Is the "new" rolling stock for Galveston disposable? That is, is it understood that it might also be destroyed in the future?

What happens after the next hurricane? Maybe think ahead and have the connecting railroad ship them out beforehand?

LONG blah-blah-blah thread here from a year ago that compiles a wealth of dubious information (or misinformation):

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31512&hilit=Galveston

The implication (from a hotly-criticized source) is that their plan is to operate an evacuation train of the operable, most valuable equipment out of the city in advance of an approaching storm.

Continue the critiques or debates on the original thread, if you feel the need.

UPDATE: Snipped from an article on the F's posted at Trains.com today:

Anybody with the least idea of the effect of salt water on ferrous metals, and hurricanes on everything else would agree that Galveston is singularly unsuited to be a place for railroad preservation to take place. anything that goes there dies a salty, slow death, but, hey, those whitewashed talking mannequins are neat.

Putting a railroad museum in Galveston is on par with trying to take a sno cone to hell.

Galveston is a great place for a museum. It has a huge tourism draw, which can "put butts in the seats". Is the environment good for railroad equipment? No. It isn't good for anything! I grew up just an hour to the east. Look at Lone Star Flight Museum. They have an award winning collection of vintage military aircraft. The key to survival there, is to get the collection into a climate controlled building and that is why LSFM continues. The question is will the railroad museum do the same. If they proceed as they have, the collection becomes disposable.

Exactly!!! It's not a matter of if but when.

In the sense of flooding or hurricanes, I could say the same thing about the Gold Coast RR Museum, the Wilmington & Western, the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, and many other such "foolhardy" locations.

The question becomes, can this particular museum rely on the promises to get the rolling stock moved to higher ground? I wouldn't bet on it without a drill, and experience tells me that in the case of a hurricane, railroads shut down and turn their employees loose to save their families and property first, and I would expect the same from museum volunteers.

Will the equipment be maintained in a condition that the neighbouring roads are willing to move it?

Even with a few days storm warning, there won't be time for anything beyond a quick inspection, and anything not up to snuff or questionable will be left behind.

As painful a choice as it might be, perhaps a bit of investigation into a new location on higher ground might be prudent. How far out of the city would that be?

Note, I'm not picking on Galveston with this comment. The same concern applies to any museum located on flood- prone land, as pointed out by ADM IV, but particularly places where that flooding will be salt water.

Steve Hunter

Being a 30+ year member of Wilmington and Western RR in Delaware I know something about having your favorite railroad getting a major flood. The W&W sits at the bottom of the nearly untouched Red Clay Valley. The problem is development has been rampant in the area and now the valley has a 100 year flood every 3-5 years. Heck, the last time the W&W suffered loss of a number of bridges it hardly rained in Delaware, the big rain was in Pennsylvania and the water came down the valley and wrecked the railroad.

The positive side of things is that the W&W's shops and yard are all on higher ground and so far safe from these floods. People were ready to write off the whole W&W after the second major flood but the railroad was able to work every angle to come up with the funds to rebuild. As a result the railroad is in better shape than in recent history. Could the folks in Galveston find higher ground or even start filling and raising up the ground they already have. This might seem like too big of an undertaking but after seeing the W&W be rebuilt I am confident that anything can happen.

The argument has been made, repeatedly and several times over the past century, that, just like New Orleans, the city of Galveston should be "abandoned" and relocated to higher ground. It was, after all, the site of the nation's deadliest natural disaster by a factor of several:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane

For some strange reasons, just as with New Orleans (and most of the reasons are identical), Galveston remains not only occupied, but thriving.

If you put this museum on dry land, will patrons come to the new location? This is hardly the first time we've had a "do you put the museum where the railroad history is, or where the patrons are?" discussion, and it won't be the last. So maybe we should preserve the historic rolling stock by moving Steamtown to Belen, New Mexico......

Texans and Cajuns can be a stubborn lot! Galveston is an island after all. The history (depot) and the patrons (tourists) are both in that location. That's tough to give up. The Houston area is the only "higher ground" in the area. Houston already has a railroad museum and it's in the process of moving to a new location. Much of the area is at or below sea level. Sea walls, flood control canals, and levies are all common sights on the Gulf Coast. It's fun to watch someone build a lube shop there. They can't dig the hole for a pit because it will flood. So, they just build a hill to put the shop on!

I personally hope Galveston Railroad Museum survives. I have fond memories of visiting the museum during spring and summer trips to Galveston and nearby Crystal Beach. I find it funny that both my first railroad museum (Galveston) and first ride behind a steam engine (W&W's #98) are in locations so prone to weather wiping them away. I know how to pick'em!