It seems that museums have tried a new way of generating profit: car storage over the winter. IRM in particular started doing this last winter, storing 3 unit coal trains, each of about 133-135 cars in length. One of the trains lingered until may, when IRM used 2-10-0 #1630 to pull the last train out to the interchange. This year, it looks like they are storing covered hoppers.

So, do any other museums/tourist railroads use this method, or something similar? from all I have heard, if a museum has sufficient track space, it is a VERY good way of bringing in profit.

The Nevada Northern Ry has leased track at its unused north end for car storage.

Randy

At the going rate of around $4 per car, per day, storage is a great way to make some bucks, especially when there is extra, unused track space or a seasonal slowdown in trips.

Do the math.

If you own the rails you store the cars on and have a reliable connection to the outside world, and have a lessor or car owner that's ok with short term seasonal availability, its a good gig. The North Shore Scenic Railroad has stored coal hoppers, ore cars and frac sand hoppers for 10+ years now during our off season. The bulk of our yearly allotment comes from the local coal dock, which stops shipping when the Great Lakes Shipping season ends in mid January. Car storage can be a very fickle proposition; one year we stored nearly 1800 cars from early November through late May, and the next year we barely got 350 for a month. Unless you're ready to go through the process of setting up and maintaining a Hazmat program (yes, you need one even if they're empty) higher value cars like the glut of tank cars available are not an option.

Iowa Pacific Holdings' Texas State Railroad was storing quite a number of tank cars when I visited last summer.

This is a common practice, but for any museum that is a non profit one that is likely to generate unrelated business income (UBI) which has to be reported to IRS on a 990T and if you have too much UBI you can lose your 501c3 tax exemption which in turn means donations to your organization are no longer tax deductible.

Bob H

Unless said non profit has a separate for profit structure for freight service over the existing line. I know of several operations that are set up this way.

The other issue at hand is your surrounding community. If you want your museum operation to be favored and supported by the community, storing graffiti laced or tempting graffiti-able equipment behind homes and near parks is not an option.

If one recalls the many issues the Cape May Seashore Lines has had with stored, graffiti'd RDC's in and about the Rio Grand, NJ area, you'll know what I mean.

The given examples of IRM and North Shore - both have pretty open space around them and won't hear much flack....many others are not so lucky.

Hi,

I recall several years ago when some graffiti reprobates hit the Chama railroad yards and painted several narrow gauge boxcars.

Chama citizenry (pop 1,016) were all upset since the C&TS was a main income source during the summer.

Doug vV