Is it time to try and get the DL&W #952 back from St Louis to Scranton?

From TRAINS Magazine: The Museum of Transportation in St. Louis announced today that staff will be laid off from the museum in anticipation of handing the museum over to the Transport Museum Association on Jan. 1, 2017.

Translation: the City employees are being laid off before becoming employees of the new Association.

it sounds like the typical jobbing, a technical thing, like a business is going out of business lays off its employees when it closes, but the new replacement business activates and can pick them all up. surely its not a smooth transfer but there ya goes.

Why? What does the museum converting from a Saint Louis County Park to a non-profit museum have to do with the 952 returning to Scranton?

The men who were pushing hard to get the 952 returned to Lackawanna territory have lost their zeal for it and I doubt they'll want to mount another campaign to accomplish that.

Their legal action did force the St.Louis management to address the dreadful condition the locomotive had fallen into and do at least a half decent cosmetic redo, so it wasn't all wasted on legal fees.

Even if it were returned to DL&W territory and the funds raised to restore it to service I doubt that the FRA would allow it to operate what with the engineer astride the boiler??

Best left to sleep where she is.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Oh my God that is the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread headline on the index page. Hahaha

This was a very politically motivated move by the County Parks, and I wish the best for the outcome, but it is hard to see a bright future through this. Some very good people I know will be out of work. Very sad for me as a volunteer there.

There was a reason (several of them) that TMA handed the reigns to the County Parks 40 years ago.

In the bigger picture, this does not bode well for the MOT. I can see a lot of questions arising, other than the political implications.
Myself and many others have donated artifacts, etc, to the MOT directly. If I read the proposal correctly, the TMA will eventually be able to sell them. I purposely did an end run around the TMA.
I think the ways are greased on the slippery slope and I wouldn't count on people being rehired.

As an update: The County parks board will vote on the plan November 29th.

This plan is to lease the entirety of the museum and its assets to the Transport Museum Association (TMA) for a period of 5 years. County will also give TMA $2.5 million to fund the operation of the museum during that time. If the TMA upholds the terms of the lease, on January 1st 2022, the museum will become soley the property of TMA.

The county believes this will save them nearly $1.4 million during the 5 year period. If the plan is passed by the board, all County employees will be laid off Dec. 31st in preparation of handing administration over to TMA on January 1st. I would not count on the county employees being rehired by TMA.

TMA would be allowed to sell assets if the lease is upheld as stated above.


This would rework the way the museum will be managed and operated, and not for the better. This is a VERY poor route for the county to pursue.

(Edit: The vote will be on the 29th, Public discussion on the matter November 22nd.)

A plan along these lines is what I've been proposing for Steamtown NHS. Let the feds hire a DO, give that DO an annual subsidy ( far less than the $ 6 mm they now pay to run the place) and let the private sector DO maximize revenues and minimize expenses. In other words run it as a business.

My guess is that in the case of S'town the results would be remarkable??

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Hi,

I am unfamiliar with an acronym or two.

DO? Direct Officer maybe?



The only things of for mm is Mega Millions or millimeter. (maybe 1/1000 times 1/1000 = 1/1,000,000)

I am an electrical engineer (retired), so I am used to:

micro - μ- (m = 1/1,000,000th)
m - milli- (m = 1/1000th)
c - centi- (c = 1/100th)
d - deci- (d = 1/10th)
D - deca- (D = 10 times.
K - kilo- (K = 1000 times)
M - Mega- (M = 1,000,000 times)
G - Giga- (G = 1,000,000,000 times)

$ 6 mm does not make any sense to me. If this is 1 one-millionth of a dollar, then it is might small. Sorry I do not know your lingo.

Thanks.

Doug vV

The Roman numeral M is often used to indicate one thousand, and MM is used to indicate one million. For example, an expense of $60,000 might appear as $60M. Sales of $3,000,000 might be written as $3MM.

http://www.accountingcoach.com/blog/wha ... -stand-for

And I would assume DO is Designated Operator.

My guess is designated operator or director of operations. If the Feds were to hire him, he would be a federal employee and therefore not private sector, so that plan isn't going to fly. A private contract operator, however..... this strategy has been used at Georgetown Loop since it opened, and seems to be growing in popularity. The extent to which it would be more meritorious than NPS as an operator of a national park is certainly worthy of some discussion, whether legally possible or not. Laws were made to be rewritten.

Partnerships between public sector cultural resources and private nonprofit support organizations is another strategy which has been used, and successfully, in some places.

I think Homer Simpson could never remember if he was a technical supervisor or a supervising technician........

I have always used K for 1000 and M for a million, but I'm a dinosaur.

I'm pretty sure Ross meant Designated Operator, which was a term popular in the immediate post-Conrail era for contractors who operated railroad freight service on various branch lines that were not included in the Final System Plan for Conrail. Usually a state entity or a shippers group paid for them to run the trains. They might be known today as Contract Operators.