There's nothing weird about laying off the people in a business unit or department you have disbanded. What would be weird is keeping them on payroll. Next thing you know, they'll be asking for their red stapler back.


Very common in commercial printing for instance. Often on brochures in small print is something about print date and production run, and there'll be the M for 1000.

Doug, those are SI units, which are really weird and hard to work with because they're NOT convenient, easily divisible multiples of 12, 8 or 3 like proper Imperial units. 1/3 of a mile is 1760 feet and is ready to be divided again by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 or whatever you need. SI units are infinitely divisible, but only by 2, 5 or 10.

As discussed previously in this forum, the accounting designation of artifacts as assets versus museum collections can become a slippery slope.

Ross, you are almost right. NPS should maintain control of the site and the collection, and do what they can do best, which is operate a museum. Mainline excursions and part of the shop should be privatized.

I have been a volunteer at the Museum of Transport since January of 1987. Starting with the restoration to operation of the Frisco 1522. I have continued to volunteer till yesterday.

The St. Louis County Parks department does not want to operate the Museum. Since announcing the layoffs, relations have been not good between Museum staff, and the county in Clayton Mo. So, no matter what is decided in the St. Louis county council, the operation of the Museum by the county would be negative at best.

The Transport Museum Association is not trusted by staff or volunteers at the Museum. The volunteers have decided to go when the staff goes. Also, TMA has to hire all new staff, and many of the functions that are performed now will not be performed in the future. Good luck in getting access to research material in the Museum's library and archives. Continued cataloging and sorting of material will not be continued.

There is a Zoo-Museum tax district in St. Louis City and St. Louis county. All the organizations in this taxing apparatus are in the city of St. Louis. It would have been nice for the Museum of Transport to have been included in this district. However, Missouri is a low tax state, and will just about not vote on new or higher taxes. Just look at our crumbling infrastructure. So, no way of getting some one who can be trusted to run the Museum.

After the five year period that the TMA has to run the Museum, the artifacts will be looking like a weathered junk yard. The library lights out. dust on exhibits, etc. There is no good way out of this mess.

Basically, the Museum of Transport is an unwanted orphan. My heart goes out to the staff who have become my friends over the years. Say a prayer and "Good Bye." We did as much as we could with very limited resources.

If you agree or disagree, I understand. I just do not want to get into a flaming argument over the transfer of a great Museum to a corrupt organization of the TMA.

Jim Butler

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I am used to scientific notation from collage and Greek multipliers.

Using Roman styles, MM = 2,000 as in Y2K (Year 2 thousand using Greek multipliers). MM = 2,000. 2016 => MMXVI. 1955 => MCMLV

Not saying its wrong, just mm = 1,000,000 I'd not seen (or maybe remember) this style before.

I recall being taught in school that using acronyms without defining them the first time you use them (such as N&SRG) was if the acronym was common knowledge. MM just was not in my common knowledge.

Doug vV

FWIW (For What Its Worth) N&SRG was a narrow gauge railroad in Georgia going under the name North & South Railroad of Georgia.

<VBGrin>

...Not to mention TMA refuses to hire people with a lick of common sense, nor do they educate their employees on what exists at the museum. Most of the kids they hire are not told the rest of the place exists just up the hill.

The following happens dozens of times a day:
Q:"Where can I find the (Bigboy/streetcar ride/other activity or exhibit)?"
A:"What is that?" or "I don't know."

If you were a visitor, what would you think about the place after that encounter? TMA is the group that staffs the visitor centers, and thus them and their employees are the face of the museum, the part that everyone sees. You would think that they should be the ones who could answer basic questions like those above about the museum. It is not so.

It has been the right hand fighting the left for years at the museum, and no one trusts TMA. TMA has no clue what it takes to run the archives, restoration programs, and volunteer programs; nor do they possess the will to continue them, which is why so many volunteers see this as a lost cause. Even current high-ranking staff are considering refusing a "rehire" by TMA. That says a lot.

I will see the rest of the year through with county administration. But if things turn out the way I fear they will under TMA, I will have no choice but to leave. Us volunteers all agreed that if certain individuals go, we all go. Many of the people who agreed to this have given their lives and fortunes to the cause that exists at the foot of that limestone ridge.

For those who cannot tell, the situation currently facing the Museum of Transportation is a dire one.

Just my two cents,
a single volunteer in a very large picture.

*The views expressed in this post do not neccisarily represent the Museum of Transportation, St. Louis County, or the Transportation Museum Association. *

For those volunteers who will be leaving the MOT, my advice is start a new volunteer group and apply for a 501c to start fundraising immediately. I have a feeling that the people who will be leaving are the ones who had all of the contacts, the talent, and have the ability to start over.

Hopefully you can put some money together and purchase either a piece of equipment from the MOT or another entity, and find a new home where your efforts can grow.

I don't pretend to know all of the legal ins and outs, but is it possible that a well funded group could make a competing offer and take the MOT off the county's hands?
I have never been a fan of the TMA and certainly won't go into my opinion of them on here. Suffice to say, its not a good opinion.
Perhaps a reputable group with experience with historic collection preservation, restoration and presentation could make it even more successful than it is. Sometimes it appears the collection is secondary to the park/playground theme.
The current curator/director of the MOT has done the best job of the several who I've known and should figure highly in the continued operation. All of the MOT folks have nothing but respect for her. I don't know who else will go, but its just a bad deal all around.
The whole thing stinks on ice and reeks of politics.
There needs to be a much closer examination of the groups, the books and the goal.

Do you have a group in mind? I would imagine it might be possible, even get an injunction to delay things, but only if the group exists and can show they have what it takes to pull this off, in other words, a track record. If you expect to form the group in the next few days, good luck to you.

How did it get to this point? Has the TMA been a continual presence at the MOT? What was the alternative? Does this loose money for the county?

I'm also confused - who is the TMA and what about them makes them corrupt? Surely if they had been caught mishandling funds or doing something else dishonest there would have been severe repercussions a long time ago...... assuming they existed a long time ago. My sense is they did based on just the commentary here. How do we know they are incompetent if they aren't now demonstrating incompetence in active management roles? Is it that somewhere far back in history they were incompetent? Might they not have learned anything since?

I visited there many years ago and saw a rusting mess with little sense of direction - which wasn't unusual for any of us back then, and for some still hasn't changed - and my more recent visit demonstrated a lot of improvement with the current staff in charge. Whether that was a result of no more funding but better management or more funding along with better management or previous management with more funding could have done as well I don't know. I have a lot of respect for Molly et al, nothing to the contrary intended.

If you're going to throw around broad characterizations please support them with timely specifics.

Yes, DO stands for designated operator a very commonly used term in railroading. mm indicates millions.

My best guess is that should the feds put out an RFP ( request for proposal) they would receive a number of responses from successful operators that would allow them to save a big chunk of their $ 6mm/year expense and yet see the place be operated professionally.

The one major fly in the ointment is that it would eliminate a majority of the bloated full time positions now carried by the NPS ( thus the need for $ 6 mm/year) and as this entity was created essentially to be a job creator for a depressed area my idea will probably never come to pass??

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Nobody is going into any specifics as to why the TMA can't be trusted. I'll believe the world is burning when I see the flames.

Let's be clear here. No-one is saying the folks at the TMA are corrupt - clueless, inept at times, yes, but not crooks. And a museum isn't a business, it is an educational institution where items it accepts into its collection are to be cared for in perpetuity. They aren't there as sources of scrap to be sold to balance the books when funds are needed, or sold off. The snack bar and gift shop are candidates for being operated like a business, but the rest of the place has different standards. I worked at MOT for 10 years ending about the 11 years ago and always had a good relationship with the TMA's executive director, but the personalities on their board were something else again.

Ron, if you read the previous posts those things are being pretty well said word for word. I appreciate your insight as somebody who was doing very good work inside.

Not so long ago, Cass changed management and disaster was predicted. I think it happens whenever large things change...... but if we don't change when conditions change we die. Changing the right way is the challenge..... and, if you are a manager or director, you must come to grips with the reality that if you aren't pissing some people off you aren't accomplishing anything worthwhile.

Why would you eliminate any positions? The current NPS staff would operate the museum and care for the collection. The park would then contract with a private entity to operate the equipment, which would be leased from the NPS. Without all of the extra duties, the existing staff would have enough man hours and funding operate properly.