As I’m sure everyone knows we here in Houston are about to get smacked with a hurricane. While that in itself is bad enough, there is also a railroad related tragedy taking place right now.
The Galveston Railroad Museum is getting flooded. While the building is very strong and has weathered many storms, damage is damage. They’ve been operating under very tight finances and also suffer a lack of storage/display space. They have tons of historical railroad related paper records, maps, timetables, china, pictures, etc. You get the idea. Tons of great rare information that would make for any great research trip. However what most of you may not know is that most of it is not on display due to a lack of space. It is ALL stacked up floor to ceiling in box cars outside where no one can see any of it. These are old wooden box cars and they’ve been nothing more than storage sheds for the museum. Some of them leak. It’s all been deteriorating out there for years in the heat, the cold, the humidity, and water leakage, etc. It has all been in bad need of being moved and preserved. Sadly it may be too late.
The storm surge has already flooded the grounds and the eye is still a few hours away. Those box cars are going to be underwater tonight and everything in them completely destroyed. Tons of historical records that many would probably love to see is about to be gone forever. This makes me immensely sad as I’ve offered to help get it all organized and preserved but there was no room to do it. Now it’s probably too late.
I ask everyone here to please support your local (or others) railroad museums. Railroads just don’t get the love (or the donations) from the public like car museums or flight museums do. Sadly it’s due to a lack of support that is causing historical records to be lost forever. Since this is a local museum to me that I really love helping, I’m also asking anyone that can or at the very least would be willing to, to help them recover when
Currently, the Strand area is flooded…the museum is flooded already, and with the storm surge, anything in the storage cars is gone, if the cars themselves survive.
Galveston is without power island wide, the police have taken shelter in the bunkers under the Flagship hotel, most of the piers on the seawall are gone, all of the jetties are under water, the west end is completely cut off.
ABC news told at 5:30 that the West End and The Strand area was underwater and that by morning they may be gone ! This is TERRIBLE ! Im just glad that most of the people left before today and New Orleans is not repeated God be with those that stayed behind…
People just forget it was railroads that helped build a country.To most its an inconvienence to be stopped by a train.We make donations to museums that we visit and we also eat at the local restaurants too.
hi,actually a railroad tragedy happened in California on fri…9/12…24 dead??..maybe more…commuter and freight…ok combo if you have TRUE PROFESSIONALS operating all concerned train ops…beginning to appear a CONTRACTOR operation was running theMETROLINK???..ran an absolute…where is theFRA cert locomotive engineers must exhibit every 3 years??
kep@cnrrfdl wrote the following post at 09-13-2008 8:09 PM:
hi,actually a railroad tragedy happened in California on fri…9/12…24 dead??..maybe more…commuter and freight…ok combo if you have TRUE PROFESSIONALS operating all concerned train ops…beginning to appear a CONTRACTOR operation was running theMETROLINK???..ran an absolute…where is theFRA cert locomotive engineers must exhibit every 3 years??
I’m sure he had a FRA license and your point is? Human error is human error, it’s going to happen regardless of preventative measures, I hate saying it but its true. People renew their drivers’ license every three or four years or whatever their respective states require and they still go out and get into accidents. It’s a terrible thing.
Was no one in Galveston notified of the approaching storm? Would people living on the coast that often gets storms not prepare for high water? It sounds like people up north that get flooded every 3 years never think to move their valuables up stairs days before the flood arrives, then get upset that they lost everything in the basement. Galveston should be the ONE place in the US that knows the devastation from the gulf. It is so sad to see all those antiquities lost and it could have been prevented.