In our County an organization needs to apply to be listed in United Way. You must meet minimum criteria, including evidence of a mission statement, board of directors, etc. We were listed for a few years and still receive donations through write-in designations.

Wesley

I'm not expecting them to give donations without some sort of application process- and the dearth of preservation organizations is in part their own fault. However, I always felt quite capable of selecting the recipients of my donations without the intermediary.

This seems like another speculation and conjecture thread, which really doesn't get us anywhere.
It's better to focus our efforts on exisiting societies instead of wishing on the impossible.

There's much more I could say, but that's what these kinds of threads are about, long winded lectures, so I'll avoid that.

Art is art, and history is history, and science is science, and they can co-exist, and I have a PERSONAL example:

At our Carnegie Center, formerly the Port Huron Public Library, and our only museum site from 1967 until 1990, we recently took on an exhibit that's, in reality, part art, part science, and part history. For the last three months, we have had the Kokoro company's Dinosaur/ Ice age Mammal Exhibit here at our museum. Let me explain:

HISTORY --- We are adaptly reusing a building that would've been a parking lot by 1968 if not for a few do - gooders. Cold exhibits, pictures, etc., but a good core collection from different groups. GOOD. We added a pilot house exhibit in 1983 to our Marine Gallery, where kids could play with the Chadburn's wheel, etc. BETTER. We bring in the dinosaur exhibit, and hundreds of kids, ones who would have never come solely for the marine exhibit, come to play and enjoy the MARINE section because of the dinosaurs. BEST.

SCIENCE/ PALENTOLOGY --- We have a large portion of a Wooly Mammoth Skeleton found in the local town of Ubly in the 1970's. Its been siting collecting dust in a case since 1973. Static, no sense of how it connects, other than a cold label, but its there. GOOD. We added a skull from an african elephant to give kids a visual on how it relates with Mammoth's skull. BETTER. We bring in a robotic Wooly Mammoth with this exhibit, and hundred of kids still see the bones but EXPERIENCE a mammoth as it may have really looked. BEST.

ART: We have a painting by a local artist of a Wooly Mammoth being attacked by early man. We also have a group of local artists which meet in our studio Basement gallery GOOD. We pair our piece of art with the above Mammoth bones, and some of artists do their own renditions. BETTER. We pair all of them with above, and have school kids come work with some of artists on how to draw said Wooly Mammoth. BEST.

How does this relate to train museum's? Because most of us out there aren't JUST train museums. We have other elements, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive. In short --- we have average roughly 10,000 a year at our Carnegie Site, and we were VERY worried that our satellite sites were damaging the Main, as they were average 20,000+ a year. With the Dino exhibit, we have done what it would have taken us TWO YEARS to do here in THREE MONTHS.

End of story. Peace Out.

TJ

Maybe not --- but there are those of us who have to choose, on ocassion, from working on the preservation of wooden & steel vessels or iron steam locomotives.

Again, not mutually exclusive, but in a time management sense, hard to do, or at least do well.

And yet some of us do it anyway.... Man, what I DON'T need is another HOBBY.

Oh yeah, wait --- that MY JOB!

TJG

Antagonistic !?!?

I chose the phrase deliberately-because I think that railroad preservation better change-SOON-or it will die. It will die with us. Five year olds who come up into an engine cab and forget all traces of the experience by the next day aren't going to help.

Change-or die...a now retired CEO of one of the worlds' best run companies (who happens to have a stake in the rr trade) used to preach that mantra...each and every day.

I brought up the Dia-Beacon (there is at least one other gallery)site for a number of reasons.

Yes, the site is a wonderful example of an adaptive re-use. One would have to visit in order to experience the quality of the workmanship. Most of the original texture of the building has been retained, yet the amentities
(as dictated by code or by marketing) are all present.

As my knowledge of art theory is limited, I'm not going to debate the efficacy of "Pi** Chr**t" or "The Vag**a Monologues" or...whatever. If you think that foundations or corporate entities lined up to fund that stuff-you have to be out of your mind. The long and the short of it this-Dia Beacon was created for pieces whose scale would either artistically (or physically) overwhelm a more conventional downtown NY gallery space.

Having lived in the NY Metro area for most of my life, I have a pretty good idea on how this thing came into being. No doubt-the players included the Mayor of Beacon, the Governor of NY State, The Majority Leader of the State Senate and a whole host of other politicos. Should I bore you and put names to them ?

Wanna bet that someone on the Dia Foundation Board (who was both politically connected and either a judge or "white shoe" attorney) made a call to the Governors' Office-who in turn called IP's CEO and said "let's make a deal on that old piece of sh*t building you own up in Beacon"
Good old back room wheeling and dealing.

Of course CEO's don't sully their hands with that type of thing-I would suspect the arrangements were hammered out by House Counsel.
Yeah-I know...I'm indulging heavily in speculation. So, the Dia Foundation is promised the building-and arrangments have been made to do the environmental remediation.

OK-with a committment for acquisition of the building in hand, now the Foundation needs to figure out where to get money for renovations. Did
anyone notice the name "Altria Group" on the list of corporate donors?
Does anyone know who that is ?

Altria is the new name for the old Philip Morris Company. Yup-the Malboro Man and all that. All you need to know about this company is two things:
a) the cigarette business throws off TONS of cash and b) One of the ways that Altria does pennance for selling the evil weed is by supporting all manner of activities relating to the ARTS. So, the money is out there.

When is the railroad preservation movement going to stop existing in a vacuum and learn how to do business the way other cultural institutions
do ?

It all starts with money. Focus on raising money-learn how to assert and explain the relevance of the oldest extant mode of land transportation to those parties who can either write the big checks or twist the arms of those who can.

Stop whining about the lack of volunteers. The guy that shows up once a month for four hours (and feels like a big man) isn't going to solve anybody's problems. Neither is the guy who spends 30 bucks for a membership and never shows up for a single work session. How many groups actually realize a 'profit' on their basic membership ? Isn't a couple of salaried employeesa better way to move things along? Imagine 80 man-hours a week towards stabilization.

The bottom line is this: credibility begets progress and...cash.
Either that-or do what many have done before-write a letter to GETS and ask for a locomotive to be donated-which is good for a laugh and then a quick trip to the rotary file.

A final thought- somebody has already made the crossover from railroad photography/preservation/etc. to the highfalutin' world of the downtown NYC art scene. His name-O Winston Link.

I still think that building would have made a wonderful (and appropriate) home for a whole host of NYC items otherwise stranded.

Dave

who drives 200 plus round-trip miles to play with the 'old junk' and has done so for
almost 20 years.

Wow-do I disagree with Daves statement above that 5 yr. olds have forgotten the whole cab visit experience the next day!! Speaking personally I was 4 yrs.old when my Dad took me for my first steam cab ride on a Jersey Central 800 class Pacific from Jersey City to Cranford NJ. I sat on his lap on the second seat behind the fireman and can still remember the scene like it was yesterday!! Hard to describe, but I was in a mix of terror(I was sure we'd never be able to go around that next left hand curve at the speed we were going!) and indescribable glee at all the sounds/smells and magic of that machine/moment. It has NEVER left me.
I can also personally report that many of todays most active leaders in the rail preservation "industry" got started as very young folks on one of our steam excursions or in the cab or around one of the many active steam engines in the 60's,70's or 80's.
So to say that these youngsters will have forgotten you tomorrow-in some cases is just dead wrong!!!
Ross Rowland

Trust me Ross, you are in good company when you roll your eyes at those folks.
I have NEVER understood the people who feel they have something to say about how someone else uses their own property just because it’s historic. I have a WW2 Jeep I take to air shows and parades from time to time. I have a sign on it, stating it’d been used by the Navy in WW2. But it’s painted as an Army Jeep. And why is that? I am a former active duty Army officer. “nuff said, right?
Nope.
I’ve had people practically have a stroke when they read that sign stating it’s history, then launch into me about how I don’t have the right to paint it in a scheme it never wore (seriously, those are the words some have used). I always calmly reply that for $25 grand, enough to buy a similar Jeep that has been fully restored, they can take it and paint it any way they want. So, far, I’ve gotten no takers. I wonder why?
You called it, Ross. They want to gripe. They don’t want to be out there with you, working on your engine. No, that’d be tough.
Sure, I think Reading 2100’s current paint job right now is odd. I always thought N&W 611’s dual headlight looked strange. But the odd thing about that is that I don’t OWN a steam engine. It’s not my call to make. And I’d rather see an engine painted pink than see it rusting away in a park! And the thing most folks don’t seem to get is that whatever you paint a loco, eventually becomes it’s history. Like your former 2101 painted in AFT paint at Baltimore. That’s history now, and many of us AFT fans are glad it’s painted that way, just like we’re indebted to Doyle McCormack for painting 4449 in her AFT scheme recently!