I see at least four general types of railroad museums.

- The Money Chase. The mission of the organization is to pay staff salaries. The organization's activities are All About The Revenue, and they are easily mistaken for tourist railways. Key telltales: The blue guy. Generic stainless steel coaches and EMD power on the tourist train. The train is pristine; the rest not so much. Visit any random Tuesday and you'll find a clean, overstaffed office and not much else. The little girls in the office know how to get a Channel 7 reporter to come out, but couldn't tell a coach from a tieplate.

- the Exciting Upstart. Constantly surprising everyone. Enthusiastic volunteer corps who GETS the preservation mission. Showing serious hustle but still approaching the tourist business in an amateurish way. Speeders, cabooses, critters and maybe a Lackawanna coach. All the naysayers are on the outside.

- the Faded Glory. Markers: Rotting collection. Demoralized volunteers go "GRRR" at every possible criticism, improvement or reform. All the naysayers are on the inside. Passengers/revenue are an inconvenience. Come in on any random Saturday, nobody's there. Most likely the people who made the original glory are gone. The organization's mission is to keep the clowns in control. They'd rather crash the organization than let go. Just like the Flight 93 hijackers.

- The Preservation Paradise. The organization's mission is railway preservation. Passenger revenue is an important part of a balanced organization, and it pays the bills, but it doesn't wag the dog. Telltales: Train is some amazing historic thing. Enthusiastic volunteer corps doing amazing work preserving really cool stuff. Much loved by the public, railroads and donors. Paid staff, but only as much as absolutely necessary. Visit the office any random Tuesday and it's locked. Visit during operation days, and the volunteer stuffing envelopes will tell you the ED is out on the grounds helping volunteers change a truck assembly.

Somebody could make a pretty good case that two of those groups don't deserve nonprofit status: the Money Chase is really a tourist railway, and the Faded Glory is really a private train club.

What's absolutely amazing is how overhead costs vary among them. Upstart and Faded, the cost of simply existing is very low. So the vast majority of passenger revenue actually goes to good use rather than paying for overhead... the problem at the Faded is not enough of that. Paradise has a higher overhead, because they have some staff, but it's contained and well within the passenger revenue stream. Chase museums have brutal overhead whether they run trains or not, which is precisely why they must go to extremes to run so many.

In other words, the money chase is self-induced: they need money so bad because they spend money so crazy. That's why I call it a "chase". They are chasing their tail; their business model of needing money is why they don't have it.

I would add a subset to the upstart heading:
-The Impossible Dreamer. This is a small, dedciated group with an almost cult-like intensity to a specific goal. Sadly, that goal is so comically unrealistic, they'll never get it done. Their dream is to get a locomotive that is close to collapsing under it's own weight restored to running condition (with no place to run it) or completely rebuilding a long-abandoned railroad (you know, a short line... Like the entire MLW Pacific extension). Unwilling to lower the bar to something more reasonable, they never achieve any goal. The flame that burns twice as bright burns for half as long, and after some time, the members are totally burned out. Go to their HQ (probably run out of a donated trailer next to a rusting pile of donated rails) on any given day, at any time of day, and they'll all be there. Go back 2 years later and you'll find a housing development on the same land and the residents respond to your inquiries about what happened to the group with, "Those guys? I think a few went to the looney bin last year, a couple of them live under that bridge over there now..."

State owned/operated and subsidized (inc. Steamtown) I guess would be a subset of The Preservation Paradise. Two big differences seem to be that 1) employees did much of the work volunteers do in other Preservation Paradises so 2) a large volunteer corps never developed. Now with continuing governmental budget cuts and fewer state supported employees some of these museums are in trouble. And most are relatively new without a strong history to support them.

Any specific comments?

For example, here in North Carolina the talk is about privatization. Nevada has had trouble keeping its front door open and is down to four days a week.

There might be a fifth type, the Adjunct Museum. That is, a railroad facility has been preserved as a community space (concerts, wedding receptions, etc.) or for some sort of commercial end use (restaurant, retail outlet), but with part devoted to a museum (railroad artifacts and collectibles, model trains, local history exhibits including railroads, etc., with perhaps even a piece of rolling stock). We at the Keokuk Union Depot, http://www.keokukuniondepot.org, are still in the beginning stages of actual restoration, but are also considering end uses that could include museum space in the baggage-and-express portion of the building. Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

I think the government owned/run railroad museum deserving it own category. These museums are generally run by a staff that does the job they are assigned to do until they move on to the next opening at some other park. As for the rotting/ rusting hulk, if it is not in the budget, there is no concern for it. Clean uniforms and restrooms are the top priority. They are generally scared of the idea of operation, some one might get hurt and then come the lawyers. Their budget comes from somewhere higher up and is inflexible.

I've noticed the "clean uniforms and rest rooms" theme running through this thread.

I hope this is not a criticism in the sense that "there is more important things being neglected or missed".

If your museum is open to the general public, and want to encourage participation and attendance by said public (and by the way fulfilling your 501 (c) (3) mandate), you need a good and clean gurgler. As for uniforms, it depends on what you are selling/preserving. And yes, a clean uniform to the public is a very good idea. Not to say some grease monkey crawling out from the bottom of something talking to the public is an anathema, but overall, since the public is usually clean and neat, it would behoove your organisations' public face to be likewise.

Yes, there is diversity in the preservation community, and, many organisations have gone through some or most of the types enumerated above.

The question is what is ideal given what the organisation has, what it has to offer, its perception of the public and the public's perception of it.

I would probably more the rules around, and agree with more than 4 types of museums, but would suggest its not just railroad museum, and the museums don't need to operate trains...

There are lots of faded glory static collections and depot museums...

The money chasers could be a big government (not always a state or federally owned) museum where it exists for the staff... who are all about getting paid, and less about the museum and its objects... There are collections held by a couple of big historical societies where the staff comes before programing...

Randy

I thought “Old Boys-Big Toys” should have made the list.
Where the name museum is used to justify tax-exempt status, but the primary mission is old control freaks playing with full scale choo-choos.

Buzz wrote:

Oh my yes. And these self-styled "historians" continually beg for money from members to subsidize their fun. When the toys break they shove them to the back of the property where they sit neglected for 10, 20, 30 years or more. Hardly historic preservation. A joke, really.

I had the exact same opinion expect I dub these messes "The Personal Toy Train Set". I just didn't add it becuase the symptoms too closely match "Faded Glory" syndrome which might be because they usually result from one single old fart weaseling their way into being "the guy with the keys" to everything at a place thats become "Faded Glory" and believes the equipment "belongs" to them.

I had the unfortunate experience of wasting nearly 5 years of my time working at one of these places until it finally got through my thick skull that no matter how hard I worked on anything I would never be one of the "chosen" who had kissed the old fart in charge's butt enough to be ever allowed to play with anything.

What frustrates me to anger is that these a$$holes will bitch and moan to no end that younger people "are to lazy to come volunteer" but on the rare occassion they get someone young enough (and physically capable) to actually work on thier stuff they go out of their way to piss all over anything they do until it runs them off. Then 5 seconds later they go back to bitching they have no young people to help them.

I can't tell if some of these guys are mentally unstable or the scarier scenario that they're actually just that frikken' stupid.

"Boys with toys" can also be a personnel management issue within any museum. At WRM the mechanical department would really like any run to be annulled if no passengers are present in order to reduce wear on historic artifacts.

However, it's sometimes hard to argue when operations argues that "training" is needed to "maintain proficiency." Sometimes that's another way of saying "I drove 50 miles to get here and deserve to run."

With steam, that's almost impossible to do. You have no idea if anyone's gonna show up to ride later that day when you need to fire up a locomotive so early in the morning. Once you've built up some steam, you probably should do something with it.
That said, there should always be a backup plan on what to do with said head of steam and no riders. Always have a training plan in place you can just grab and say, "Okay, we're going to go over hand signals today. Everyone, down to the yard and bring your gear!" It's a lesson I learned from my time in the Army, you're always training if you're doing things right, even going over stuff you think you know well. You can never learn too much...

There's a difference between having the place acceptably neat and having it sanitized to the point that it has no resemblance to a working railroad, which I believe was the point of the Money Chase example. I've noticed far too many tourists who have hideously high standards of "clean" when they're out, to the point of not letting their kids touch anything they imagine might be dirrrrrrrty. ("Ewww, don't touch that display, it has fingerprints!" somehow does not extend to "don't touch the kid-crud-covered toys in the play area." Go figure.)

IMX Money Chasers often aren't railroaders or railfans to begin with and their museum background may have been in something like art or architecture. In those areas, spotless perfection, soft chamber music and indirect lighting are the rule, and a large, well-dressed staff shows patrons that the museum is doing well. When confronted with a big, loud, sometimes smelly machine, a lot of these folks are not quite sure what to do with it and their instinct is to scrub it (oh, who am I kidding?--have it scrubbed) within an inch of its life. Eventually, it'll look real pretty but won't run.

It's not malice; it's an attempt to apply white-collar image to a blue-collar subject. They may balk at paying mechanical bills when they'd never think twice about money for copier toner or paper supplies. You'll often hear "We never had expenses like this at the Smirk-Stuffington Museum of Jewelry Design!" Of course not; the SSM's major expense was for security guards to keep people from pocketing the displays, glass cleaner for the panels and a visit from a carpet steaming company that came by after hours as as not to have patrons see their dirty work. If anyone did any manual labor where patrons could see them, it was likely someone doing lampwork beads. Casting, burning off precious metal clay and the like probably took place in a closed shop somewhere and the museum might have shown videos. They have no frame of reference for a working locomotive, even a well-tuned diesel.

On another cleanliness-related note, there may be no good way to put this, so I'm going to be as delicate as I can: there is also a difference between people who have been working hard and are sweaty and greasy, and people who, it appears, came to work sweaty and greasy...for a few days running. I've only run into that at one railroad (now defunct) but it makes, er, an impression. Come to think of it, those might have been the guys who are now living under a bridge over there.

I rather quite agree: the Government Museum. Their mission is a clean and honest one for what it is, though not too many of us share their thoughts.

Related is the
A very closely related phenomenon is the G-money Whipsaw Museum, which grew to depend on government money and was cut off. Or, had a crushing natural disaster and went chasing FEMA money only to get jerked around. They either act like a really poor government museum (cutting all but salaries, natch) or they frantically try to become a Money Chase Museum.



Hmmm. The problem is knowing the difference in the present. To a naysayer, there's no such thing as an Upstart, and they're all Impossible Dreamers. And even the upstarts dream, and rest assured there are the naysayers to tell them the next step is impossible even though they cleared the last 7 impossible steps. I guess the difference is the Upstart is actually clearing steps.


Sure, I could see that. I think it would be more than one of the other types simply having community space that happens to be a nonprofit Victoria Station.



And I agree, because these outfits have no chance of becoming anything else but "Faded Glory".


The motivations are a fair bit more complicated than that... but as far as effect, yes, I'd say you've nailed the "Faded Glory" museum right on the head. Even if they ain't faded yet, they'll always be faded from what they were meant to be.

One thing that keeps coming up in these discussions is about people who would like to volunteer but feel unaccepted by a museum power structure.

One problem with volunteers is that of competence. They must prove they are competent to do a given job before they are allowed to do it. Otherwise the museum may wind up with paint applied with no surface prep and large unsightly runs in the paint. Of course this paint job probably will start peeling in a few years and the object will look worse than it did before the paint was applied.

So what do you do with the eager volunteer who shows up regularly but is totally incompetent at everything he has attempted?