Transferring the thread on best interpretive programs for the old to the new servers....

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I've been thinking a great deal about interpretation lately. I think most folks in our movement agree that it's one of our collective weak points, but I'm not sure there's any common opinion about what constitutes best practices.

I'd like to hear your views. What works best at your museum? What have you admired most at other museums, tourist lines, or traction operations you've visited? Extra points for high-impact but low-dollar ideas that would be easy to implement nearly anywhere.

Some of my favorites, to start the listing:

1. J. David's cut-away 0-6-0 at Steamtown
2. The roundhouse catwalk at Steamtown
3. The access gallery overlooking the restoration shops at East Branford (Shorline trolley museum)
4. Specific RR-themed weekend events with lectures and special tours at RRM of Pa
5. The mine tour stop at the Georgetown Loop RR
6. The "build your own transit empire" wood-block layout for the youngsters at the new Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton

As you can see, I like safe but effective shops access programs, programs that help put the RR operation in an economic context, and short (weekend-long) docent-driven programs that highlight special points in a collection. Other ideas?

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Posted By: Rick
Date: Friday, 7 June 2002, at 3:26 p.m.

In Response To: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Erik Ledbetter)

I might not have any good ideas, but I certainly know what I don't like to see. I just got back from a very disappointing visit to the Allen County Museum in Lima, Ohio. It is a fairly large facility, located about three miles from the site of the Lima Locomotive Works. Now Lima's largest industries were of course the railroads, the locomotive works and oil refineries. Well this museum barely gave mention to all three, except for the usual display of old signs, switch locks, lanterns and (yawn) old ticket stubs. Not a single word about the LLW importance to Lima's economy, the importance of the products they built to the rail industry, no pictures of the plant, no mention of superpower. Even their narrow gauge Shay is placed in an out of the way spot basically in the rear of a storage building. I truly learned nothing from my 45 minute long visit to that facility, and even their exhibits on other local history leave much to be desired. This has to be the low point of interpretation.

It kind of reminds me of the Conneaut, OH Railroad Museum. Now talk about a place filled with stuff with no coherent message being conveyed to the visitors. I would think that if they sold off their collection of brakeman's lanterns that hang off hooks from the ceiling and eliminated the crowded display cases full of non NE Ohio related items, they could probably pay to construct an enginehouse for the 755 and have a fairly accurate recreation of a locomotive being serviced. Sure its a neat place for a railfan to visit, but the average visitor cannot learn very much about Conneaut from the experience.

Many of these small museums adhere to the "if they donated it you must exhibit it" policy. Whereas if I donate an old object to a museum, no matter if it relates to the museum's mission or not, they feel obligated to put my name on a plaque and place object and plaque in some empty corner of the museum. I guess that would explain why there is a Model T Ford displayed inside the Allen County museum, with not a word of mention why it is there, while the locally built and emminently rarer Shay sits out in the storage building.

Perhaps the first step toward better interpretation would be to weed out the collections and focus on your mission.

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Posted By: Tim Stuy
Date: Friday, 7 June 2002, at 4:49 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Rick)

I thought that the RPO demonstrations done on the US Postal Service's Celebrate the Century Express was really well done. Catcing the mail bag on the fly down at Spencer, NC is a great introduction to how the mail was carried.

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Posted By: J.David
Date: Friday, 7 June 2002, at 11:25 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Tim Stuy)

> I have always loved the Pullman car display at California State Railroad Museum. The docents who attend it are always great and take roles of people who you might have met on the car. The car is hooked up to a mechanical drive that rocks it so that it feels rather like it would in motion. There are lights outside the windows which "move" giving one the sense of motion and of course the piped in sounds of steel wheels on the rails. But what I really get off on is the smell of the car...it smells just like the Pullman cars that I rode in Mexico in the 60s', kind of a musty, old mattress/hot journal oil/cigar smoke/disinfectant/
cast iron brake shoe smoke/toilet down the hall odor. Neat, neat, neat!

Another really well thought out display is the NP box car at the Minnesota Historical Society Museum. The car is several displays in one. First it is used as part of a display on grain farming and a grain elevator. Second, inside the car are displays on grain transportation with a small model railroad. Third, it is part of a display on jobs that people had and what their jobs entailed. One of the jobs is car inspector and as you walk by the car there are flip charts telling you what parts to look at and what defects to look for. You are supposed to "inspect" the car. At the end there is a final chart which tells you the correct answers and what would have happend to the car had it been moved with certain defects. A most effective use of display space.
J.David

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Posted By: Ted Miles
Date: Friday, 7 June 2002, at 5:43 p.m.

In Response To: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Erik Ledbetter)

I too like it when there is interaction between historic rolling stock and people.

I like the ride and car barn tour combination at Shoreline Trolley Museum.

I enjoy some of the traditional talks at the end of the ride at Seashore Troley Museum. And at my own Western Railway Museum.

I think the times that the car barn tours happen at Seashore are great.

Although it may be considered old fashioned; I like to talk to a real person about a given artifact be it a steam engine, a passenger car, a street car or whatever.

The volunteers who man the Dining Car or the RPO car at the California Railroad Museum do a fine job.

Something that all museums should do is put signs on all their rolling stock. Even if it is not going to be restored until 2077 any car deserves to tell the visitors when and where it was built and why the museum has it on the grounds or better yet in the display barn.

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Posted By: Frank Hicks
Date: Friday, 7 June 2002, at 6:11 p.m.

In Response To: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Erik Ledbetter)

One thing I liked at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton (more so than the layout) was the cut-away streetcar. They had a single-truck Birney with the floor cut away, and the truck and traction motor parts sectioned similar to the steam engine at Steamtown. It was a really neat idea.

I also liked a display that the Connecticut Trolley Museum had in their new display barn. It contained a trolley pole about 3' long, with base, shoe, and retriever all attached, showing (in very condensed form) how the power collection system on an electric car works. This is obviously very inexpensive, but is pretty interesting.

Frank Hicks

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Posted By: Jim Lundquist
Date: Sunday, 9 June 2002, at 1:15 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Challenge: Best Interpretive programs (Frank Hicks)

the track gang stuff at the former Kyle operation in the Mt. Shasta area was well done.

The cut away 0-6-0 was terrific.

Yes, I dear say - ever RR museum should get rid of stuff that doesn't tell the local rr story.



eledbetter@rypn.org

Great topic, here are a few faves...

Every morning on the Conway Scenic -- The rituals of the turntable and the day's prep are played out sans any hokiness. It's interpretation by experience and it is all done within public view.

The presentation of the 4-6-0 at the Belfast & Moosehead Lake -- Almost the opposite of Conway, and effective in it's own way, a crew person on a microphone narrates the turning of the 4-6-0 on the armstrong turntable. It is effective in that it gives the riders a chance to see the engine up close BEFORE the trip, and the table provides the perfect opportunity for the narrator to explain how she works. Very, very well thought out.

These are two of my favorites because they each deal with the day-to-day of railroading. Often, we tend to seek the unique or different, while the best lessons are steeped in the mundane.

Rob

PS: JD's 0-6-0 is a winner!


trains@robertjohndavis.com

> I always liked one at the Virginia Museum of Transportation that was designed to show the efficiency of steel wheels on steel rails. There were a series of rope-pulled loads of equal wieght. One was a sled, one had rubber tires, one had railroad wheels (there may have been others but I don't remember). The public could pull on the load and see which one was easier and also the relative difference between the different methods.

Tim Andrews
Chattanooga, TN

andrewstim@prodigy.net