tom, i read with great interest (and the replies) about your concern over the UP caboose addition to MOT; a friend of mine who has worked at railroad museums (and gave that up for lent to go to a municipal museum) taught me a good rule of thumb about a year ago that seems to work universally: 1. does it fit your mission (in north carolina that means southern railway, ACL, SAL, ET&WNC, Edwards Motor Car Co., etc.) 2. would anybody come to see it--ie does the addition of a GE 44-tonner REALLY add to the collection or is it just another hungry mouth to feed and 3. do we have the resoources to preserve, protect and restore it?--specifically is there sufficient money to move it, paint it, operate it;<br> i think we've all got to be careful about hungry child disease; too many mouths to feed that the majority of the kids starve; we recently sold a dining car to another group that is much better at heavy passenger car restoration; remember: less IS more!<br>



Wrinnbo@aol.com

I live in Delaware and don't get out to St. Louis that often but i can tell you when you read about what they have and then go to see it you wonder why you just traveled 900 miles.<p>As a fan of railroading here in the East I could not wait to seee a real D.L&W. Camelback, the Reading inspection engine, and the PRR P5. All the one ones of the like. Well what I saw were rusted hulks of trains that barely resembled anything like I saw pictures of in the books.<p>Much of this stuff was in pretty good shape upon donation to MoT. They have simply let it rot away, and they are not alone. This starving child syndrome is destroying the very history we claim to preserve. Most museums have realized this and have made efforts to manage what they have. Find new homes via sale or trade for what does not fit or what they can't handle. The problem I have with MoT is they have let these one of a kind trains from here in the East rot so badly and now there is the support to bring them home, restore them, display them indoors, and protect them, they want no part of it. It is not an option. These are the very duties of a museum, my opinion of St. Louis is very low. <p>I wish Molly Carsten would respond and explain why the Reading Inspection Engine, The Lacawanna Camelback, or PRR P5 electric should stay in St. Louis when;<p>1. They already have destroyed a good bit of each locomotive due to neglect.<p>2. They have such a large collection they still can't take care of it all now.<p>3. They lack a good permenent indoor home that will preserve each of the rare one of a kind train for future generations.<p>4. It is widely known that these locomotives never turned a wheel 1,000 miles from St. Louis and a display where they have operated has much more meaning.<p>5. A sale or trade could bring much needed cash or other resources to help restore, house, and protect the rest of the collection.<p>I must admit they my opinion of MoT was that of a 3rd rate junk yard, I have not seen what has been going on there and it does sound positive. My (and others too!) reservations about the place would be more at ease if MoT would stop stonewalling the rest of the museum community and come up with real reasons to keep this stuff there or even better if they were to do the right thing! I hope Ms. Carsten will address each of my questions, and I numbered them to make it easier, with some kind of real response and not more stonewalling.<br>



tgears@dca.net

It's real easy to say that museums are letting stuff rot away, but less easy to keep stuff from rotting away when one actually works at the museum. And, what one doesn't see when looking at the equipment is whether or not there is a long term plan (awaiting funding) for doing the much needed preservation work.<p>As Bob Zimmerman, the current treasurer and a former president of our organization always told everyone: "Mother Nature is out here destroying our equipment 24 hours a day and we are only here on weekends to put it back together."<p>The price tags for major restoration work are a major burden for most of us. Until one gets a grant or a huge donation, one is lucky to have a few thousand dollars available out of operating expenses to cover the dozens of items out there in the yard that need everything from a little primer to a lot of structural repair.<p>Fortunately, Molly has already set the record straight for MOT. Meanwhile, I keep hoping that when somebody shows up again and asks me why the Thomas Ruffin or CofG Coach 527 are not yet on display, why the Campbell Limestone Heisler isn't running again at the museum, or why S&A 750 isn't available for any excursion work, they would hand me the mere $750,000 that I need to make this all happen. Heck, I would be happy if a few more of the people who live nearby would just stop by and pick up a paint brush.<p>--Malcolm



Southeastern Railway Museum
71045.2202@compuserve.com

Malcolm:<p>I hear you! That line about picking up a paint brush is especially right on the mark. I am the part owner of a 1910 Pullman built day coach (I'm<br>not quite sure how that happened but it did) and have basically been working on it at the museum by myself. Much of the work thus far has been scrapping, priming and painting (all by hand.) This fall the car has a new coat of paint on one side. And that side looks great (at least I think so.) The point is that our museum has over 300 members. Most are not active (we have the usual group that does most of the work.) Many of those who are not active and who live within a decent drive of the museum say they don't have the skills to do things for us. But scrapping, priming and painting don't take much skill and the results can be fantastic! And we have a number of cars (and other things around the museum) that could be done by these members who are "unskilled." If just 5% of those 300 who are inactive came to paint, it would make an unbelievable difference at our museum and I am sure at every other museum as well. <br>



midlandblb@cs.com

Well, here's the problem. . .you're working on a darned passenger car. Nothing chases folks away faster than that. It's like the plague. Now, you call them up and say you made a mistake and just thought it was a Pullman and that it really is, er, lessee, a Light Pacific, then you'll have a long line of people. Most of them will arrive after all the tubes are in, though because, you know, that's work.<p>Seriously, though, congratulations on getting the work done. Much of our work on our 1911 Pullman private car was done with a very small group, and frankly, it was more tedious than difficult. Not too many people showed up to help. Well, funny thing, now it's on the National Register and qualified the museum for federal TEA funding of $640,000. We've had to stop fretting over the additional work we could do on it. . .we've got a sleeper car to finish and two other guys are re-doing all the windows in a 1922 coach. It adds up and the public like seeing all of it.<p>What's the history on your 1910? Where is it?<p>By the way, we do those statistical things, too, where we say, hmm, if just 10 people showed up over the course of a month, we might actually get this project done before the work we finished on the other end of the car has a chance to start rusting away and falling part again.<p>--Malcolm<br>



collections@srmduluth.org