Despite several planned visits that got called off for lack of time, I have not been to the MOT since the 1980s. I was pleased to see they had expanded but I am perplexed by their expansion. It is larger than the original museum but yet contains no display, storage or restoration facilities for the rail equipment which is the bulk of their collection and no full size track.

It has a huge new parking lot, which I recall was a shortcoming of the museum before. It has a new visitor center which houses a few specific rail pieces. How they got there I don't know as there is no track to the building. There is a large miniature train loop that looks big enough to have run a full size demonstration loop with small equipment. The train ride does not even go past any of the rail equipment. A turntable is being used as a bridge for the miniature railroad. Where you used to come in and the equipment (rail and other) was right there, now it is essentially in the back 40 that you have to hike to even get to. Outside three steam tractors and a trainer aircraft, (and what's in the visitor's center) there is no historic equipment in the expansion of any type.

When I was there many years ago I seem to recall seeing a model of a planned expansion into the same area that included a turntable and roundhouse

Sorry, I do not mean to slam MOT at all, I just don't get it. It seems like an amusement park and, oh yeh, there's some historic train stuff way back there. If I'm missing something I hope someone will clue me in.

Here is a satellite view. If you zoom in it goes to photos during construction.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Museum+o ... 15000&z=17

Here are some articles on the expansion.

http://www.stlsprout.com/articles/place ... ter-feb-29
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... aaba5.html

Chris,

It's called a "work in progress." The work has been done piecemeal over the past 8-10 years as time and money permits. Much of the "lower level" was under a flood plain and required a lot of work in just grading. At best, you are seeing the museum "between phases." Plus, MOT is a transportaton museum, with aircraft, road vehicles and even a tug boat in its collection. The lower level allowed museum planners to place some of that equipment on display.

MOT already has a shop building where resoration is carried out. The vast majority of the collection is under one form of cover or another. You also missed the GM Aerotrain which was moved down to the lower level.

The grade work for the "lower level" was done first, after a large storage building was built to house the majority of the traction collection. The parking lot was next, followed by the minature train, and then the partial new visitor's center. Even the new visitor's center that you see now is just a portion of the planned eventual building. The full size building will contain more space, and more indoor exhibits. The new building also houses educational space, and I belive partial archives. The rail equipment in the new building was trucked in, the Boston & Providence 4 wheel coach and the St. Louis horse car. It was light enough to bring in easily. Both had been off display for quite some time.

Right now, I understand the disconnect between the new visitor's center and the rest of the displays. Eventually, the old parking lot will be closed and turned into more exhibit space, and the open tracks adjacent to the parking lot will be covered. It just takes money and time.

On weekends and during the season, a tram takes visitors uphill to the bulk of the exhibits. The eventual plan is to run the streetcar line down the hill to the new visitor's center, so it can serve a transportation purpose.

As for the miniature train (A Chance "C.P. Huntington"), it is what it is. It does bring in visitors, especially families who pay admission prices and help fund the overall mission of the museum and much of the restoration work that goes on.

I really wish I had known you were visiting, I could have shown you around, including the restoration facility, and answered some questions.

Even though MOT is a St. Louis County Park, a lot of the operation is undertaken by The Transportation Museum Association, a non-profit 501(c)(3) sister organization. Like other non-profits, your donations are tax deductible. More information can be found on MOT's web page: http://transportmuseumassociation.org/

I do not mean to sound defensive. Most MOT threads on this board and elsewhere degenerate into "armchair collections management" as in "The Y6 should be in Roanoke, the P5 should be at RRMPA" and don't get me started on a certain 4-4-0. MOT has come a long ways from the "dark days" of the 1970s and 1980s, and has done a lot to improve the visitor experience and the care and restoration of its collection. Much of the restoration work has been done by volunteers. However, the museum has a dedicated staff of employees, and St. Louis County has done a lot as well to improve the museum.

A little OT but as long as we are on the subject of the MOT, do you happen to know anything about the Chrysler Turbine Car? I understand it runs* and does venture out on occasion. If that is true I wonder if those occasions are announced in advance. That would be worth another visit.

* Per the recent book on these cars, the ones donated to museums had their engines disabled but each facility was also given a complete engine and many did swap in the working engine. Often with the help of Chrysler employees or ex-employees.

Steve

Yes it runs. I got to see it run on a random spring Thursday back in law school when I was out for the day to volunteer. I kept hearing a jet sound in the background and eventually walked down to look. The volunteer who restored it and is the car's caretaker was pretty nice in answering questions.

EDIT:

Mr. Goldfeder, below, has the story of the restoration, including using an extra turbine engine that was donated.

I do know that visitors talk about the car a lot, it is probably one of the more popular artifacts.

I visited last spring and once I figured out what they were doing I was impressed, especially by their new Visitor's Center. Every museum should be jealous! I posted some pictures here at RyPN:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33525&hilit=Museum+of+Transportation

You develop on the land that is available on which to develop.

Western Railway Museum has borne a similar issue with the "disorientation of reorientation", as the main entrance moved from the north corner to the east corner. This rebooted the user experience and caused things that were close to be far away and vice versa. Facilities that were once the heart of the museum are now all but forgotten. It has had a shocking effect on the master plan, as our boots-on-ground experience with the new orientation makes us rethink things which had been assumed.

I believe Arden is going through a similar reorientation.

All,

I do not mean to "shut down" Chris. One of the items mentioned during my MOT volunteer group meeting a couple of weeks ago is that we should encourage visitors to fill out comment cards.

Perhaps MOT doesn't do a good job of explaining that the museum is in transition, and the site is a work in progress. I appreciate Chris' observations, as an outsider, his perspective is important. It is good to see the museum as a visitor sees it.

If Chris didn't fill out a comment card, or was not asked to fill one out, I hope he contacts the museum through the webpage and lets them know this.

David

[quote="ebtrr"]Despite several planned visits that got called off for lack of time, I have not been to the MOT since the 1980s. I was pleased to see they had expanded but I am perplexed by their expansion. It is larger than the original museum but yet contains no display, storage or restoration facilities for the rail equipment which is the bulk of their collection and no full size track.

??

I guess I don't understand how you overlooked, or didn't see, the restored equipment on display under roof, the restoration shop, all the full size trackage, and the dozens (if not hundreds) of locomotives and cars.

To really appreciate how far the MOT has come, one would have had to have seen it in the late 1960's/early 1970's, when it was almost a hostile place to visit, representing more of a late-1950's railroad scrapyard than a museum. Equipment was crammed and jammed into a very small area that was so cramped it was difficult to walk between tracks.

They have a huge array of railroad equipment, much of which has been stabilized and cosmetically restored and is displayed under roof. Yes, there are still items that need work and protection, but the point is that they have made and are making progress.

They've come a long way, baby.

I'll second that. I've only ever been there twice, in 1972 as a teenager, and in '09. As with any museum largely dependent on volunteers, it's a mixed bag. It more than helps to have the financial backing of the county (let's see, Akron, OH is about to demolish it's Union Station, and the old Erie freight house to feed the beast that is the University of Akron), so having a local government on-board in preserving railroad history in general is a great thing that needs to be encouraged. About the only significant criticism the operation of MOT I can think of off the top of my head is that the young women working in the visitors center (whom I'm guessing are seasonal county employees) were not very knowledgeable about the more technical aspects of things. Correcting that is mostly a matter of training. They might consider reconfiguring the current train ride to get visitors up the hill to the main part of the museum, rather than building a new trolley line to do so, or conversely (and I like this idea better the more I think about it), expanding the current trolley ride to replace the miniature train and use it as a true people mover, like the PA Trolley Museum does during the county fair.

This is the part where I say that as smart and well intentioned any of you may be, it is no substitute for having someone who is actually trained and experienced in designing spaces for people involved in developing master plans for your museums.

I have not been to MOT in over 15 years, so I have no opinion of their current plan, but I have been to enough railroad museums to know that almost all of them are a disaster from a planning perspective. The very real limitations of track design most always end up driving the process with very little consideration given to how people will actually move through and experience the museum. The scale of railroad equipment, and the organization of the railroad landscape is literally a cause for human discomfort, and it represents a significant design challenge to move people past long lines of railroad equipment. These problems are solvable, but it is not a task that the average DIY museum planner, or for that matter, many architects are up to.

As much as those of us interested in authenticity may snicker about Disneyland, the designers of that theme park understood what was needed to induce the public to explore their grounds and remain entertained while doing it.

That restoration of the Chrysler Turbine was far more involved than described, and it didn't involve recreating any very complicated, high tolerance turbine blades. As stated, all the donated cars came with an empty engine casing in them. But someone at MOT thought it would be neat to get an intact engine to cut open to show visitors what was inside. So they asked Chrysler for one and surprisingly it was sent to them. And as often happens nothing was done about the sectioning part of the plan, and the crate was just stored away. Then when the restoration of the car began the man doing it didn't know any of this and was heartbroken when he found the engine case empty. When he asked about it someone said "Well there is the other engine in a crate somewhere." The crate was found outside in the weather and when it was opened in his shop the vapor barrier inside was found to be intact. When the engine was hoisted out and opened up the first glance inside by flashlight was reflected back by the glittering turbine blades. Joy enused and the car was brought back to operational some months later. It was the only running example beyond two kept by Chrysler for many years. And quite a story.