmark status at the same meeting that will review the McKeen car. Have you had any news on the McKeen nomination?

Wesley

SS BADGER news:
http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_19301645

The Nevada State Railroad Museum’s restoration of the McKeen Car is as good as it gets. Possibly the most extensive, well researched, most creative, and most successful restorations of a rail vehicle to date. It is not surprising that several other contenders for the honor would have been done by the same museum…

Since this car has been nominated for the National Register, it may be appropriate to review the terms used by the Secretary of the Interior within their standards, since these are the standards that will apply when reviewing the nomination….

Quoting from the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Treatments for Historic Properties (found at http://www.nps.gov/hps/tps/standguide/

The four treatment approaches are Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Reconstruction, outlined below in hierarchical order and explained:

The first treatment, Preservation, places a high premium on the retention of all historic fabric through conservation, maintenance and repair. It reflects a building's continuum over time, through successive occupancies, and the respectful changes and alterations that are made.

Rehabilitation, the second treatment, emphasizes the retention and repair of historic materials, but more latitude is provided for replacement because it is assumed the property is more deteriorated prior to work. (Both Preservation and Rehabilitation standards focus attention on the preservation of those materials, features, finishes, spaces, and spatial relationships that, together, give a property its historic character.)

Restoration, the third treatment, focuses on the retention of materials from the most significant time in a property's history, while permitting the removal of materials from other periods.

Reconstruction, the fourth treatment, establishes limited opportunities to re-create a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object in all new materials.

Note, these are not the terms generally used in railroad preservation….

The McKeen Motor car (V&T Railway No. 22) nomination for listing as a National Historic Landmark was heard by the National Landmarks Committee of the National Park Service in Washington, DC last Wednesday. I can report that the nomination received favorable, unanimous approval for moving it forward to the NPS Advisory Board, likely in the Spring of 2012. If approved by the Advisory Committee and the Secretary of the Interior, the car would join the Ferdinand Magellan (collection of the Gold Coast RR Museum) as individually listed railroad cars. The McKeen Car was placed on the Nevada State and National Register of Historic Places in late 2005. The support of members of this forum for the listing is deeply appreciated.

Peter Barton
Administrator, Nevada Division of Museums and History

P.S. The USS Badger nomination was heard immediately following the McKeen car and it was also approved for advancing to the next level of review, though with a bit more controversy.