I recall that when some other museum dear to my heart received an Ice-Tea (ISTEA) grant for track renewal, they were allowed to count volunteer labor, in-kind donations, etc. as part of their 20% share.

Am I remembering this correctly, and is this typical?

I know for a fact that ten years ago when Cincinnati made a proposal for light rail, they were going to be able to count the value of the existing incomplete subway as part of their contribution for the Federal grant (because the light rail was going to use the subway).

The rules regarding what was allowed as a match for a federal ISTEA/TEA-21 project were not uniform among states. I recall discussing with colleagues at other museums that their state allowed volunteer time to count towards the match while other states required hard cash. Other states allowed a combination of hard cash and donated materials.

We re-built our track at our Museum's Como-Harriet Streetcar Line in 2006 and volunteer time was not allowed towards the match. The acceptable match was cash and the value of hard goods we provided towards the project such as railroad ties, some track materials, etc. In our case, we had enough cash and materials to satisfy the 20% match requirements.

Interestingly, we had a friendly regional rail construction contractor refuse to submit a bid for our project. Their reason was that they hated to deal with all the requirements of a federal grant project. The company offered to do the project for roughly half the estimated federal cost of $600K if we dealt directly with them and by-passing the entire TEA-21 process. We refused to do that because while we did raise over $130K to reach of fund-raising goal, it was a long & hard process. We felt that we simply could not raise over $300K that the contractor quoted us to do the entire project.

Thanks!

At The Bluegrass Railroad Museum, for our recent TEA grant, for our 20%, we were able to use volunteer labor that aided in the work covered by the grant, and the materials we already had on hand after it was used for the grant.

We covered an awful lot of the 20% by building our Station Track, which is maybe 1300 ft long. The rail and ties didn't count until they were assembled and in condition for use. And since we had regular hand tools for much of the construction, the volunteer hours added up quickly, also.

Since improving the scenic view (brush removal) was part of the grant, we could also count hours spent 'Improving Sight Lines' that we put in.

The labor and materials was counted at market price, so different tasks paid at different rates. Laborers, Supervisors, Equipment Operators, Machinists, Engineers, Conductors, there was room to divide up your time.

Train and Station crew time for the regular excursions didn't count for it, though.

James