Been sitting back quietly, enjoying "paternity leave" from RyPN duties, following the lively debate on preservation vs. operation. After mulling over all the thoughtful posts, I have some conclusions and opinions to add, in no particular order.

1. On conservation vs. operation in related fields.

I've had some experience in maritime museums (curatorial internship during college at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum) and at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum (volunteer and later curatorial assistant). Let's take a quick look at how this debate plays out in each.

The aviation museum community by and large does not operate their equipment at all, obviously because an accident generally involves complete and permanent loss of artifact and crew. There is the Confederate Air Force and its ilk, which does operate and plays a role analogous to our tourist railroads. But Museums, organized and missoned as preservation entities, do not. Period.

Now when we get to conservation it becomes more interesting. It is standard practice at the Air and Space Museum to restore an airplane to operable condition--ususally not backdating to as-built configuration, but rather thoroughly renewing the plane to perfect condition as it might have appeared on its last day of service. This often involves replacement of big hunks of original fabric (literally in the case of biplanes or the Wright Flyer :-) )--all of which is thoroughly documented. Interestingly, this does not prevent them in any way from being regard as sound conservators worthy of AMA accreditation.

Analogy in railroad preservation: probably the stunning cosmetic restorations at CSRM.

Now let's look at maritime. Ships made of wood floating in water fall apart--that's entropy for you. So to preserve the artifacts at all, they must be periodically renewed. I once wrote a successful National Register application for a Chesapeake Bay bugeye (a sailing workboat) whose total original fabric was five logs in her bottom. Everything above the waterline was essentially new construction, albeit with traditional materials and crafts. Again, this was judged an acceptable and worthy restoration. Mystic Seaport does the same thing, only bigger and better. Both these organizations are well regarded as pace-setters of conservation in their field, in part do to the authentic way they go about renewing artifacts' fabric.

Analogy in railroad preservation: maybe CSRM again, though the question of using comparable tools and materials is an interesting one).

Do historic sailing vessels in Museums operate? Sometimes no, sometimes yes--but when they do it's under special and controlled conditions. The Constitution lately famously took a turn around Boston Harbor, but they don't sail her to the Caribbean and back. Nelson's HMS Victory and Mystic Seaport's whaler Morgan (arguable each nation's most significant large wooden ship) don't go anywhere at all.

Analogy in railroad preservation: occasional operation under tightly-controlled circumstances. Maybe the William Mason 4-4-0 at the B&O Museum (yes, yes, it is painted wrong, and there are lots of original fabric issues we could debate on this one, but just go with me here for the sake of argument). Or even better, the Smithsonian's John Bull.

2. The key is the mission

Hey, we are all foamers to some extent, and there isn't any part of me that doesn't thrill to seeing a Mudhen pound it out as she lifts me up Cumbres pass, or EBT 17 in basic black at the string of a set of hoppers, or even (horrors!) the "fake" WM 734 (really a LS&I Great Lakes ore dock shifter) impersonating a WM H-7 on Helmstetter's Curve. When I'm watching her on the curve with a photo freight, it's three cheers for facadism and to hell with fabric, baby!!! Just the smell of coal smoke (apologies to my oil-burning friends) lifts my soul the way no museum smell ever quite can.

However, I try to pass Scott Fitzgerld's old test of the intelligent man ("capable of holding two mutually contradictory ideas in one's head and retaining the ability to function" or something to that effect). I recognize that every time I see one of these engines run, it's one day of pleasure for me at the expense of some future generation. Sooner or later boiler shells will wear out or frames will develop cracks which are uneconomical to repair. At some point--if not today, maybe 50 or 80 years from today--we will wear these engines out and they will go back to static display. And when they go, it will take a better detective than me to tell you how much they really resemble the engines they were in common-carrier service any longer.

So even as I watch some engines operate, I am very grateful that there are other engines which don't, and which hopefully will be saved in original condition as long as is humanly possible. Have you ever read one of John White's brilliant books on early American steam, passenger cars, or freight cars? Where would he have been without "preserved in Amber" engines like the B&O Museum's Memnon, a pre-Civil War 0-8-0 drag engine, and perhaps the most original, authentic, underrated and priceless artifact in that entire collecton? Someone joked in one of the threads below about saving PRR chalk marks on 7002 for the five historians who might be interested in them---not to pick a fight or single that poster out, but what if one of those five historians is John White, and the discoveries he makes win prizes and bring glory and understanding to our entire field?

It strikes me that the recognition we must make is that preservation means consumption (in some cases, so we can have a living experience), rigorous conservation (in other cases, so scholars can learn and the irreplacable can survive as long as possible) and modification for interpretation in still other cases (the Steamtown 0-6-0, which I, like Kurt, absolutely love. And, I might point out, that the real reason for conserving original fabric is to preserve the possiblility of research like John White's--which can still be done on the sectioned 0-6-0, since the parts and construction practices and still there, and have not been obliterated by J. David's careful workmanship on the sectioning).

The rub comes when we get to debating individual engines, and our personal passions and preferences get all inflamed. Perhaps we could agree more easily if we thought about this in terms of a portfolio of organizations and their missions. A Museum is an organization whose first trust is preservation of the artifacts in their care for the long haul, whose second trust is supporting research into those artifacts to generate new knowledge, and whose third trust is interpreting those artifacts for the public. In nearly every case, the best fit for these priorities is static preservation with varying degrees of restoration and conservation according to the specific case of the artifact. It may make you sad if your favorite engines which you saw under steam are now managed under this philosophy (esp. 1223 and 7002, and yes, I cherish my own not-so-great teenager's photos of them in steam, which you can see if you care to at http://www.steamsafari.com/Strasburg) but I think its fair to say that they now belong to a Museum collection, and the Museum is being true to its values and mission and purpose in the world by not operating them.

Operating organizations like tourist roads and living history Museums are different. Here the public trust is 1) preservation of a living experience and 2) interpretation of that experience. Conservation of artifacts frankly comes in third. So from these priorities, it makes as much sense for the tourist line or (much better) operating museum like CATS to run, as it does for the Museum not to. Again, bad luck for some distant future generation when then last original engine is consumed and retired and they can neither see it running or assess its condition in its something resembling its original material state, but it is still a worthwhile sacrifice, for the memories and experiences and skills have been preserved and interpreted for another two or three generations.

The point is, it would be as silly for a Museum to run an artifact every day, as it would be for an open-air living history organization to do only cosmetic restoration and stabilization. The mission drives the use. There are tough cases involving individual artifacts which we may feel are better suited to one kind of use, but have landed in the hands of the other, but that's life. If the organization is true to its own goals, and those goals are well-thought-out and consistent, I will not throw too many stones.

3. A way out of part of this conundrum

In all this discussion I am surprised we have not discussed one obvious way to cut the gordian knot--replicas and new construction. The operating camp points out accurately that the punter or casual tourist will flock to the operating engine and ignore the hanger queen. They also point out, again very accurately and cogently, that a cold stema engine conveys only a very little of the life and vitality which make the technology so fascinating. All agreed.

But isn't the key here the operability and the livings sites, sounds, smells and skills, not the actualy pedigree of the artifact? Would not a faithful replica convey the experience of steam and preserve the skills just as well, without the permanent loss of anything of significance?

The British as usual are miles ahead of us here. The Ffestiniog 2' gauge in Wales (the mother of all Narrow Gauge) builds new engines from scratch for their intensive service--they just recently replicated a single-bogie Fairlie, Taliesin--an engine long gone, of which no other examples survived. Put that engine at the head of a rake of vintage coaches and I am a happy camper. And if you want to talk big-gauge, the Mad English are building a mainline 4-6-2 for pity's sake!

For us in the US, well, there is Stasburg's replica V&T engine under way, and the Promotory Point lokies. However, when this subject comes up I still pound the table and maintain that J. David was REALLY on to something with his SY-class 2-8-2s. Out of the box the engines don't look bad; if someone were to modify the cab and add a new tender as WMSRR did with their WM 734, then you'd have an awesome replication of a light American 2-8-2 at a bargain price. And you could run it till the cows come home and make the tourists (and me) happy, with no loss of anything terribly valuable. Is it not real steam? Are the sights and sounds not the same? Are the maintenance skills not the same? Well, OK then!

Have I stirred the pot some more yet?

The analogy

eledbetter@rypn.org

Eric -

right on the money. Why are the Brit able to raise way more money than we can for preservation of railroad history? They do it right there.

And, I truly enjoyed the almost AT&SF steamer running in northern Ohio last year. Terrific.


JimLundquist55@yahoo.com

The point I think some were trying to get at in the previous conversation of the chalkmarks on the RRMPA's PRR "7002" was that the chalkmarks are gone, and all we can do is learn from our mistake. I think the loss of those marks is more of a result of bad decision making than the battle between operation and restoration. Like I said, there are some locomotives that you just don't restore, and considering the relatively little service life Strasburg got out of her, I think we can all learn from this. Maybe they should have restored the 460, after all it was in very rough shape last time I saw it, or maybe they should have restored nothing. In the end, we shouldn't be arguing over decisions made nearly 20 years ago, we should however, be studying them, and learning from them. It is only by learning from the past mistakes that the Railway Preservation Movement will be able to mature. Back to studying for finals....

wilkidm@wku.edu

> Why are the Brit able to
> raise way more money than we can for
> preservation of railroad history? They do it
> right there.

A good question to which there are a whole grab-bag of subtle, interrelating answers. Things that come to mind include:

1. Until recently Brits were consciously raised to revere the Victorian Engineers. There were children's books on the Lives of the Engineers and schoolkids had Stepheson and Brunel pounded into them. This is no longer quite the case and it may be interesting to see if there's a long-term effect

2. British railways are lighter in nearly every way than US railways--smaller clearance template, lighter, simpler equipment. A big BR standard freight decapod looks like a little Russian teakettle to American eyes. The right of way and rolling stock makes it easier to start small and work upwards. You can get by at every stage with less money.

3. Population density--the preserved operating railways are usually an easy day trip from the great urban centers (Bluebell), or else are located in popular vacation areas (coastal Wales). Contrast with the Cumbres and Toltec or EBT!!

4. ROW in public control at the time of abandonment--made it easier for preservationists to get control than it would have been to buy the ROW from a for profit company as in the States in most cases.

5. General consciousness of heritage--every British town (except horrid Milton Keynes) is a built environment composed of layers on layers of history. Living with, adapting and cherishing old stuff is second nature--none of the American obsession with newer=better

6. Tolerance of eccentricity--the English in particular love their cranks, and railroad cranks are not viewed as at all odd.

7. A less well-developed and modern national industrial base until recently. Britain had no choice but to run its old industrial plant into the ground through the Depression and WWII. One upside was that old skills survived, and some workshops persist to this day which are able to do things like fabricate steam engine frames and fire-tube boilers. The persistance of this kind of capability (combined with the lighter nature of the equipment mentioned above) makes doing some kinds of rebuilds and replicas a little easier. A Lima 4-8-4 was just too modern, and yet too obsolete at the same time, for the industrial base necessary to replicate it to survive! We would find it easier to duplicate a 19C steam engine than a 20C one--witness the Strasburg V&T engine.

On the other hand, we Americans have a few things going for us:

1. Strongest tradition of private charity and volunteerism in the developed world

2. Growing heritage tourist market (though not as well developed as England)

3. Romantic cultural associations (Casey Jones, Orange Blossem Special, She Caught the Katy, Chatanooga Choo Choo, you name it). Has kind of the same effect as the cult of the Victorian engineer in England.



eledbetter@rypn.org

> I cherish my own not-so-great
> teenager's photos of them in steam, which
> you can see if you care to at
> http://www.steamsafari.com/Strasburg)

Sorry, wrong URL, try http://www.steamsafari.com/strasburg

7002 and 1223 at Strasburg
eledbetter@rypn.org

> I cherish my own not-so-great
> teenager's photos of them in steam, which
> you can see if you care to at
> http://www.steamsafari.com/Strasburg)

Sorry, wrong URL, try http://www.steamsafari.com/strasburg

7002 and 1223 at Strasburg
eledbetter@rypn.org

thank you for a well thought out essay.

You are right, many of our railrway museum are located way out of town. I offer no solutions to that - except we might be able to soliciate people to sponsor at locomotive at, say, $10 a month to keep her going.

JimLundquist55@yahoo.com

Glad you're enjoying the paternity thing. But, if you're going to be taking the time to write full length editorials anyway, maybe you could put them on the editorial page:)

Railway Preservation News
hkading@rypn.org

Erik,
As we haven't seen many recent contributions to the editorial bin of this website, and as you have written an interesting and eloquent commentary in this discussion area, would you consider taking one more pass at this issue for the record? I think that this kind of information should be readily available to the railroad restoration neophyte.

> A good question to which there are a whole
> grab-bag of subtle, interrelating answers.
> Things that come to mind include:

> 1. Until recently Brits were consciously
> raised to revere the Victorian Engineers.
> There were children's books on the Lives of
> the Engineers and schoolkids had Stepheson
> and Brunel pounded into them. This is no
> longer quite the case and it may be
> interesting to see if there's a long-term
> effect

> 2. British railways are lighter in nearly
> every way than US railways--smaller
> clearance template, lighter, simpler
> equipment. A big BR standard freight decapod
> looks like a little Russian teakettle to
> American eyes. The right of way and rolling
> stock makes it easier to start small and
> work upwards. You can get by at every stage
> with less money.

> 3. Population density--the preserved
> operating railways are usually an easy day
> trip from the great urban centers
> (Bluebell), or else are located in popular
> vacation areas (coastal Wales). Contrast
> with the Cumbres and Toltec or EBT!!

> 4. ROW in public control at the time of
> abandonment--made it easier for
> preservationists to get control than it
> would have been to buy the ROW from a for
> profit company as in the States in most
> cases.

> 5. General consciousness of heritage--every
> British town (except horrid Milton Keynes)
> is a built environment composed of layers on
> layers of history. Living with, adapting and
> cherishing old stuff is second nature--none
> of the American obsession with newer=better

> 6. Tolerance of eccentricity--the English in
> particular love their cranks, and railroad
> cranks are not viewed as at all odd.

> 7. A less well-developed and modern national
> industrial base until recently. Britain had
> no choice but to run its old industrial
> plant into the ground through the Depression
> and WWII. One upside was that old skills
> survived, and some workshops persist to this
> day which are able to do things like
> fabricate steam engine frames and fire-tube
> boilers. The persistance of this kind of
> capability (combined with the lighter nature
> of the equipment mentioned above) makes
> doing some kinds of rebuilds and replicas a
> little easier. A Lima 4-8-4 was just too
> modern, and yet too obsolete at the same
> time, for the industrial base necessary to
> replicate it to survive! We would find it
> easier to duplicate a 19C steam engine than
> a 20C one--witness the Strasburg V&T
> engine.

> On the other hand, we Americans have a few
> things going for us:

> 1. Strongest tradition of private charity
> and volunteerism in the developed world

> 2. Growing heritage tourist market (though
> not as well developed as England)

> 3. Romantic cultural associations (Casey
> Jones, Orange Blossem Special, She Caught
> the Katy, Chatanooga Choo Choo, you name
> it). Has kind of the same effect as the cult
> of the Victorian engineer in England.