I know this is Railway Preservation News, but the museum I volunteer has gotten itself into a pickle and I believe members on here can help.
This summer a loose bolt ended up finding it’s way into the gears on the cast iron wheel hub on our Peerless steam tractor. This caused a crack in the wheel hub, which grew and caused large fragments to break off. It has been determined that our Peerless will need a replacement wheel hub in order to operate again. Because it received a new boiler from Strasburg around 2005, the Museum has decided it’s in the best interest to pursue this goal.
The traction engine is a 1913 Peerless Model TT. It was owned and run by Maryland State Senator Robert Dean of Queen Anne’s County, as part of his collection of other Peerless traction engines. The engine winded up at the Queen Anne’s Museum of Eastern Shore Life, which restored the engine from kit-form to operation. Since then, the museum has been operating it on their grounds and several other local steam shows. I’ve personally been involved since I made the transition from middle school to high school about 4 years ago.
We will be pursuing grants to fund the repair, however I have offered to launch a campaign based on social media to fundraise and gain followers for the engine. I ran a YouTube channel along with it’s Facebook page for several years, and now help run the QARRS Facebook page. However, I feel weary about this campaign since it’s the first time I’ve done something of it’s type and wish to get advice on my plans and ideas. I’m hoping this is where members on here can help.
My original intent for this was to create a simple Facebook page to gain local support to ensue the engine’s operation. My thoughts behind this were that if we gain more support for the engine, there would be a large group of people willing to help keep it running now and in the future. As I thought about it, the idea morphed and grew into more of a public relation campaign. “Survive and Thrive” as I’ve nicknamed it, has three major goals. First, to gain local support for the operation of the Peerless, second, to receive donations to assist money received from grants going towards the repair and third, show the local community potential new opportunities that the Peerless can partake in. I see all three of these goals working to together to achieve each other. Currently this campaign exists only under the newly created Facebook page and no online donations have been set up (which will happen ASAP). The plan is to kick it into high gear after the holidays when we begin to disassemble the wheel and get into a more stable position where we better understand what we’re dealing with. High gear entails creating more online content such as videos and digital art, making online donation goals through websites such as GoFundMe and working with local media outlets. I also feel the need to go past the internet as well and create fundraising events, sell a product such as a hat or a pin and attend local events.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve come across is with dealing with the target demographic issue. The term local has been thrown around a lot in this post and locals to our county is what I’ve shaped the campaign to be focused on. Someone once told me that “having the local community support you is like having the world support you.” However, I have had a tremendous amount of support from the steam community so far, such as other organizations usually do, and because of this I’ve tried to appeal to them too on our Facebook page. I’m struggling to figure out if trying to appeal to both demographics will hurt me or help.
A lot of the ideas from this campaign have come from organizations with locomotives (as well as fundraisers at my high school). This includes VMT’s Fire up 611!, FWRHS’s Listen for the Whistle, Nashville Steam, Rick Rowland’s J&L 58 project and Extra 3639 North, and Mad River’s Bring Back 757. I’ve come to accept that the fundamentals of railway preservation isn’t too far behind the fundamentals of a museum trying to keep their traction engine running. Is that a wrong assumption to make?
Please give any suggestions, recommendations or advice you have, any of it will help me and MESL in getting our traction engine repaired and recognized.

Link to the Facebook page:
https://m.facebook.com/qapeerless/

Hi Simon;

Others will be able to advise you in a better capacity than myself; but one thing I recommend right off the bat is to set up a gofundme page for this project. This will make it easier for your local population to contribute to the project; but it also allow you to receive donations from anyone around the world who may be interested in your project. You may be surprised how many other folks are interested in pitching a few bucks your way; especially if you pitch your project on the SMOKESTAK forum and other steam traction related social media.

This sounds like a small scale project compared to moving and/or restoring an entire steam locomotive; I would imagine you will be able to reach your goal. Good luck in your fundraising efforts.

You'll need to have an idea of how much you'll need to receive from your campaigns. Open ended doesn't work well. You'll also need a good elevator speech.

GoFundMe can work but you have to get the word out that it's there. Get the local papers (paid and free) to do a story (some also have the capability for user entry to their online news), PSAs on the local radio stations, local access cable, requests to similar organizations to spread the word. Put a blurb on your website home page with a link to your GFM page. Email your patron list. Try to get the interest of a TV station for the fluff portion of their news broadcast. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....

Your results will largely depend on how much time and effort you and your team put in. Don't be shy - you don't receive unless you ask.

GoFundMe is definitely something we are considering and something I will push for once we get the wheel off and can estimate a price for the repair. As sugested, I plan on aiming to get a lot of local promotions released around the same time to hopefully boost the donations.

Removing a wheel on a traction engine is not too bad of project. It is a little more complicated on a peerless since they built the differential into the wheel hub. Makes for more things to line up going back on. They are a little easier for jacking and blocking since they have a frame around the firebox. Cattail foundry has many patterns for peerless parts they may have one for a wheel hub. That would help on the cost side of things.

Chris

I was told by our maintenance guy that the wheel we have to remove is the easier one to get off in relation to the axle, so that’s a plus. I’m not in charge of the physical work being done, however I have been taking notes on suggestions. I was under the impression that Cattail had mostly Frick parts and can’t do larger parts. Maybe I’ll make a call out to them... Anderson was also considered, and there may be a parts TT in Virginia. As much as it seems that we have to get a new part, I did make an excellent call last night discussing about brazing the part.