SO<

if that's the plan, why don't they take over Waterloo Village, the canal park near Netcong the state is in financial risk?


http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17790057&BRD=1918&PAG=461&dept_id=506840&rfi=6


Rob

Well, the Bread Lock site might answer the problems for everything that is not a train, and it is along NS at least. It is not the railroad solution, but might it be the trolley/bus solution?
Rob

If the amusement train is the Centerville & Southwestern I would welcome a permanent home for at as it is a very valuable NJ artifact (and one that had a good home and group ready for it in Monmouth County 20 years ago but political blindness killed the project).


I can see taking issue with what this plan excludes, but I can't see an issue with what it includes.

Rob

With all due respect to Mr. May, a cornfield in Warren County is most surely the "boonies" if your objective is to create a self-sustaining operation that will generate sufficient gate income to carry its direct operating expenses, year after year. In that proposed location, with what they propose creating, I'd guess you'd be lucky to get 10,000 PAID visitors/year. If I'm correct that won't fund much of an operation.
If you want a dramatic real life example of how critical location is, just look a few miles Northwest to Steamtown. There's a museum facility that represents a capital investment of nearly $100 MILLION taxpayer dollars and its attendance has now declined to under 50,000/year and still falling.It generates somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000/year in revenue and costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000,000/year to operate. People just don't go to Scranton,Pa. to recreate and the same is true of Warren County!!!
To believe that either the State of NJ or the County of Warren are going to subsidize a railroad museum in an era of cuts in such sacred programs as food stamps and Medicare is just plain folly.
As to somehow organizing/funding an effort to get the more valuable pieces under roof-that's a laudable goal and certainly one of the key reasons the URHS was founded/exists. Sorry to say that the real chances of it ever happenning are somewhere between slim and none-and slim left town!!
Ross Rowland

Ross:
I would agree the NJTHC Warren county plan has one or two flaws, but its better than I have seen before. I give them credit for starting small versus the huge plan we saw for Philipsburg.

These days, a county or township in many cases would prefer light industry (including gas stations as we saw in Pemberton) rather than yet one more condo development, complete with kids that must now go to the schools that must be built to hold the new additional kids. Based on the situation with the Wa-Wa gas station in Pemberton its probably critical for NJTHC to show how it will financially benefit Warren county.

Comparing Warren county to Scranton, or Lackawanna County, is a bit like comparing apples with oranges. Lackawanna median household income is much less than that national average. As I mentioned before, Warren is above the average.

Based on my past experience, done right, there is no reason why
NJTHC should not be able to bring in (at some point) upwards of 6,000 people just between Thanksgiving and Christmas to ride a train, or trolley in this case, with Santa. I would suspect, based on past experience, that they could do 100 kids per week for school groups for about 8 months of the year for about another 6400 fares. Throw in an Easter event and some other special events. With some decent local advertising, they should be able to ramp up to do no less than 20,000 fares per year.

No, its not huge bucks. But in my mind, the fares keep the doors open and the collection under cover. You must build off of that and let grants and sizable donations do the real restoration work.

Just my two cents.
J.R.

My only point in using the actual Scranton experience was to again illustrate that to be able to produce healthy annual gate numbers an attraction MUST be properly sited within an area that has a robust tourist trade ongoing. Even if you were to produce a world class transportation heritage center which included all the modes(auto,air,maritime,rail) if you site it poorly it will not attract sufficient through-put to be self sustaining.
Scranton is a classic example of this undeniable truth.
If you look at the shortline tourist railways that carry the most guests year in-year out they're all situated in or near to other tourist areas/attractions. I'm familiar with the NH&I operation, serving occassionaly as an engineer,and I'd dare say that a good 50% of our riders are folks who came to New Hope to play tourists,heard the whistle/saw the train and decided to take a ride. The train didn't bring them to town-the area did.
I don't doubt that they can create a very modest attraction in that cornfield that might be able to be self-sustaining on a very small scale and perhaps that's better than nothing. However that's not what was discussed for years and not what the stated mission of the Commission was supposed to be.
As to getting a unified effort mounted to get a roof over the most valuable of the existing pieces-unless there's been a serious sea change in the URHS since I left NJ 4 years ago-that's not going to happen.
Hopefully someday "new blood" will come along and change things-"Hope springs eternal"!!!
Ross Rowland

FORGET about making historic equipment Amtrak compatible.

When will you guys ever learn to 'put only as much food on your plate as you can eat' ?

If you restore something...anything...being able to run it on a tourist/shortline at 20 mph is quite an accomplishment indeed.


DPK

First off,

As the instigator of this thread (in 2004 and 2007) the point is to bring forth and discuss strategies for preserving passenger cars preserved in New Jersey with the goal of moving toward one or more actionable plans. Being positive or negative has nothing to do with it.

However, in reflecting on the direction that this tread has taken – I realize some of the morass as it pertains to railfan involvement in railroad preservation.

1 – Material Issues associated with Passenger Cars. There seems to be a genuine lack of appreciation for the need for indoor storage for passenger cars if one wants to avoid major structural repairs. Passenger cars rust from the inside-out – with the major problem caused by water leaking in through windows and becoming trapped above the side-sills. Other areas are problematic too, such as riveted seams along letter boards. Unlike other preservation fields (principally maritime and building preservation) there are no studies available that provide precise information as to the nature or course of deterioration, which in turn makes it difficult to develop a model to assign a cost to the amount of deterioration a car experiences in a given period of time. Passenger car inspectors/repair persons (there are several on this board – it would be nice to hear them chime in on this point) can estimate the presence of rust based on a function of the condition of the car’s windows, how long it sat outside, and the climate the car was in.

2 – Understanding the causes and effects of community relations. Indoor storage is also a strong tool in the war of public relations and the war against vandalism. Railroad equipment is itself an attraction to vandals – pole barns (or other enclosed buildings) are a lower value target. Likewise, communities will rightfully see unrestored equipment outside as an eyesore – if the same equipment is indoors, it is out of sight and out of mind.

3 – Pursuing solutions before understanding problems. This is a new point of understanding for me – but one that I find particularly valuable. It seems that there is a fixation on pursuing some solutions without actually understanding the problem at hand. The failure of the NJ State Railroad Museum reemerged in this thread even though it has nothing to do with finding a current solution to passenger car preservation. Why? because for a long time this was seen as the solution to the problem. However, there does not seem to have been an understanding of the material issues facing passenger cars and other pieces of railroad equipment (and, therefore, the need for an immediate solution if any of this equipment is to survive over the long term) or a consideration of alternate plans. Yet, some still hold on to it because it was once the solution.

Added to this are ideological constraints. Namely that any preservation effort must be able to survive solely on user fees – or that all equipment should be privately owned. Again, both are arbitrary and do not relate to the problems at hand.

Regarding private ownership – there are many individuals who own equipment in NJ. In fact, I suspect that New Jersey has one of the highest concentrations of

Some notable pieces/collections include

An A-B-A set of Alco FA-2 locomotives, an A-B-A set of Alco FA-1 locomotives, an A-B-A set of EMD F-7 locomotives, a C-420, RS-1, a PRR Gas-Electric, numerous passenger cars and cabooses. (The subject of the first item in this thread from 2004 refereed to a group of privately owned PRR P-70 cars.). The Cape May Seashore Line (who owns the RDC pictured above), SMS lines, New York & Greenwood Lake, and to a lesser extent the Black River & Western and the Southern Railroad of New Jersey are owned by individuals who are preservation minded and use their operations to fund equipment preservation. Private ownership does not mean that the owner will have the knowledge or resources to preserve his/her equipment now, will ensure its further preservation after their passing – or that he/she is even interested in preservation in the first place. Some of the railroads named above have scrapped many pieces of equipment that would have been eligible for preservation when it was convenient for them to do so.

All of that being said – lets try to better figure out the problem and work on some actionable solutions.

Tom Cornillie

OK, let's understand the real problem-- lack of money.

Indoor storage-- yes, indeed Tom, you are SO right. It's the ONLY real solution to keep this stuff alive for anything like long term. 14 years after seeing them (for the first and only time), I still dream of IRM's buildings. And their nice flat topography, too. For those of us in the expensive Northeast, the reality is a bit different. A typical IRM 75x350 barn would likely cost over $350-400K, and that's if there are no site problems to deal with (I've gotten quite an education about "site problems" in the last six years). They are great structures to get cars out of the elements, but they are not really conducive to exhibit cars and locos to the public. The "new" Museum building at Strasburg is wonderful, but at 2007 prices, I'd bet it would be over $7 million.

At the very least, put up a flippin' big fence and razor wire!!!

Buildings, even "pole barns", cost money, and lots of it. Where does that money come from? At Strasburg, it came from the Commonwealth-- their Museum, their collection, their money. At IRM, lots of private donors (i.e., members), and some good movie-making income, as I understand the situation. And let's remember that in both cases, there is actually a fixed site-- not a "movable feast" of stuff scattered everywhere. Lack of a permanent home can mean a lack of credibility, especially for raising money. The group of which I am a part has been "broke and homeless"; we know what it's like. We learned that lesson.

You gotta have a plan-- a realistic, rational (mostly rational), achievable plan and goal(s). Build credibility, and work on the next step. Never lose sight of who the real constituency ("customer") is-- and it ain't the railfans, "Jersey" or otherwise. It's the public, and they really want a good experience and a little entertainment along with their history lesson.

A couple more comments-- there are no easy solutions, and every situation is different. But we'd better improve our ability to glom onto some serious bucks, or all this will just be rearranging deck chairs.....

Time for bed--

Howard P.
Lotsarocks, CT

AS I have stated MANY times before, the first step to being taken seriously
is to develop some credibility.

That said, a fair percentage of the equipment listed (including ALL of the Alco-FA 'locomotives' )has absolutely NO connection with the locale, the local railroads...anything. Had some of these items been returned to their native environs, they just might seen some degree of restoration.

In fact, some of the items listed actually exist to make money for the owners/lessors-which is fine.

The point is- does any of this have a relationship with accepted museum or preservation practice ???

NOT A BLOODY THING !!! Who on earth is going to take those people seriously ?

Dave (my real name)

Right - that is what this thread is about -- bringing people together to bring forth workable ideas through collaboration and constructive criticism.

At the beginning of this thread (Mon Feb 28, 2005) I did post an outline of a plan for preserving these cars. Does anybody here have any alternatives? If so, put them on the table.

Regarding money - perhaps a way forward is to start a discussion (in this thread) about some case studies discussing funding for historic preservation projects broadly. There are many exciting developments in this field that are never discussed here because they are not railroad related - yet the problem and solutions are directly comparable to what we deal with every day.

Also, for the purposes of the discussion, lets say the cost of one barn and associated site preparation/security is $500,000.

It would also be nice to hear from individuals associated with the Whippany Railroad Museum, CMSL and other New Jersey organizations that preserve standard guage passenger cars.

Tom Cornillie

Larger question - does the general public in New Jersey want it enough to devote tax dollars to making it happen? If we in the choir are the only ones in the church, it doesn't matter how badly we sing - and it sounds like the choir in this case has been singing in different keys, if not different hymns.

I don't get a sense of a consensus among the public or the politicians (not to mention those immediately involved) that they are prepared to devote the resources to make this real - perhaps the solution is it doesn't happen in NJ.

dave (also real name)

You have to remember that New Jersey is one of the most nasty, politically partisan places around. After the disasterous term of Govenor "flim-flam" Florio the state elected Christie Whitman govenor, and for the first time in decades the Republicans controlled both houses of the state legislature. This is when the URHS went political and really got in bed with the Republicans. They even went so far as to name a car after a leading Republican state senator. During this time when the URHS might have gooton money, they fiddled around over commissions, sites, what to save - you name it.

Well a funny thing happened on the way to a museum. The Democrats gained control of everything in NJ with veto-proof majorities and they were in no mood to help a group that so closely aligned itself with the Republican party. They let the museum commission die and bottled up any attempts at museum funding. As a final kissoff a member of Florio's law firm led the effort to convert the proposed Phillipsburg museum site into a townhouse development.

There is no sign that the Democrats in NJ are going to lose power anytime soon. So anything being held for a "state museum" will rot into the ground as part of a political payback.[/quote]

While I laud the overall purpose of this thread I must reiterate that the reality on the ground in NJ is the ruling grade here. As SO correctly mentions the URHS/Museum Commission made a concious decision to strongly ally itself with the Republicans under the leadership of Assemblyman Alex DeCroce and Gov. Whitman and now that the Dems are back in control you can forget any serious help on the State level.
As previously stated in detail,the one real chance there was of establishing a first rate transportation heritage center existed at Liberty State Park with strong corporate sponsorship funding (exposure=money) and when that chance was thrown overboard in favor of siteing it in the boonies-it was ball game over!!!
The 10 years since then have been a total waste of public money(about $750,000 spent on "Master Plans" etc.) and have only served to further splinter the players.
The reality is that to get a movement organized to put together all the pieces(site,permits,agreement among the various owning groups,FUNDING,etc.) is beyond remote-UNLESS there's a total change in the leadership of the URHS with new blood that is able/willing to see the big picture/long term need to get this stuff under cover.
If that occurs-great,then it's worth persuing. If not-save your breath.
IMHO-Ross Rowland

Those little purple lines on the map (the state boundary) don't help things either. The former Motivepower rebuild shop at Mountaintop stood vacant for several years, was used as a while as a warehouse for building materials, and finally got torn down. It was a well equipped rebuild shop, and its last railroad related use was to assemble the Iron Highway train in the 1990s. It had tracks inside the building almost long enough for the Iron Highway train, considerable trackage outside, and security fences all around. Would have been a good place to store equipment, but it was in Pennsylvania.