All:

An excellent discussion of several issues under the NRHS title. Allow me to expand on a couple of issues under a new topic - that one was getting long.

1. Are the days numbered for totally private railroad museums? Is it even fair to assume one private corporation should/could maintain miles of track, buildings, parking lots, toilets, parks, etc - while trying to also maintain trains and equipment and operate them for the public? In today's high cost of insurance, gas and all materials - shouldn't some public funding be expected to care for the public equipment (I my way of thinking - the public ownes the equipment as a 501c3 corporation and organizations care for it).

With some exceptions, most private railroad museum's are hurting financially and for volunteers. It's far easier to raise donations to restore or acquire new equipment than to maintain or build a bathroom.

2. Can we find some group to develop displays which could either be duplicated or shared amongst rr museums? Most of us do a poor job of telling the "why" story of our collections (why is this important). I would love to find a way to access some government financed displays which we could use, borrow and copy. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Also, loaning equipment between museums is a great idea.

3. Rationalization of collections. I am very happy to see Portola evolve into the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. That makes sense to me. More of that effort needs to happen. We can't save it all.

Just some thoughts of mine. Please share yours.

Jim - I believe that some private museums can and will prosper, many will slowly wither, some will deliberately plan for the closing and disposition of their resources, and execute the plan when criteria calling for closure are met.

Those that survive will do so because they have undertaken a rational approach to all the decisions thay make based on realistic appraisals of changing conditions, and decisively acted when required.

Sharing exhibits, etc is a fine thing and I wonder ewhy we aren't already doing it on a grand scale. There are so many common denominators in all our missions / stories to tell that generic broadly based well produced displays can serve in many places, making quality visitor experiences available at low shared cost. Ambitious oganizations can supplement these with specifically themed addenda.

Collections management - requires reconsideration from the definition of "my stuff' into "our industries stuff". better yet would be "societies stuff we are safeguarding for them and using to tell important stories with". Never happen.

dave

Sharing Exhibit Material - In fact it has happened for us. The Illinois Railway Museum furnished some very old (over 100 years) original Pullman tracings to the Smithsonian for one of their exhibits.

But there certainly is no grand effort to do this. Part of the reason may be that equipment needs at most of the volunteer museums come first, generally, before a hall or exhibit area.

Without that, there is little way to safeguard the exhibit and assure its good condition when it is returned. Is there security, insurance during travel both ways, how much, all the usual questions. Things like bells and number plates are such desirable collectors items, they would have to be well secured or have an attendant.

If it is a significant exhibit, will the receiving location charge extra and will the originating site share in this?

More or less portable stuff like plans, documents, and photos would make a good start - but I expect most of this is so arcane as to be of interest to fans, but perhaps not able to draw more visitors from the general public.

If someone skilled in the art would produce a film or DVD with general or historical topic, that would work well, copies could be cheaply made and distributed without risking original source material, and easily and cheaply set up at the receiving location in most cases. But is that an "EXHIBIT"?

It could happen but it will take work on someone's part to even inventory possible material for such sharing. At some point some reciprocity would certainly ease the situation - versus a case where one or a few organizations furnish the material and the majority are renters like the users at a public library.

Bob Kutella

Bob Kutella wrote:

Sharing Exhibit Material - In fact it has happened for us. The Illinois Railway Museum furnished some very old (over 100 years) original Pullman tracings to the Smithsonian for one of their exhibits.

But there certainly is no grand effort to do this. Part of the reason may be that equipment needs at most of the volunteer museums come first, generally, before a hall or exhibit area.

If someone skilled in the art would produce a film or DVD with general or historical topic, that would work well, copies could be cheaply made and distributed without risking original source material, and easily and cheaply set up at the receiving location in most cases. But is that an "EXHIBIT"?

Bob Kutella

Bob - the sharing of equipment is difficult and expensive. What I had in mind is a full scale exhibit on how couplers work - starting with a link and pin, how air brakes work, etc. These would be professionally done, high quality, nice display boards, etc. They could travel around the Country - staying a month here, a month there. I would throw down $1000 for such an exhibit - if 9 others do - now you have a budget for a professional exhibit.

Same with a movie. The PO Museum in Washington has a nice RPO video which could be shared. The CSRM has a movie. The Gold Spike has a movie -are these being shared? They all belong to the public!

Several of us here in the East have been busy rationalizing collections between traction museums. Our Museum (National Capital) has received two Washington cars in the last 15 years - a PCC from Rockhill, and a center door car from Shore Line. Likewise there have been several other deals moving cars around in and out of trolley museums in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Many of these trades took a combination of quiet diplomacy and patience. Most were facilitated/encouraged by museum collections policies that included a clearly defined focus. Our leg of the two trades for Washington cars involved financial assistance with other parts of the respective trade.

I agree that this trend needs continue as museums come to realize that we can't save it all.

Wesley

Several of us here in the East have been busy rationalizing collections between traction museums. ...

I agree that this trend needs continue as museums come to realize that we can't save it all.

Wesley[/quote]

Amen. Focus the collection, and focus the story to be told. But, I know how hard it is to get the members to let something go. Let's hope the trend continues.

As a member of Rockhill Trolley Museum, I agree with the idea of focusing a museum on one area/type of history. I have seen similar things happen out west with Dan Markoff's Eureka travelling to numerous locations, and now several Galloping Geese making similar trips. In England, numerous locomotives appear at different museums around the country for different occasions. Why not the same here (although distances are, of course, much greater)?

Perhaps one group can focus on a certain locomotive, while another group focuses on one or more favorite coaches/pullmans, and another on a favorite section of roadbed. Putting them all together would then result in a historic train operation on a restored section of track with no one group being responsible for all the aspects at the same time. Obviously there would have to be agreements concerning income sharing etc., but they obviously manage it in England, so there are precedents to learn from.

I think this could be a great idea. Build a number of specialty displays that would travel from one location to the next. I wonder how many could be build with just the stuff we have stashed in our archives? With the price of gas now this could be how we target the person that might not make an extended drive. We recently barrowed some materials from the Blair County Historical Society here in Altoona for our P.R.R. firefighters display and along with the P.R.R. fire truck on permanent loan from the Altoona City Fire Department we were able to put together a pretty nice display.