In concept, the idea in NJ of a "Congress" of railroad organizations was a good one. However, two or three people have run this entity from the beginning as their personal fiefdom (just keep rotating the top three officer positions to get around those pesky "term-limits" in the By-Laws).

When you paint locomotives to your personal fancy, you lose credibility. When you spend nearly $750,000 on a single car that NEVER ran in the state you claim to represent (while dozens of locally significant pieces rot away), you lose credibility. When you get in bed with one political party and are SHOCKED when the other political party then treats you like damaged goods, you lose credibility (and you should lose your 501c3 status).

Mr. Rev66vette mistakes ego with a basic sense of right and wrong.

I'm not sure of the point of this passage, but it is not uncommon for jewels in any historic field to be hard sells. The National Parks are a good example as they can't cover their operations by entrance fees alone. Does that mean they should cease to exist? Certainly not. Financial solvency should not be the only measure for determining the validity of a site or museum. It is a yardstick better applied to "collections" type museums rather than "historic sites" type museums.

Well I didn't want to get into actually dissecting the group in question. For one, the reason that only two or three people keep rotating their positions, is that no one else wants to do it. Like I said earlier, theres plenty of critics out there, far more than the actual doers. As for circumventing the by-laws, this leads to another topic, "What kind of groups like ours survive the best, ones that are purely democratic in process, or ones that are run soley by certain individuals". Some of the better run groups have been run by the same person for years.

Maybe I picked the wrong example, but I am familiar with the group in question. I don't question their motives, and perhaps they did have the "caboose at the front of the train" in their gathering of all this equipment BEFORE they had a place to safely house it. This is a lesson all groups should learn. But they requested that individual groups come forward and restore some of the equipment that was relevant to them, and even this failed.

Theres the human aspect here, and you picked out one portion of my post to dwell on, which doesn't really fit into the entire picture. Sure personal fancies come into play, and one would think that the governing bodies of these groups would keep it to a minimum, but that's not necessarily so. And what's a significant piece of equipment to one, may not be to another.

Unfortunately, the way they chose to do this was thru the political arena, and whether that is good or bad is also debatable, for I don't know of anyone with financial resources that came into the picture.

The issues that you put forward such as the expenditures (grant money, I believe, yet another debatable topic) on cars that did not run in the state, occurred well after the attempt to derail the group.

I've been out there for over 20 years, actively particpating in this stuff. I hear all the innuendos and cryptic descriptions of many groups. I'm the first to admit that the situation is in a state of flux and probably can't be fixed, unless someone can come along and try again.

If theres one thing coming out of these posts, it's the sad state of affairs that exist in this area.

I was pleased to serve on the NJTrans.Museum Commission from 1995-1999. During my tenure I tried in vain to promote the selection of Liberty State Park as the location for the proposed State Transportation Heritage Center, as I felt that it was the only place with sufficient visibility and physical plant to attract the Corp. sponsorship we'd need to allow us to raise the 30/40 million dollars needed to build the place. Unfortunatly my arguments fell on deaf ears and Phillipsburg was designated.
Liberty State Park presently attracts approx. 3 million visitors/year most of whom come to board the Circle Line boat to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island or to visit the Liberty Science Center. The State of NJ has invested approx. $40 million state and federal dollars over the last 20 years totally restoring the historic CRRofNJ riverfront terminal and stabilizing the 15 track Busch train shed. Nearly 5 miilion immigrants started thier journeys into America through its gates in the late 19th. and early 20th. centuries.
The park is connected to the NS mainline and that track could easily be extended to the trainshed so as to provide a connection to the "outside" world for mainline excursions etc.
The Museum Commission expended approx. $ 500,000 doing site selection studies and a "Master Plan" for Phillipsburg and was unable to get the Legislature to go any further.
Seems to me that to EVER have any real chance of happening it will be mandatory to be able to show sufficient Corporate Sponsorship interest to at least raise half of the expected total cost of building the facility, AND to be able to convince the Legislature that it will be able to generate sufficient visitorship (gate) to be close to self-sufficient for its out of pocket annual expenses. Both of these are achievable at LSP and are totally unrealistic in Phillipsburg or anywhere else in NJ.
Assuming you were able to build a decent Trans. Heritage Center in LSP that was able to attract 10% of the Parks current attendees that would give you a STARTER attendance of 300,000 people. You couldn't get 300,000 people to go to Phillipsburg if you PAID THEM to go through the display!!!
Unfortunatly the Commission has "sunsetted" meaning its life expired per the legislation that created it, and the equipment that's been collected for its displays(mostly rather unremarkable coaches/diesels) sits scattered around the State slowly rotting.
Barring some currently unforseen miracle, I'd say the chances of a $30/40 million dollar NJState Transportation Heritage Center getting built in Phillipsburg NJ are somewhere between slim&none and slim left town!!
Ross Rowland

Re: C&O 614 of 6/4:

You make some excellent points. In the beginning the faction-fighting between proponents of the four sites, (LSP, P'Burg & Port Morris/Netcong and Union), did little to keep the effort "on track".

Ego's perhaps????

I agree that the whole thing is a foregone conclusion.

Now what do do with all that equipment....

As I recall, the URHS bylaws call for the assets to be distributed to the member organizations. There is some kind of provision that weighs the length of time each group has belonged into the equation. Most of the "collection" is truly junk, but E units always have some value and the F units were rebuilt at one point by Metro-North.

While the musuem will die with a whimper I suspect the assets will go out with a bang (and lawyers).

Ross,

Just out of curiosity, have you ever talked with the politicians who were in favor of locating the USS New Jersey Museum in northern NJ? Even though that venture didn't play out as they intended (mostly because they assumed receiving stewardship of the battleship was a done deal from the start), perhaps rechannelling some of that energy toward a renewed effort in a transporation museum at LSP will gather some interest. You've offered up the selling points rather well ... I just believe we're selling them to the wrong audience. IIRC (other than the subway museum), the NY/NJ metro area lacks any real ground transportation museum of any sort. The mere fact that the RR's and ferry boats played such an integral part in an immigrant's journey trough Ellis Island, and to their final chosen home, provides a nearly seamless mission statement ... and purpose ... for such a facility. If prominent area politicians can be found to "get on board," so to speak, I think the idea can go much further than it has in the past.

Granted, NJ's budget woes probably won't result in a museum anytime soon, but perhaps we could use yesterday's lessons to come up with a winner.

The answer to your question Mr. O'Shea is no. After sitting through 4 plus years of meetings with these guys trying in vain to get them to see what should have been so plainly obvious, I guess the truth is I got completely burned out!
For anyone to, in the wildest extreme think that they could really get any serious Corp. sponsorship interest in a facility in P'Burg. NJ- I guess tells you all you need to know about these guys!!!
I have absolutly no intention of going back for more of the same. I guess we need to make sure it's(the initial group and its thinking) COMPLETELY DEAD and then take another look. I'm told that many of them are still "out there" promoting P'Burg. and saying that it's not dead yet,etc.
Until and unless that all dies completely- no thank you!!!
Ross Rowland

I hear ya there ... it gets to a point where you feel like you're beating your head against a wall, trying to get people to see the "big picture." With P'burg trying to revitalize the area along the riverfront, I'm not so sure the idea of putting the museum there is going to die anytime soon.

Sadly, with BR&W abandoning part of the Bel Del, there may not be as much of a ride as there could have been.

I'm sorry to say that you appear to be correct in that it would seem that it will take a prolonged period of death throes before it finally stops wrigling!!
The real shame is that by now we could have had a $30/40 million dollar center open and thriving in LSP built largely with Corp. sponsorship dollars, hosting 400-500,000 people/year and operating on a positive annual cash flow basis which would have allowed for upgrading the very pedestrian collection to include some "stuff" really worthy of display!
Oh well.....you can lead 'em to water but .................................
Ross Rowland