Those are the ones, Les.

Don C.

To this day, there are folks in NJ who honestly believe that JC was a bad location for the museum as it was" too close to salt water" !!!! Huh ?

BTW, the WPC Museum is owned and operated by Daimler-Chrysler and is actually a product of German ownership of Chrysler.

Oddly enough, neither Ford nor GM has any sort of corporate museum-nor does it appear that they ever will.

Dave

I know this is getting off topic but somewhat related to several comments made by previous posters on several threads with regard to (1) various equipment stored in several locations within the state of New Jersey, and (2) the inability of anyone within the Garden State to come up with a comprehensible plan to store it. I was in charge of one of the groups in question. We restored several pieces of equipment in the early 90's, equipment that is currently languishing and within the realm of deteriorating.

Ross, the "stuff" you mention may be unremarkable to you, ( there are no steam locomotives in the New Jersey collection although the Susquehanna Historical guys have the 142 in that town we all hate to mention) but several posters within the last month have questioned the conditions of other equipment stored throughout the state.

I also favored the Liberty State Park site, but as with all the sites in question, the committee had to take the pluses and minuses of all the ones in consideration. Liberty State Park wasn't an absolute "shoe-in". The developers lusting for this waterfront property had more dollars at hand. The Political sides of the argument were faced with the fact that the money was there and had to be appropriated through the state and federal agencies. Developers on the other hand, were literally at the door with their sales pitches for the properties adjacent. Try to rent a boat slip in the marina area. There's a year or more of a waiting list.

Another problem was the actual lack of a true rail connection to the trainshed area. Not that this could be overcome, but the railroad access and other demographics had been significantly changed since the terminal was last used.

You are correct in your mention of a faction. But what actually transpired during the commissions tenure was every group proporting a site literally became a faction. Democratic process aside, once a decision had been made, everyone literally went on their own to promote "their" site. I wasn't on this committee but I was aware that two representatives from my Historical society to the state group had their own agendas, one promoting Port Morris, the other Plainfield. It seemed to me that the situation was hopeless before it even got to the committee stage. Everyone took their toys with them and the back-door fighting began.

One of the concerns was also the political climate within the state at the time. We had a lame-duck republican Governor who had supported the project. At the next election the voters elected a Democratic Governor and support waned. The Senator in charge of the original committee was replaced. The project faded, and like Mr Rowland accurately stated, the state is now in a financial crisis with an overwhelming deficit to deal with.

Whether corporate sponsorship is the answer still remains to be seen. That too, seems to be waning. There are fewer than 40 cars at the Indianapolis 500 and even NASCAR is rolling back. The problems of all the big companies like GM are all over the news lately. In New Jersey, it seems like a battleship is the only one befitting of these types of blessings.

The sad part remains is that there are numerous groups who suffered immeasurably throughout this process. Groups who took on restorations with the hope that someone in the "higher-ups" would find a place for them. Whether we agree with their methodology or not, this is what we were told. Groups who did it without the benefit of TEA grants or endowments, who literaly worked "on the ground" to achieve their goals. To think that I wasted 12 years of my time while the result my effort languishes away on an unused siding in Northern New Jersey is quite difficult to deal with. In light of this, I basically adopted the opinion that "anywhere" would be better than it being "scattered around the state collecting dust and rust".

Sad but true, in New Jersey!

Much of what you say has merit. Gov. Whitman appointed me to the Commission in 1995 and I served actively until I resigned in 1999 to move to BC to start the Pacific Wilderness Rwy. The 2 arguments against the LSP site were that the then Park Superintendant didn't want active trains running in "his" park and that it was close enough to salt water to pose a "threat" to the display equipment. Unfortunatly these arguments were sufficient to convince Chairman Alex DeCroce(an important State legislator and our champion to the Governors office) that LSP wouldn't work. The Super could have been taken care of with one call from the Govs. office and proper P/M could have addressed the atmosphereic issues. I had a tenative sponsorship committment from one of the big 3 auto companies and from one of the leading Cruise Lines for multi-million dollar founding sponsorships and am confident that we could have raised the needed millions from this source. With a perimeter loop track running both small steam and trolleys(it's about 5 miles around the park) which would have also served the satellite parking lots we would have given tha average family plenty of "live" action, and with the already existing connection to the NS mainline, longer distance occassional excursions with mainline steam could easily connect to the NJT mainline for trips to the Delaware Water Gap(when the Lackawanna Cut Off eventually gets built) or to Bethlehem,Pa., or Port Jervis in the interim. All the pieces were there, but the critical ingredient was the major sponsorship dollars that were possible there and only there on account of the location,location,location!!!
Thinking that the legislature was going to fund a $30-50 million dollar transportation museum was then and is now not even a good pipe dream-it's a delusion on its best day!!!
As for the "collection"-beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've just been made aware that the collectors(URHS) are now trying to "give-away", a substantial number of the pieces that are sitting around the State collecting dust&rust. Probably a good indication that they've come to finally realize that it's a dead issue???
Too bad as by now it would have been up&running at LSP and if it "only" was able to attract 10% of the 3 million folks who now go to LSP it would have been a bases loaded home run. You couldn't get 300,000 people to attend in P'Burg ,or Port Morris or Plainfield if you PAID them $10/head to visit!!!
You can lead 'em to water but................
Sad but true! Ross Rowland