Stop and give them the 5c tour. It may be that the person is the one that will give a donation for the tool or parts you need. No project is so important that a volunteer can't take a little time to show off what it is that attracted you to the museum. Maybe they drove a long distance to see the museum.

Last season our depot agent closed at 5PM as usual, the last train came in late, and although the grandparents on board had been through the gift shop, they wanted to go through again. I was doing other things, but stopped, opened the depot and let them peruse. They spent well over $200. It was well worth not doing what ever it was that they interrupted. It was so important I can't remember what it was, but I certainly remember the $200+ dollars!

dan

http://www.svry.com
svry@pacifier.com

The simplist solution to this is to continue shooing people away. After a time all your people will have passed away, the museum will close, and no one will be interested in trains anymore.

Problem solved.

I posted on this above, but the thread is important, so here is another bit to ponder.

There are a few large professionally staffed museums out there. State Railroad Museums for example. They are open 7 days a week; spme of them for as much as 362 days a year.

The people there will be back at 9am tomorrow and the day after etc. These folks also should get a break. When its closing time it is time to go!

Read your Museum Directory; visit the big guys on Wednesday on your vacation and save the smaller local volunteer museums for Saturday and Sunday. But remember those Volunteers want dinner and some social time too!

Ted Miles



ted_miles@nps.gov

First off, all the comments are much appreciated. Ordinarily, I do take time to be pleasant to folks who drop in. Just recruited a new volunteer that way, actually.

I guess what set me off was that one of the families who "dropped in" last weekend were somewhat less than courteous when they left. After we'd spent a good 45 minutes giving them the grand tour, they proceeded to change Junior's diaper in the parking lot. No biggie there, except they left the dirty diaper lying on the ground. We just spent almost an hour showing you around, and you can't walk ten steps to the $#@& trash can!?!? If I'd seen that before they left that diaper would have wound up dirty side down on their windshield.

Guess I have to just grit my teeth and continue to put up with the "drop ins," including the ones who are royal pains in the behind.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum
mconrad@compuzone.net

I can personally attest to the fact that the SV _WILL_ make it worth your wile. When I was in Oregon for vacation but could not make it to the SV on the weekend, Jerry drove in half an hour to give me the cook's tour of the entire place. (a real treat for a volunteer on another narrow gauge!) If you are out that way be sure to give the fine friendly folks at the Sumpter Valley a visit.

> We're never too busy....Stop by, We'll try
> to make it well worthwhile.
>
> Jerry C Huck, Operations Manager.
> Sumpter Valley Ry


The East Broad Top Railroad Homepage

ebtrr@spikesys.com

I understand your concern about getting the job done. But these are the folks you are getting the job done for. Without the visitors you wouldn't have your job. Just spending 5 minutes with these folks goes a long way with them. They are as smart as you, if not smarter, and will remember what you did for them.

How about people who come in, demanding and screaming that you fire up the steam engine NOW on a day you are not running, just so they can get a ride? (and then when you calmly explain that you are not running that day, and it takes several hours to fire it up, they start screaming and getting very derogetory.)

Or those that come in expecting to ride the train free?

Some people these days just have no brains.


But for the casual person that strolls in at or around closing time, our tour guides usually give them the full tour without any gripes. We have one tour guide who is pretty darn good at selling memberships to these stragglers that come in at the end of the day..

Gee... *grin* Folks, I do not really mean to be the iconoclast here, but maybe we can use this to illustrate a point common carrier railroads try to make to railfans.

Why do you think common carrier railroads object to railfans on their property? It is because they are WORKING! That is the same argument posed by this topic, and many of the same reasons apply.

Common carrier railroads are not museums, regardless of how we may feel about them, so the question of stopping the work to give a tour may not apply here, but the issue of safety sure does. Having "civillians" around when we work is a safety issue. What we are doing may engender a level of danger, and someone ill-prepared for that could get hurt. I have seen incidents like:

* The parent allowing their child to wander close to, and watch intensely, a welding task, with the child staring directly at the torch.

* A fellow attempting, for a "better picture," to wander into a site where cranes were lifting railroad cars from a low-boy trailer onto the rails. He had no hard hat, and thought it would be a "kewl pic" to get a shot from under the car looking up!

* Various people climbing, or allowing their children to climb, the ladders and grab irons of various pieces of equipment as if it was some sort of industrial-strenth jungle gym.

The list of incidents goes on and on ad nauseum, and all of us probably have tales to tell about it. It all comes under the heading of what laws and the insurance industry describe as an "attractive nussance," similar to an unfenced swimming pool in the neighborhood. The pool is attractive, but very dangerous when proper supervision is not available.

Should we keep people out of our facilities? Of course not... We are there to allow the general public to use what we have for education and entertainment. The problem is getting them to use their common sense when they visit, including those times when we are either working or not on site.

I do not offer any definitive answers here, for as someone else already suggested, the problem has many facets, and when we close down one, some visitor will find another one. The only way to handle it is to use our own common sense, take prudent precautions, and be as pleasant as possible to the more annoying visitors.

While we do that, however, we should also remember to be good visitors ourselves when we go to other museum facilities and common carrier railroads.

While I understand the sentiment, that brings up another question. Go to any "Real" museum (such as the Smithsonian or other big city traditional museum) 5 minutes after closing time and see if you can get in. Does that mean they don't care about the public or aren't professional?

As the Museums I belong to have treasurers that are always complaining that we need more income, I am worried about chasing potential money away.

Since I'm not one of the officers who gets royal treatment at other museums, my experiences, perceptions, and feelings may be more like those of the general public.
In 1960, I was only 9 years old, but had already been a family member of the Delaware Valley Short Line trolley museum in Tansboro, N.J. for 2 years and had been active for a year helping to get Wildwood 24 out of a sawdust filled lake in Birley, N.J. 9 of us visited the trolley museum at Warehouse Point, Conn. one Saturday to purchase their old generator to make our Philadelphia area cars run. I was thrilled, because I had never been to an operating museum, and this one had open trolleys, which I was too young to remember when they ran in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Unfortunately, we were told that rides weren't allowed, as the insurance policy only covered Sundays. It didn't help my disappointment to see Connecticut Company open trolley 840 running with passengers, and to be told that "they're just members". I don't think that any effort was made to sell us a membership so that we could ride. Of course, after contributing to the price of the generator and trip, my father might not have been able to afford any more expenses, and there might have been a waiting period for new members, to prevent this sort of idea. More than 45 years later, I am able to donate my labor, money, and recommendations to trolley museums in the NorthEast - but Warehouse Point is not on my list of beneficiaries.

More than once, I have heard the advice from museum officers that it is better to get your financial support from foundations and grants instead of public admissions, because you won't have to put up with crowds of visitors!

Think about waiting on a supermarket checkout line...when the cashier says 'I'M CLOSED' (in a certain nasty tone)...and you happen to be the next customer.

What might your reaction be ?

Enough said.

My volunteer work at the Pemberton Township Historic Trust is in restorations and maintenance only. I do not work the museum or gift shop. So there are many times when people will come by after the museum is closed or to walk the trail and I always stop what I am doing to say hello. More often than not they begin to ask questions and I am happy to answer them. After all we are a historic area museum who have period correct rolling stock that were the similar as the ones used when the station was operational in the last century. But I am a Sales Engineer by trade so maybe that has something to do with it. I might only spend a few minutes with them or up to an hour. But they came to learn and I am willing to give them everything they want. I do this even when the museum is open because once they are done inside they invariably come outside to see our cars.

Several weeks ago when were laying rail a man stopped by to see what we were doing and we stopped to chat with him. He returned last week to volunteer. He wire brushed rust and primed the N6B. So technically if I am there we are never closed.

Later!
Mr. Ed

In the three years since I originally started this topic, we've developed a system to deal with this. First, I've quit working Sundays. Second, we've sort of tacitly designated two or three volunteers to deal with drop-ins.

I still find drop-ins annoying, though. As someone else pointed out, try getting into the Smithsonian or the Met when the sign says "closed." What makes a railroad museum any different?

Because the Smithsonian and the Met are much less dependent on the goodwill of casual visitors then we are. The casual visitor you turn away unpleasantly may be on the staff of the governor who has a budget surplus to deal with - have you put in a request? Even so, the only excuse for not taking a little time and providing courteous hospitality to every visitor is if said visitor is abusive or unsafe in conduct.

dave

Usually, lack of money. Steamtown may be an exception to this. I make my donations to friendlier places.