The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago is auctioning off three of the vintage locomotives in their collection. Here’s the auction listing:
https://news.classiccars.com/historic-rail-locomotives-added-preservation-auction-simeone/
With the exception of the “Mississippi” all of the equipment are replicas.
And I imagine there is not much of the original fabric or technology to be found in the “Mississippi” either. It probably had a fair bit of modernization during its 60 year working career, and the subsequent “restorations” would have been aimed for showmanship more than meticulous preservation. I’m guessing that is why it is in the auction; museologists looked at it and saw an 1890’s reinterpretation rather than a significant piece of early 19th century technology. The lineage is there but the relationship is distant. Still, it is an interesting piece with actual history that the other replicas do not have.
John
https://news.classiccars.com/historic-rail-locomotives-added-preservation-auction-simeone/
Heated up the link for you…
And the museum raised $400,000 by doing so. Discuss.
why did they sell all this stuff in the first place?
Good for them, it seems everyone came out on top.
M.o.S.&I. got quite a sum of money (Let’s see what they plan to do with it), and it looks like a lot of the exhibits went someplace where they will be looked after and valued. What more could we ask for?
Does anyone know how many of the items auctioned went to museums?
It’s called “deaccessioning.” Many museums have a lot more stuff than they can display, or literally more stuff than they know what to do with, or the focus of the museum changes over the years. Auctioning of the unwanted or unneeded articles is a good way to raise cash and clear space. It’s becoming a fairly common practice now.
As long as they all found good homes i am ok with it. Anyone know where the PRR steam locomotive cab went to?