I suspect I may starts a large flaming war, but I need to askÂ… We have a thread below, entitled new Locomotive for Museums, which I take exception toÂ…

Are we museums, or are we train rides, and if we are museums, why are we trying to build a one style fits all steam locomotive instead of restoring what we have (as in old, historically significant artifact), even if for static display, instead of trying to get an generic locomotive with little or no history, so we can make smoke.

I enjoy both museums, some of which have little or no active operations, and train rides, many of which have at best limited commitment to preservation.

Randy Hees


http://www.spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com

> Are we museums, or are we train rides,

I think most of those folks really had the tourist railroading industry more in mind...

and
> if we are museums, why are we trying to
> build a one style fits all steam locomotive
> instead of restoring what we have

Well, I took it as essentially harmless blue-skying. I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that railway museums (as opposed to tourist railroads) start putting resources into such an idea anytime soon, if ever.

(as in
> old, historically significant artifact),
> even if for static display, instead of
> trying to get an generic locomotive with
> little or no history, so we can make smoke.

Well, just as a thought-experiment, a museum could easily justify it if 1) striving for a living history experience was essential to their interpretive mission and 2) they did not want to consume historic artifacts for the sake of living history interpretation. Solution: run the train with generic, non-accessioned eqiptment, not subject to the same restrictions and standards of care as the permanent collection.


eledbetter@rypn.org

I work in both tourist and museum venues. From a museums POV, the argument against using up an atifact, or replacing historic fabric in an artifact as it gets used up, or altering it (second water glass on Lafayette? First water glass on Lafayette?) may make a generic demonstration machine a reasonable approach to providing the interpretation of the experience in real life.

I would argue that a new car made with new wood and new castings, even using Carter Bros patterns, isn't a Carter Bros car, but a replication itself. This doesn't make it any less interesting from your visitors POV, but if you found an original Carter Bros 100 year old car in a barn, all original and complete, but far too fragile to withstand service, would you break it up in use or preserve it indoors?

Chris DeWitt at Nevada State talks about how hard he worked replacing much of an original V&T wooden car, only to have most visiting historians much more interested in the unrestored original cars even in poor condition.

Tourist railroads and train rides are primarily in the entertainment industry while museums educate, and preservation isn't their primary purpose. Replicas and generic consumable machinery can be useful for both.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

I would agree with you completely on the place of replicas in museums. We have moved from restoration towards replication at Ardenwood, and we have one very original horse car, which will be restored, but additively, rather than completely, and as a result will never operate. There is just too much original material on the car which would be lost in a typical restoration program. We also have a combine which may be preserved as a goat shed, and a new car body built for use on our railroad.

My concern with the thread was the use of the word "museum", and the concept of a “one size fits all” replica locomotive. A generic 2-6-2 would be meaningless at many or most museum sites.

There are some wonderful replicas, or stand in locomotives out there, which are appropriate to the site, for example the two 4-4-0’s at Promontory, the John Bull at the RRMP, Dardenell and Russelville 8 at the Nevada State Railroad Museum, or even some of the “paint to another railroad” diesels. The difference is that for a museum (as opposed to a tourist line) the item should have some relationship to the site other that smoke and steam.

Randy Hees

http://www.spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com

Point taken Randy, but the thread was one of brainstorming. I suppose it isn't any more Pie In The Sky to have every museum tool up to make a custom locomotive replica than to think about a one size fits all generic mass produced model since both are fantasies anyhow.

Wouldn't it be nice if the world worked that way?

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

I think there Is some hope.

There is the private project to build a copy of the early V&T 2-6-0. The frame, drivers and running gear can be seen on in the shops at Strasburg.
There are rumors of another 4-4-0 built using the National Park Service patterns from the Jupiter. Doyle McCormickÂ’s PAÂ’s are close to a replica, and defiantly an example of something coming back from the dead.

The streetcar guys at about the point that they are producing more replicas than restorations for the various heritage lines. Some like the cars at Tampa are more historic outline, but the new cars at San Pedro are nearly impossible to identify as replicas.

There are those of us out here in the west who dream of a narrow gauge Baldwin 4-4-0. Three original engines have been preserved, one runs, but because of all of the restoration work, as many as half the patterns exist.

We are far enough along to build Carter 10 ton flatcars (The Carter Brothers most commonly built car, of which none survive) from scratch, and probably will within 5 years. As we start to replicate cars, I suspect that the historic cars in our collection will see less and less use as operating cars, and more use as interpretive objects. The result will be a win-win, more operation, but no loss of original material.

Randy Hees


http://www.spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com

> I think there Is some hope.

> The streetcar guys at about the point that
> they are producing more replicas than
> restorations for the various heritage lines.
> Some like the cars at Tampa are more
> historic outline, but the new cars at San
> Pedro are nearly impossible to identify as
> replicas.

...but I have to use it. Trucks, we need Trucks. There are quite a few chicken coops out there that could be running if something as simple as a baldwin truck could be made cost effective ... no where near as complicated as the simplest part of a steamer to reproduce but the demand just ain't there. How many redbirds were "reefed" ... and all the very usable wheelsets with motors, control units (very modern but hidable) and other parts hit the scrap yard? How long will imports be available? Of course I have to admit the rebirth of traction (much better word) is amazing and I hope it continues as what goes around comes around.



lamontdc@adelphia.net

Eric:
In my original post, I asked if it would have been a good move to build a second K4 alongside 1361, while it was totally apart and undergoing major restoration. In my premise, I asked if modern welding and fabricating could make a locomotive which could represent the K4 design alongside the original critter.
I was startled to read that rebuilding an extinct locomotive was pointless daydreaming (not in your post, but in an earlier one). As a science teacher, one of the the things I tell my students all the time is "dare to dream impossible things". My very-late Grandfather told us a story about when he was a child and his mother mentioned an article she had read in the newspaper which stated that the same electricity that ran the street cars would soon light the insides of people's homes. His father remarked in reply, "Anna, mark my words. It will never come to pass!" And like walking on the moon, it did, of course, come to pass.
I think that despite whatever difficulties are being encountered in England, with an A4 Pacific, the effort will be proven worthwhile. So on my order list, I'll opt for a J3 Hudson and a T1 Duplex. Often it's the big dreams that get fulfilled.
Building a single fuel efficient, lightweight replacement loco design was merely a tangent of the bigger dream discussion.



glueck@maine.edu

You are close to hitting the nail on the head as to creation of replicas. With enough time and money I am convinced that very good bodies can be produced. The hook comes in trucks and MOTORS. One of the arguments for replicas is of course that we are 'consuming' the very items we profess to preserve. In the case of traction I know of a car that has logged almost 100,000 miles in a museum and it was pretty much worn out when we got it. Does that make any sense?? Or the proposed operation of nearly 100 year old CA&E cars in Cleveland?

My vision is to have some well done replicas which look accurate and use them to grind out the miles for the visitors who want a ride. Be up front and honest and bill them as replicas. Continue the restoration program, carefully thought out, and use the historic cars for special occasion demonstrations so that we CAN continue to experience the real sights and sounds as an educational and interpretive experience.

My guess is that 99 plus % of visitors will not care or mind since our demographics are changing. Even 'modern times' interurbans such as Chicago's North Shore last ran 40 years ago. Soon there will be few visitors who come out to say "I remember riding that one!" And our experience has shown that the fan community is insufficient to carry on operation of even a modest museum.

Yes, most of the above comments are regarding traction equipment where I belive a replica is more affordable. But I believe it applies no less to a boxcar, passenger car, or locomotive. Diesel replicas, anyone?? A radical idea right now, but what about 40 years form now when it may be too late to save some of the original stuff?

Bob Kutella


68trolley@comcast.net

I wonder how much of the material currently in the New Orleans cars actually came from Perley Thomas? They have peprfected the art of replacment of different pieces in a seamles series of subassemblies in the carbodies - probably they are mostly new trolleys now.

The new Pacific Electric cars are riding on recycled Boston Taylor trucks as is our Savannah iteration of a Melbourne W5 chicken coop. Apparently, there are trucks available from this stock of old parts, and as subway cars are retired in New York, perhaps more from that source?

None are accurate reproductions of the historic design, but can be used to make a car useable, or perhaps as a basis for parts to build a new replica truck?

Andy Nold can build a decent single truck for a Birney size car, perhaps he can tell us more and maybe John Smatlak can fill us in on the control and air compressor systems he used.

Dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

> One of the arguments for
> replicas is of course that we are
> 'consuming' the very items we profess to
> preserve. In the case of traction I know of
> a car that has logged almost 100,000 miles
> in a museum and it was pretty much worn out
> when we got it. Does that make any sense??
> Or the proposed operation of nearly 100 year
> old CA&E cars in Cleveland?

> My guess is that 99 plus % of visitors will
> not care or mind since our demographics are
> changing. Even 'modern times' interurbans
> such as Chicago's North Shore last ran 40
> years ago. Soon there will be few visitors
> who come out to say "I remember riding
> that one!" And our experience has shown
> that the fan community is insufficient to
> carry on operation of even a modest museum.

BOB: I appreciate your points ...however, while riding the 100 year old cars and listening to the volunteers point out the various original features of the equipment the riders (most of whom rode in on the plastic Breda bouncy boxes) were enthralled by the stained glass, oak, mahogany, semi-empire ceilings, wicker seats etc. Would anyone care if the wiring was replaced, the lightbulbs changed, the motors rewound, the compressor rebuilt, new wheels and brasses or controller fingers, horrors, a pantograph on the roof ...these cars were never near Cleveland let alone within the time span of most of the riders yet the "authentic" atmosphere was appreciated.

Running the Waterfront Line with its roller coaster track or even fighting the long 3% grade on the Shaker Line will definitely take a toll on the consumables and require "real" dedicated maintenance and restoration work but I do not think anybody is talking about everyday operation.
I guess what it boils down to is that I like to see the cars doing what they were meant to do even tho' it is on a limited basis.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

Depends where you are from. Trolley cars ran in the Eastern US The Brooklyn Trolley dogers were names after them.

But in the West they called them street cars. Here in San Francisco they were always street cars.

The trolley by the way is the wheel that rolls along the wire and transmits power to the car.

The truck I would love to see patterned and replicated is the Birney Safety Truck. There are at least 25 cars that need to use that truck.

Just about any traction museum and who knows how many heritage street car lines would use them if that can be had.

Ted Miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

Ted Miles wrote...
> The truck I would love to see patterned and
> replicated is the Birney Safety Truck. There
> are at least 25 cars that need to use that
> truck.

I agree that it would be wonderful to have Birney parts available since its probably the closest to a "universal streetcar" used in the US and Canada (by the time the PCC's were developed, most small lines were gone) but (don't you hate anything that follows that word...)

The birney truck is only one part of the problem, and they can be fabricated as the folks in Dallas and San Jose have shown. The big problem is the safety brake valve, which to a very large sense defines a birney, and is probably too technically precise for easy or affordable reproduction. For a Heritage line, the brake valve is much less important, but for a museum, its a critical part.

Randy Hees


http://www.spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com

> The trolley by the way is the wheel that
> rolls along the wire and transmits power to
> the car.

Trolley coined from "troller" the short lived two wire system became a used to describe anything that ran under the wire and and a result of the forgotten era such terms as streetcar, suburban car, rapid transit car, interurban car are all lumped together as a "trolley" ...which can be irritatingly (sic) pronounced with a nasal whine . At least in Ohio, Birneys were the answer for Traction Companies that were stuck with franchise requirements forcing them to run city service on non profitable lines. The money makers, the city builders all had "real" streetcars. As an example I cite the various and sundry LSE city Birneys vs the Lorain-Elyria almost rapid transit cars. The all time favorite ,pre-PCC of course, the many and varied Peter Witt cars that wre a success all over the world. If you add up all the numbers the Birneys were in the minority ...but again in this day and age easier to reproduce then a Cleveland Railway 4000 of 5000.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

... were enthralled
> by the stained glass, oak, mahogany,
> semi-empire ceilings, wicker seats etc. ---

Most of what enthralled you did not rely on the car being operated! Where were you and all the other fans who could have experienced the same sights at Trolleyville at some point over the last 40 years??

The consummables you refer to are not exactly hardware store items and the cost of servicing or rewinding one of those motors can easily run over $10,000 - that is, if the core and commutator are not damaged.

I would stand in line also to see them run and continue to ooh and aah when visiting a museum. But that is the 'fan' in me and I do not think fans can sustain a serious preservation effort. There were many on hand in Cleveland and I know of some who gladly drove 400 miles to see the show. But I suggest that is the novelty of the situation as these cars have been preserved and could have been viewed and ridden for decades, previously at Trolleyville. But we didn't 'cause it was familiar, it was there, and 'always would be'.

Regrettably, for the visiting public, they may come for a ride but usually are not too concerned about what is hauling them around. And we need the public, and large numbers of them, to foot the bills. Let's save the good stuff and not use it up.

Bob Kutella


68trolley@comcast.net