Oh, I don't know, I walked to the railroad tracks and watched trains go by? When I was growing up there wasn't any Thomas or Chuggington and somehow I've spent my life studying railroading and working in rail transit.

"Telling the story" has become the trend of all museums of late, not just some museums. Museums are supposed to have an "educational" mission, not simply be a display warehouse full of artifacts. The artifacts of Washington and Lincoln are only of interest because of the stories behind the men in question; otherwise it's just a trowel and apron or a top hat.

The people who come to a museum to "see stuff"--a Big Boy, a GG1, a Southern 2-8-0, a W&Q coach, the china used on the Super Chief, etc.--are the "geeks," the already-converted. At best, we're one in a thousand of the population, and more realistically one in ten thousand. That's not enough to sustain any museum, unless they're all the rich one-in-ten-thousand.

The museum that doesn't tell at least some story behind its collection, unless it has something of ghoulish, macabre attraction like Elvis' mummy or performing killer whales, is a museum doomed to long-term extinction.

Mind you, this can go completely the other way, and a museum can be "all story and no substance."

If you're all story and no substance, you are probably making a lot of money in TV, movies, popular fiction or holding political office (same thing). If you are all substance but no story, you are sitting there watching things rust wondering what all the interested people are doing instead of visiting you......

Use the right stuff to make a compelling story that is true come alive.

I don't understand how the B&O using a different logo (the museum has not changed its official logo) on social media to market for an event has anything to do with how well the museum is meeting its mission. The 2nd weekend of the Thomas event this year had to be postponed due to some pretty serious issues in the city of Baltimore that weekend and a lot of revenue was lost. They're trying out a new event to see how it flies. If that helps pay for the restoration of a piece of equipment so be it.

As for those who are upset about specific pieces of equipment, let's not forget that the museum is only now finishing restoration of the JC Davis, the last locomotive to be restored after being damaged in the roof collapse in 2003. That's where the focus of the museum has been for the last 12 years. The restoration of the one of a kind pieces that were damaged. Like any other railroad museum there was a lot of overcollecting done in the 70s and 80s and there are just too many mouths to feed. Track space is limited and time in the shop even more so. Choices have to be made and not everyone is going to like all of them. I've been a volunteer there for 16 years now and I might not always agree with every decision, but I believe in the museum and its mission and I keep doing all I can to help it achieve that mission. You'll have to excuse me if I find complaints about a certain hopper or a GG1 that wound up in the museum's hands through the failure of another group to be less important than the restoration of a locomotive built on site in 1875.

I too was disappointed in the WW2 museum but mostly because it was so crowded it was difficult to actually see or read what was on the walls. Outside of Thomas like special events how many railroad museums are filled to capacity?

Haven't been to them all by any means, but the one I have visited several times and always found it well attended was CSRM in Sacramento. Not crowded all the time, but certainly hosting a good number of visitors. The least number of visitors at a museum of equal quality of content was at STEAM in Swindon, UK. I think it was me and one couple strolling through.

As I've mentioned here before, I'm partly responsible for the GG1 debacle, having been part of the small group of DC area fans (mostly DC and Potomac NRHS members) who pushed to bring it to the area from NJ. Given what has happened with the collection in NJ in the past 25 years, I don't know if 4876 would have been any better off remaining in NJ. Certainly, the 4890 would have been deaccessioned from the B&O eventually anyway. Really, the only reason 4890 was saved was because it ended up at Striegel Scrap in Baltimore. If things had gone with 4876 as discussed 20+ years ago, it might have been part of a two GG1 exhibit - with 4890 being cross-sectioned to show the guts of a G. That was one idea discussed in passing.

As for the future of one of 13 GG1s "preserved", and it being an infamous stepchild that officials in DC didn't want closely associated with the history of Washington Union Station, I still think that being stuffed and mounted along the corridor as a memorial to the glory days of the PRR wouldn't be a bad thing for it. Given the shape it's now in, that might be about the only useful thing that could be done with it. Or maybe that's just my bitterness coming through.

That was my point, is this actually known or is it simply assumed? How could someone really know either way? Not saying you're wrong, but I wonder how anyone could really know what you just wrote to be an actual fact as opposed to an assumption...

Nope. The local experts here are adamant that "we never saw a GG1 in Striegel. Everything else under the sun, maybe, but no PRR electrics."

As I was told by folks who were there, 4890 was one of the ones bought from Amtrak for $5,000 during their "clearance sale" to qualified non-profit preservation bodies. I think it may have been purchased outright by George Nixon and a couple others for the B&O Museum, and repainted at Nixon's expense. Nixon was a PRR loyalist in a B&O town, and believed a GG1 deserved to be saved in Maryland, and the B&O Museum was a "logical" home, at least at the time.

The other Amtrak GG1s were, as far as I know, all dispatched to Naporano Iron & Metal in New Jersey, along with probably all of the Conrail ones.

OK, Sandy, I stand corrected. I had been told at the time that it came from Striegel. I know that the work done on it was by people in Baltimore Chapter, and that the deaccession decision was extremely unpopular there, but hey, it turned out that it is in much better shape and much more appreciated in Green Bay than it ever would have been at the B&O. I do stand by my assertion that 4876 was the more historically significant piece, which is why it was accepted and kept. It's just unfortunate that the focus of management changed after that.

I've done informal "studies" of "railfan population" over the decades--count up everyone that knows a steamer from a diesel in a town, those who show up at train shows and trackside to see 611/844/etc., those who ride a train just because they can, etc.

I'm comfortable defending the "one in a thousand" figure in the Northeast using a very broad definition of "railfan" as just "someone who likes trains". Of those, one in ten--maybe, at best--will be "card-carrying", i.e. the subscriber to Trains or Railfan & Railroad, a museum member, a paid member of TrainOrders, etc.

As far as "geekery"? Your mileage may vary, but I tend to categorize "geekery" as being obsessed with raw data--the who, what, when, and where of the equation. The "bigger picture"--the why and how, philosophical, broader picture, etc.--does not lend itself to the semi-Asperger's obsession with data, superlatives, etc. too often seen not just among rail hobbyists, but among sports fans, bird watchers, craft beer geeks, etc. But the "big picture" makes the general public appreciate our stuff more--hopefully.

Yeah, I was referring to some manner of formal study. Otherwise, it's all just an opinion. I can't help but wonder if others in the museum field did what you did and just 'looked around' every now and then and came to a conclusion which led them to decide that everyone in fact went to museums not to see items on display.
Kind of bad science there, it's like having your theory and only looking for stuff that backs it up.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, because you just might be right after all. But I seem to be in a very small minority on the subject that's willing to admit that I don't know, either way.
Art museums seem to deflate that theory. If you just wanted a story, you're going to not find one at most art museums. And you could easily look up said art in a book or online. So why do people go to them? To see the stuff in person. A fair example? Maybe, maybe not.

The Sacramento museum, in my mind, does a great job of telling a story and showing off their amazing collection. I think a museum should tell a story, but never at the expense of hiding their collection behind closed doors. In my mind, you'd be better off just buying a book or looking up that story online, otherwise.

Tom, they had two GG1's. And, yes, the one I was referring to is the crash one. It's in the condition it's in because of the B&O Museum allowing it to deteriorate and be vandalized. As an example of area railroading not to mention US railroading in general, it fits their mission and always did. If they wish to focus only on B&O and related lines, that's fine. But why is it so difficult for them to fess up to this? It would take under a minute to add "with a concentration on B&O and related, predecessor, and successor lines" to it. And it's vague enough that they can still keep anything they have and wish to retain like Clinchfield 1.

Art museums - if well curated - do tell stories by showing a progression of different paintings / sculptures / whatevers - and relating them to each other in some meaningful way. It could be the progression towards madness shown in a chronological arrangement of Van Gogh, the development of pointillism, the etchings of Escher or the ash can solitude in Hopper's work...... the sad fact is, few do so in ways that people who don't already understand a bit about art will pick up on. Sometimes I wonder if they are concerned about offending the donors who are more educated than casual visitors by explaining too much. My take is different - you have to teach people how to view art and provide some context to make it more fully meaningful, and you will probably develop some more art fans in the process if you do.

So, there are ways to tell stories that aren't just words, and there are ways to use words to help tell a story also told more meaningfully with physical things to make the words make sense in reality. Our big stuff can be the basis for telling many stories, and it is impressive in scope and mass and - if we can actually use it - in demonstrating its purpose, power and transformative ability.

I don't think I've ever read the B&O Museum's mission statement. I look at their name and location, and it tells me something about what I should expect of them. I know people who put out a lot of physical and financial resources in the past to ensure that B&O-relevant items could go to them, only to be disappointed when the Museum turned their focus to other items that have no B&O/Baltimore connection.

I want to say again that I have no gripe against those who still support the Museum as volunteers and contributors. I will only say that there were people in positions of authority in the distant past who had a better sense of what is historically relevant and important, and I think the Museum would be better served if it were guided by such people now.

As for the original question about marketing to children, I repeat that I'm all for it. The Museum is for everybody, and everybody learns in the way that is most appropriate to his/her age group. The children tend to bring their adults with them (or vice versa), and the Museum's displays can and should be such that all ages can benefit by learning and being entertained at the same time.

Tom