Railroad preservation is fun.Railroad preservation is fun.Railroad preservation is... F@%#ing FRUSTRATING SOMETIMES!!!!!!!Ahem. Sorry.Especially in a small community where nobody ever says things to people directly and you only hear about problems through so-and-so's son's brother's girlfriend's friend's cousin. I just got a call from a Board member. She'd gotten a call from her son, who had gotten a call from the person who owns the land on which our ex-Winnsboro Granite Co. American crane sits and who sold us the thing. Yes, the chain of "communication" (and I use that term very loosely) really was that convoluted.AAAAARGH!!!!!!Ahem. Sorry again.The crane was supposed to move this week. For the third time, though, the moving company (who's doing it more or less gratis -- we're giving them the body of a worn-out hospital car in exchange) has pushed the move back three weeks. We'd gone so far as to ask the landowner to move HIS rubber-tired crane out of the way. Apparently he's ticked off that he moved his machine for nothing. Now, he's apparently going to send us a bill for that. Oh, joyous rapture! Can things improve any more?Does this kind of stuff happen to other museums? I'm guessing it does, I just want to hear someone say so to make me feel better!This is enough to make St. Peter swear like a drunken sailor.Anyway, we're now walking the edge of a knife. The landowner is apparently pissed and wants the crane out of his way. We can't risk pissing off the movers because they're doing us a favor, and they could just say the hell with it. We can't afford to pay anybody to move the thing. It's landlocked so a rail move isn't possible.Talk about rocks and hard places.I've instructed the project coordinators to first find out if the landowner really is mad at us, and then to develop a plan for cutting the crane up ourselves so we get the revenue instead of a bill from the landowner should he decide to do it. I'm not ready to light the torches just yet, but...Railroad preservation is fun.Railroad preservation is fun.Railroad preservation is fun.If I keep repeating that enough, maybe I'll start to remember what it was like when it actually was...(Burnout? Who, me?)

Streetcars happen sometimes.I learned long ago that shirt-tail deals like this are very risky. If you want the service in a timely fashion, you should plan to pay for it. Otherwise you get what you (don't) pay for. We changed car moving companies for the same reason. The previous vendor was nice, a friend and offered a good price. But you had to be willing to work to his schedule. Fortunately, we never got caught in the middle like you have. And ask me about our "such-a-deal" internet service sometime. Wesley

This is not that far from typical for many volunteer operated museums. Without full time staff no one and everyone is in charge. When museums use donated, reduced rate or free services we need to remember that any schedule is a concept rather than a reality. This is not the way a business works, and they then sometimes look at us (the museum community) as less than professional.At our museum we try (mostly successfully) to appoint a designated contact for each project. That person keeps in touch with all the parties, and is introduced to people like your property owner, so the property owner has someone to call and find out what is going on.The designated contact doesn't have to run the project, but he (she) needs to be in "the know" for the project, and needs to maintain regular contact with the property owner. The other volunteer managers involved (for example the one who has arraigned for the mover) need to maintain similar contact, then the collective designated contacts need to communicate. When the mover is delayed, a quick call to the property owner in advance will cover a lot of ground.Our group has several (4) Yahoo groups set up to help us manage our projects (one general list for the member, one for the board of directors, one for the curator, and one for the managers). Depending on the need they can have as few as 7 members. Its easy to toss off an email letting all know what is going on, much easier than trying to make 7 phone calls.

Wesley,I have to agree! most of the time you get what you pay for. Services then come with a guarenteed time and place.You do not have the neighbors upset or the NIMBYs either.It sounds like the machine is important to your collection; perhaps some fund raising among interested Trustees, Museum Volunteers etc can bring in some dollars to get the ting done?In my experience, crane companies are tough to get a donation from they have such a demand for their services that a gratis move is nearoly impossible.Ted Miles

We have two members who are in charge of the crane acquisition. Both are retired and available during the week. One is handling all the logistics and negotiations. The other is in charge of the mechanical side of things, getting the crane itself ready to be moved. Everyone, me included, has taken pains to stay out of these guys' way in the interest of making this happen.The catalyst for the landowner being "upset" was apparently a call from the member who's in charge of logistics, telling him that the move has been delayed. So we've done everything "right" as far as I can tell. Apparently, the landowner is upset that he paid a crew to move his crane out of our way, and then we didn't move our crane. On one level I can't blame him, but on another I wish he'd be more understanding. As Chairman of the Board, I get to listen to the fallout and try to come up with a way to calm everybody down. How nice.Y'know, this hobby would be a lot more fun if it weren't for all the people.

Hello Matt,Welcome to the club! I could write a book about a three day move of a sixty-ton turntable across New York State that turned into a three month odyssey! At one point NYS DOT threatened to move the turntable from the reststop where it was parked to their yard and cut it up for scrap! In the end all the contractors did what they were paid to do and the story had a happy ending – but what a long ride! “Are we there yet?” (BTW, this move was budgeted, funded and with signed contracts in place – thank God!)My advice to you, pay the property owner for whatever charges he incurred moving his crane out of the way. That will cool the situation, show you’re a good faith operator and buy you the time necessary to get your free move. (I heartily endorse “free” work – I have yet to be disappointed.)As for your observation about railroad preservation being “fun.” I suggest a better mantra:Railroad Preservation takes patience,Railroad Preservation takes patience,Railroad Preservation takes patience!Good luck, please keep us posted on how you make out. Don Fisher, TrusteeRailroad Museum of Long Island

Ted- Got to agree on the crane/ moving companies. We do have a local company that we used to move our combine and SRI's #75 --- one of those involved crane work, the other could have, but didn't. In both cases, it wasn't free, but it was at a reduced rate (about what it would now costs them for gas). In reality it was not only great for us, but has turned out to be good for them. They have tons of pictures to show what they can do, and have sent prospective customers over to our combine numerous times to give them a "physical" sense of what they can do. They, in turn, have received other jobs becuase of it. TJG

I understand the delima of being between a rock and a hard place when it comes to donated services and volunteers working as project mgrs. We have a Interurban car in our collection in Wichita, KS and the goal was to acquire the car then a group of well meaning traction preservation people would restore the car. Well that was almost 15 yrs ago and I just moved the car from where it has sat since it arrived at the museum. The reason crane companies dont like to do a lot of work for free is they still have to pay someone to run the crane and unless they have an operator who likes trains and will work for free they have out of pocket expenses. Everyone has the misconception that they can write these donations off on their taxes but services are very hard to do that with. I am the general manager of a crane rental service so understand this from a first hand point of view.