It's true that OERM and IRM each have a large collection. But more important is the idea that if properly PRESERVED (stored in barns, somewhat inaccessible and currently unusable or available for display), those parts of their collections will be the seeds that bear real fruit to the generation born in...2073! It doesn't all have to run or look good for OUR generation. That would be great, for sure, but time and money simply are perpetually in short supply. I believe it is far mor important to collect artifacts before they meet the scrapper's torch or the dumpster than to pretty them up and run the wheels off of them.

And probably of greater significance is creating a collection that COHERENTLY portrays a region, company, time in history or other significant railroad or transit influence on our country. Having a street car or locomotive from the east coast coupled up to something from a foreign country or region and dragging it up and down a piece of track out in some western state isn't exactly an enriching fulfillment of museum-quality education.

And what of the research and 'paper' collections? How will that generation in 2073 know what they're looking at or how to explain its use if all that is preserved was a 'hard' artifact? The importance of an efficient, accessible library and research facility is often greatly ignored. Congratulations to the Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Jct. for their library facility! It may not have all the bells and whistles that everyone wants, and may be occasionally understaffed, but at least it was built!

Any organization that exists to save a piece of history will seldom have any easy answers when people make policy that goes against other's opinions. I can't comment on CSRM from personal experience, but it seems reasonable to assume that a body that is fed by the hand of the public will often be steered by politics. 80-hour training for docents may be a requirement imposed by an entity that feels that some need must be met, and that is the avenue they chose. It may acutally be a little-known requirement that ALL staff must be docent-certified in order to assure the Musesum puts its best face forward in an unusual situation.

Feel fortunate that the training exists! I know of no other organization that does that. Most are staffed by retirees filling in the blanks of history with their occasionally incorrect memory and sometimes boarding house public manners.