In addition, every museum needs proper fire protection - an unprotected building is just a crematorium for everything inside in case of a fire.

About half of the cost of WRM's new carbarn is an investment in the fire protection system. In our rural location there is no city water. We now have a 200,000 gallon tank, a diesel pump to pressurize the lines, automatic monitored alarms, and several hydrants in addition to the sprinklers in the new building. The system will ultimately be expanded to cover the whole museum area.

Relative to the cost of a major restoration ($250,000 for Sacramento Northern interurban 1005), the cost of WRM's new building and fire system (about $2.5 million total) is fairly cost-effective.

And the secured building helps keep the copper thieves at bay.

Ted I agree completely with your assessment that cosmetic restorations are the wave of the future. Some of us at the museum where I manage the restoration and maintenance recognized this over the past couple years. We got tired of hearing the we can't display that because its not perfectly restored comments while we looked at a three quarter empty display hall in our visitor center. We had a few battles and the then president left because he did not agree with us or our push to get cars under cover and on display. Now we have cars on display, some getting cosmetic work as we talk, but boy what a reaction from the public. To hear the wows from the kids and parents as they enter the hall has made our fight worth while. Building barns is important, but make them all display, not just storage barns. Keep the tracks as widely space as possible. The wider, the better. Every car is a display and a story no matter what condition it is presently in.

So something north of a million bucks just for the fire protection system (in a remote area), and as far as I am aware, that's not fancy or gold-plated or anything, it's just what fire suppression systems cost.

While I totally agree with the sentiment, I flinch from telling museums to emphasize fire protection too early. For a fledgling museum struggling to put up their first $50,000 pole barn, trying to add a megabuck fire suppression system would just guarantee the project's failure. It would become yet another reason the carbarn doesn't ever happen.

Obviously things are in better shape if the museum has fortune or foresight to be located on city water lines, but the museum needs to balance the chance of fire versus the certainty of weather.

Chris: We have found the same thing. However, we have a few cars that are in such poor condition that we do not want to display them. My guess is that a trolley museum should figure on having 80% or more of its collection on display.

The number of operating cars can be smaller, depending on the size of the collection. I estimate that we could use around 15-20 operating passenger cars in order to keep the mileage on each car down to a level that will promote longevity. We also use 4 work cars on a regular basis and would like to have an operating sweeper for the rare occasions when our line is snow covered during the end of the operating season in December.

Robert: You had an extremely high cost situation compared to most museums. Not only did you not have city water, but California seismic code prevented you from installing a standpipe and a gravity fed system.
Our costs were around 1/10 of yours, including the rather long connection to the city water system.

With 20/20 hindsight, I suspect that you should have looked into non-water based fire supression systems.

Design a building that can be upgraded to add sprinkler at a later date. Or in the meantime put up that pole barn! Get the stuff under a real roof.

Wesley

We had a sprinkler system installed in our visitor center this past year. It is a large building with display hall for eight cars, 100 seat movie theater, gift shop, waiting room, library&vault, members room and offices. The whole system including the run out to the street to hook up to city water and additional fire hydrants cost about 50k.

Most towns in our area require systems for building over a certain size. So be sure to check codes in your town to see if you can build and occupy a building before you set out to build it.

Continuing the discussion on cars. I believe that most of us will not live long enough to see all the cars we have restored. The car I am hoping to finish by July 4th has been under restoration since the early 1960s when the late Fred Bennett started the restoration. I have worked on the car since the age of 18 and I am 45 now. This is an extreme case, but sometimes you just can't cut corners. So, to think that I can restore them all is dreaming. So, I am now splitting between making cars for operation and working on cars to display. We have 8 cars that we can use for public operation now. I will be lucky if I can add a car a year by doing the low hanging fruit right now. The public seems happy if they get a ride. Some will complain if they don't get a ride on certain cars, but most are happy with a ride if they get to look at stuff on display as well. If I can add one new good person to the restoration staff a year, we may just be able to improve the output in a few years. Putting cars that are grundgy is acceptable if it tells a story. I would not put all the pccs I have on display, But If I had a type of car that represented a significant car type or and extremely rare piece, then I would consider displaying it even if it was a chicken coop, laundry mat or even part of a car wash at one time in its life. We are doing that at our museum now and getting good comments from the public. Yes, we do have a former car wash on display in our visitor center. Most people are so impressed with the car as it is that they don't care that it is not restored and not likely to run in the next 10 years.