I am very happy to see Curator Bell (Re: Speaking of PRR 1223 & 7002 below) actually state that railway vehicles are historical objects and need preservation As They Are to be valuable for the teaching of times and things in our collective past. The remark of another poster comparing the care of two locomotives to that of his grandfather is the epitome of the silliness of the current fad for equating "restoration" with "operability." This notion has resulted in the destruction of a great deal of railway vehicle history.

In the real world of historical museums the first and most rigid rule of preservation is do no harm. In nearly every instance except in the largely outdoor railway museums, this is interpreted to mean "do little restoration and NO reconstruction." Conserve everything that you acquire is basic museum ethics for historically and/or mechanically valuable objects. There is a substantial literature, much of it very recent, on preservation. To propose otherwise is Mr BellÂ’s "red flag." This is why no steam railroad museum is certified by the American Association of Museums.

Railway machinery was built to be durable whereas modern machinery is designed to be disposable. Durable machinery could be – and was – repaired over and over again in the service of its owners. This is an integral part of the history of each machine. This history, repairs, whatever, must not and cannot be erased. It is what is known as the original fabric of a museum object (or artifact). Sadly the Recommended Practices for Railway Museums of the Association of Railway Museums (1997) does not even mention original fabric. Bad dog!

Museums are not commercial railways. Repeat: museums are not commercial railways. There is a fundamental difference in the treatment of an object outside a museum and inside. Once inside the museum doors our purpose is to p r e s e r v e the object as "our heritage for future generations." Not to repair it. As Mr Bell says, "once that fabric is removed and discarded it can never be replaced no matter how much one documents their efforts." Most pious claims of "restoration" reversibility are bunkum. An object is "original" at the moment it enters the museum. Not before. Not in its former paint scheme, not as it appeared for a previous owner, and certainly not as it left its builders workshop.

Railway vehicles were work-a-day machines and were not covered by a greatly detailed literature. The machines themselves are primary historical sources, both for manufacturers and for users. The craze for backdating often unfeelingly erases parts of the mechanical history. And since the "restorers" are seldom competent to know what is historically important to a particular machine, they very, very often cannot know what to remove, what to alter, what to improve. To recreate a "from the factory" edition of a particular object, these restorers often have little more than one or two photographs. These are not materials specifications! I do know that some of these specifications exist. And the backdating is certainly "violence wrought on on the artifact." The original is whatever came through that museum door. We must agonize over any restoration proposal. Almost all of them are damaging to some degree.

Do No Harm. What of a severely degraded machine? Some might be of such historical value that cleaning them up and putting them indoors would be the only ethical course. Many others in captivity in the railway museums could rightfully become restorations in the loosest sense – skeletons clad in replicated scales. There is no harm in this if the historical value of the skeleton is known to be secondary, but it does take scarce money away from preservation and conservation of objects of primary importance.

It would be slightly extreme to say that none of our "museumÂ’s" rolling rolling stock cannot even be toys. Frankly most of the operating locomotives are. But, in general, our amateur museum boards are appallingly ignorant as to what has historical value and why. In the U.S. I agree that one national railway machinery collection would be impractical and intellectuallly meaningless. With the machinery already in museums there is the basis for a number of good regional museums. Still some objects are valuable to the understanding of the evolution of American railroads as a whole. We are still talking of machinery.

At the first meeting of people interested in some sort of national railway historical co-ordinating organization or foundation (Sacramento, 1989) I suggested that one of the first things a national organization needed was an idea – a list actually – of what surviving railway machinery was valuable and what was not so valuable. We had just seen the arrival of Dave Conrad’s locomotive inventory. I was told that such list making was not important. As many have implied in this forum recently, 11 years have since been wasted on a very fundamental knowledge base. The national organization came to nothing.

The thread of discussion mentioned above demonstrates how little we understand what of the machines, and what in the machines, is valuable. What should be protected from the bright-and-shiny restorations? What would you do with the countryÂ’s oldest Mallet, a 2-4-4-2? Would you scrap one of the four Fox truck freight cars from near 1900 in museums? Was the expenditure of millions of dollars to overhaul half a dozen 4-8-4Â’s prudent when they have virtually no place to run?

The principle of preservation of valuable objects permanently as educational tools is not hard to grasp. Much harder is the decision of what is valuable in view of our financial resources. Unless all of us are able to study what is extant in all of the country, we cannot contribute much the the discussion. Think about the damage to be caused by the next FRA certification. Then think again. Operating steam trains are indeed interactive interpretive exhibits. And museums are educational institutions. Every mod-ren museum must have interpretive exhibits. But how much historical fabric is being consumed by continually repairing the rolling stock?

This is the contemporary question.

John Boykin, Univ. of Washington


johncb@u.washington.edu

You touch on some good points here but with an academic understanding that doesn't take the realities of large mechanical artifact conservation by most resource strapped volunteer operated organizations into adequate consideration. AAM doesn't have standards which are applicable to this situation nor have they seen fit to develop them so no surprise nobody qualifies. Applying standards very workable for well funded collections of fabric, paper and fine arts with professional curation are fine and well for those institutions but not for our industry at this stage of maturity and development.

Are there some quixotic rationales for collections out there which are building huge quantities of rolling stock? Yes, and there are even more old line junkyards masquerading as museums out there. It has been a pleasure to see the later generations of elected boards of some of these overripe institutions begin to thin their collections recently through well thought out deaccessions (although I could take some exception to using it as a source of funding rather than by donation to other museums instead).

Another beginning is consideration of collections rather than just stuff and definition of intepretive goals by what began 40 years ago as clubs who got together to play trains on weekends.

Point is, we are growing up as an industry and until AAM recognizes our needs are fundamentally different from those of their current membership and develops standards applicable to us they aren't an appropriate yardstick.

About all those 4-8-4s - yes, I would like very much to see the mainline big steam operators get together and figure out how to rationally allow them all to have their turns in turn and generate enough earned income as a result to fund the subsequent shopping. A side benefit would be the exposure of each locomotive to a national audience and the need to maintain just one or two sets of support stock which could be shared by all.

I do not believe it will happen in the near future however. It would best work with the support and input of the mainlines who might agree to national tours in advance to make the program economically sound. I don't see them as sponsors at this time either, although it would make for one solution to the problems discussed by the AAR representatives at the recent convention.

Those 4-8-4s aren't mine to manage however, and I am grateful there are those with the drive to make big mainline steam happen in this millenium. To the general public, steam railroading can only be interpreted through personal experience.

Which brings us to the reality of marketing. We NEED restored rolling stock to attract them and to secure our operating funds thereby. Not only don't mom and dad and 3.7 kids in a fake wood sided minivan understand why it is good to leave the rust and dryrot alone, my board doesn't either and both believe it speaks to lack of concern and attention. This results in lack of support which results in failure. Again, consideration of different subsets within our larger collection and defining uses and standards appropriate for each can help rationally resolve this problem, and a lot of that sort of thought is under way.

Damn few of us are the ethically bankrupt morally reprehensible folks who use up and throw away park engines any more. We are growing and maturing in our own ways based on our specific realities and I believe we will become even more professionally sophisticated in the next 20 years.

dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

It is always interesting when the ivory tower types deign to comment on such lowly pion mechanics as those involved in historic railway preservation, when it it was the mechanics and the enthusiasts that have saved most of the hardware we now have. Back when items were available to be preserved, the "serious" academic community was only interested in archives(if that),corperate actions, and documenting the rich and famous that were involved in railroad construction/organization. Thats why we know more about Gould and Morgan, than we do Winans and Woodard.

The museum "standards" that are bandied about were mainly developed for documents and art items, stuff that, after creation, was never intended to do anything but be looked at. Even the term "historic fabric" harks to paper and cloth preservation.

All you can do to the Constitution is look at it because that's what is was made for , to be a reference. The intended use of a Van Gogh is to be looked at. All that it takes to understand either of those things is to look at them, no touching or movement involved.

I have been involved in hands on steam engine restoration alomost twenty years, and I have seen a lot of "Preserved" engines. Most had all the mileage wrung out before the end. Some even had repairs done by class 1 shops that the FRA would have deemed questionable. Does a locomotive in worn out conditon on static display tell us more about the artifact and its use, or one that has undergone restoration to operation by competant mechanics? If a weld was made to a firebox on the Podunk Pacific in 1953, is it a superior interpretive tool to one made in 1973 when the engine was returned to service? what if that weld was made by the same guy, only now retired? Hmmmm?

Some of you have spoken of chalk marks left by Altoona machinists as if in the same catagory as the holy relics the Crusaders brought back from Jerusalem; a handkerchief that wiped the sweat from St. Chestercus, or, hey, here's a toenail clipping form someone who heard the Sermon on the Mount. It is only in the living of Religion that faith can be best understood, so to industrial artifacts can be best understood by "living" them.

I am not in the "they all MUST to run" camp, but I am in the "if it can be done, it should be." I do feel that certain items should be treated with more respect that some have been afforded. SP mike 786 in Austin carries a Pyle Natonal headlight that was never used on it in service, as most all Texas Lines engines used a big, tin can, shopmade Sunbeam copy. 786 had one, but the powers that be liked the Pyle, so now she looks like a California machine. But now she runs,(eve though now under repair) and she is no longer a public toilet for college drunks.

Industrial artifacts were meant to operate. Period. Can a Stradivarious be understood unless it is played? (And how many of them have non-original strings, bridges, ect.)

Just a thought.

HRMO'Biph



lorija799@aol.com

I'm Just a lowly college student here, but I would tend to agree that the "preservation above everything" idea is somewhat flawed when applied to railway preservation.
If these people are such a stickler for historical accuracy, then why aren't they upset that the PRR actually recreated the 7002 from another locomotive. Going by this, we should assume that the PRR is actually at fault for trying to create history. Moreover, the "craze" at backdating isn't a bad thing. If we didn't backdate our equipment, then Mid Continent would have a bunch of MOW cars that were ex passenger cars, several trolley museums would have chicken coops, and there would be a lot of rotting, and rusting equipment. At my museum, we acquired an ex-L&N combine that in 1947 converted to a dormitory car, then into a mobile Red Cross Bloodmobile. I guess we committed a sin of great magnitude by reinstalling walkover seats in the car to represent an earlier era. Most museum standards are not for operable artifacts. Even some of the nationally-known museums seem to accept this. After all, if you didn't backdate anything, then there would be a few gas stations right in the middle of Colonial Williamsburg. Also, the Henry Ford Museum would not be trying to return their stainless-steel Dymaxion house back into its original configuration.
Why in the heck are some chalk marks from PRR days so important? I mean, they were used to set the locomotive up at the World's Fair, and if anything only represent how the PRR tried to recreate history. It is hard for me to believe that these would have been the "holy grail" of RR preservation. Moreover, it isn't as if the RRMPA is lacking in unrestored examples of PRR steam locomotives in which to study from, most of which weren't modified by the PRR for exhibition purposes, and thus would be a more accurate representation of what a real PRR locomotive looks like. Ever since I started reading L&RP back in the early 1990s, I have always had problems with the argument that "nothing must run," for the above reasons. I guess I will head out tomorrow to further destroy the nation's oldest operating Pacific by helping to get it ready for FRA inspection.......

wilkidm@wku.edu

> would have a bunch of MOW cars that were ex
> passenger cars, several trolley museums
> would have chicken coops,

Actually, we have a couple of old wooden passenger cars at our place that were used as houses by section foremen (sans running gear). A couple of children were born in one. Perhaps interpreting these as houses would provide a more interesting exhibit than being another wooden car with a different floorplan from the others displayed.

wyld@oc-net.com