I just went there this past week after several years since my last visit.
Some good news:
NYC Mohawk 2933 has received a nice black coat of paint and awaits only lettering before being moved to a more prominent position. UP Big Boy 4006, which had been looking shabby, is in the process of being repainted. Right side of tender and boiler have received new paint, pilot has been primed. ATSF 5011 and N&W Y6a 2156 are in spectacular condition. That Mopac RS3 looks great. Most everything under cover is in great condition. Still wish Frisco 1522 was running, but she looks regal in the shed.
Some bad news:
SP GS-6 4460 is only partially visible from a viewing platform, and visitors cannot reach the rest of it. Apparently a wonderful looking RS-1 is completely inaccessible to the visitors. A lot of equipment needs repainting and the funds aren’t there. Some genuinely cool locomotives (C&NW Atlantic with Young valves, a 3-cylinder 0-8-0, Camelback(s), GG1) are in bad condition and hidden away.
Overall a great visit, despite the St. Louis humidity. Definitely want to return as soon as possible.
Actually, Firelock makes some sense. While I think all motive power should stay, they’ve got passenger cars to spare. Some cars might be sold to different museums or even some railroads (Black Hills Central come to mind). The Museum can pick and choose what they want to sell to who.
Anyone auctioning any article has the option to set what’s called a “reserve”, that is, a minimum price below which the auctioneer cannot go. If the minimum price isn’t met, the article isn’t sold.
Setting a reserve on their articles would keep the scrap dealers away from the Museum of Transportation’s goodies. And if they’re like any other museum, I’d guess they’ve probably got more stuff than they know what to do with anyway. Turning it into ready cash would make sense.
I should take offense at being called an idiot, but I won’t. I’ve got a thick skin.
But other people don’t my friend, so be careful with what you say, OK?
The point that the Midgester raised is a valid one; it was his tone that was the problem.
What he was saying – and it is a hot topic over on RyPN, the preservationist’s list – is that at today’s high scrap prices, almost anything put up for auction ‘surplus to requirements’ at MOT would get a better bid from scrappers than from… other museums. Or private folks who wanted – what? a coach to make a hunting lodge out of? a boxcar for a storage unit?
For crying out loud, Ozark (I think it was) offered an ex-NYC observation with most of the stainless pieces intact. For $18,000. Nobody bit. We’re seeing a collection in Pemberton being put on the block … note the prices being paid, and who’s doing the high bidding.
What I suspect MOT would do is not set a reserve, but establish conditions on the auction – no scrapping, or sale only to a valid 501(c)(3) museum organization with funds in the bank and good storage location, for example – to ensure the equipment is preserved. But there goes the likelihood of any reasonable ‘returns’ from auction sales, unless you’re selling off something really significant to whoever. Unless history really stops repeating itself, I don’t see much chance that the idea would work.
I would happily be proved wrong. I’d LIKE to be wrong. But I doubt I am.
Museums deacessioning articles seems to be the going thing right now. If you’re strapped for cash you’ve got some hard choices to make. It’s easy to choose between a good choice and a bad choice, not so easy when it’s a bad choice and a worse choice.
The problem rail museums have is they can’t hide the bad stuff or the “we’ll get to it when we can” stuff very easily. If they’re not careful the whole premises can take on the appearance of a junkyard pretty quickly, a major turn-off for any visitors. So, it gets back to the hard choices. The money’s got to be raised one way or another. There’s no easy answer, that’s for certain.
And sometimes you have to face the horrible fact you can’t save everything, sometimes something has to go for the preservation of something else, either more rare or more historic.
By the way, don’t you just love that word “deacession?” Sounds SO much better than “unloading some $#!T!”
Oh, just a few questions on the NYC obs car they coudn’t give away for 18 G’s…
Was it pretty intact, or just a shell? It is Amtrak compatable, i.e. trucks, brakes, electrical systems and so on so it can travel on anyone’s mainline? If so, was the last overhaul pretty recent?
If the answers are “it’s a shell, no, and no overhaul within the past decade or so” then you know why it didn’t sell. A potential buyer’s going to have to sink a lot of money into it to make it so.
Also not mentioned, I think it fair to say virtually every rail museum operation is starving for funding. Even if the surplus item is offered free, any accepting organization will have to somehow cover the cost of transportation to the new location. And that cost is not negligible, probably involving crane rental and freight charges. Once at the new site, the problems of financing restoration and maintenance remain.
As others have already said, you can’t save everything. Sometimes tough choices have to be made. Particularly when there are multiple examples still existing in other museums, the loss of one is not the end of the world. Some pieces were acquired because they were available and donated, and the reality is that they are little more than footnotes to the mainstream railroad story. Far better to focus scarce resources on the really important pieces.
When I was growing up I heard many of my elders opine that this collection “would be best broken up.” Even so, we are all very fortunate the collection still exists. There is no law stating that museums, railroad or otherwise, must be an ongoing concern. The organization had its beginning in the mid-1940s, long before the idea of rail preservation entered the national psyche. (There was still steam locomotives on main lines!) Now seven decades later there are railroad museums in every corner of the country. Paramount is what is best for the individual pieces. Unfortunately they don’t get a say in the matter.
If it were up to me some pieces should be returned to places more germane to their background. One in particular: the PRR P5. The wire never made it to St. Louis.
…and I wish the Milwaukee Road Bi-Polar was back up Washington, Idaho or Montana. Don’t get me wrong, none of those states wanted her back then when she was available, thank goodness St Louis took her.
At the very least I wish she was under cover, all of the pieces for that matter.
Give us 1218 in exchange and we’ll call it even.[:-,]
In all seriousness, I completely understand your point of view. If a large Mopac steamer existed, I’d want it displayed somewhere near where it operated. However, I do enjoy being able to drive 2 hours to enjoy one of the most magnificent pulling machines ever built.
Random foamer moment: if only once UP would let a non-UP steamer on the line to KC for a few miles, it would be amazing to see a 611-2156 meet.
I wish that every time I go there. She’s had a fairly recent repaint, but it is fading. And I’m also afraid she’s not well known here. I was giving an unofficial tour to one of my railfan buddies, who didn’t really have a clue about her. And most of the general public that goes there simply look at it as a train (then again, they do that to everything).
A meet between two great 4-8-4s? Maybe, after streamliners at Spencer, NS might wish to consider Steam at Spencer? Think of it, a gathering of all the “modern” steam power that is operable in North America!
Not really.
Looks like you are trying to appear smart by using some hundred dollar word that you spelled wrong.
Hmmmm, looks like you did spell it wrong, deaccession, same as you did that other trashy word.
To be constructive, perhaps museums should band together to save specific articles. The problem with train museums is that they have outdoor storage tracks. No art museum would just store an extra Picasso in a box outdoors, but train museums have to. It may be heart breaking, but we can’t save everything.
Even if we get things free, moving a car could cost $40K. Just to give you an idea of a budget of a museum, we gross about $300K each year and our fixed expenses run $260K. The $40K then is the money we have for repair and restoration of our running equipment. Do we rebuild a 100 year old triple combine or move another coach from New Jersey? This is the problem – money!
