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Re: I think the writing is on the wall for many collections?
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 07-02-2015 - 11:52
>Many of these organizations are or have been poorly managed, with disparate and unfocused missions, or missions that are unobtainable with the resources available.
More than true.
>Lack of business plans,
Keep in mind that a "business plan" did not lead to the invention of the transistor, which eventually brought us the computers you and I are using at the moment to conduct this discussion. Don't short-change initiative, inventiveness, and serendipity nor forget that bureaucracy all too often smothers them all.
> with disparate and unfocused missions,
The "mission" is what the active members are interested in. If it isn't, there won't be much of a museum.
> . . . missions that are unobtainable with the resources available.
This is a big problem, which has lead to all too many one-wheel RR museums with their single car length of track.
>Many of these do not own a permanent facility, either.
Obtain ownership of your physical plant, or you're living on borrowed time on extremely thin ice.
>Many of these groups will fail in the next decade as the current leadership dies off, if they have failed to develop and empower a new generation of leadership.
There are two broad categories of railfans: workers, the "dirty shirts", who like to work on rr equipment and take the initiative to built a museum; and the armchair types, the "clean shirts", who look upon RRs primarily as entertainment (fan trips) and engage in activities which aren't physically strenuous nor dirty (collecting timetables and photographs). The clean shirts can't be bothered with "participating" in an rr museum until the dirty shirts have built something, and then they try to waltz in to take over (where they display a distinct tendency to pontificate from their overstufffed board of director's chairs). The two groups can complement each other, but they have to make a conscious effort to do so. If they don't, no more museum, especially if the dirty shirts become estranged and leave.
>The controversies over Feather River, Niles, and GGRM are an examples of this problem among RR museums and collections.
Unstated in most of the threads about these places is the "Cult of the Personality" which develops among the entrenched leadership. From what my spies tell me, there is a large "museum" out in the sticks of rural Northern California which has a really bad case of this at the moment.
>Many of these groups need to merge, since they don't or shortly won't have the resources or personnel necessary to maintain or operate these collections.
This is my opinion, but GGRM should do this with PLA and forget about Santa Cruz. It they go to Santa Cruz, they will wind up being shut out from their own equipment.
>Several of these collections will need new homes, and new relationships with the agencies that own and operate the lines they operate on, or reside on.
My understanding of PLA's situation is that Alameda County is the designated custodian of the former SP Niles Sub under the "Rails to Trails" act (the right-of-way banking act). The custodian is just that: a caretaker, not an "owner". PLA has an agreement with the county to build and operate its RR on a section of this R/W (IOW, PLA owns its track but not the land it sits on). WRM's situation is precisely the same with the exception that it's the designated custodian of the former SN line between Cannon and Montezuma. It bought (and owns) the railroad which is on the R/W for which it's caretaker.
In both cases the organizations stand to loose everything they've built and installed on these R/Ws because any rail operator can come along and file a certificate of need to re-open the R/W as a railroad. Re-opening a former R/W from a rails to trails is a long, drawn-out process, and if successful, the custodian of the R/W loses custodianship of it (PLA and WRM would be compensated for their investments in track etc.). This is much less likely to happen at WRM than PLA because the SN R/W doesn't go anywhere desirable commercially the way the former SP Niles line does.
>Factions of old geezers whining about the other factions of old geezers is not conducive to that relationship building.
This is what lead to the demise of the Ohio Railway Museum, although I understand a new generation is trying to make a comeback.
More than true.
>Lack of business plans,
Keep in mind that a "business plan" did not lead to the invention of the transistor, which eventually brought us the computers you and I are using at the moment to conduct this discussion. Don't short-change initiative, inventiveness, and serendipity nor forget that bureaucracy all too often smothers them all.
> with disparate and unfocused missions,
The "mission" is what the active members are interested in. If it isn't, there won't be much of a museum.
> . . . missions that are unobtainable with the resources available.
This is a big problem, which has lead to all too many one-wheel RR museums with their single car length of track.
>Many of these do not own a permanent facility, either.
Obtain ownership of your physical plant, or you're living on borrowed time on extremely thin ice.
>Many of these groups will fail in the next decade as the current leadership dies off, if they have failed to develop and empower a new generation of leadership.
There are two broad categories of railfans: workers, the "dirty shirts", who like to work on rr equipment and take the initiative to built a museum; and the armchair types, the "clean shirts", who look upon RRs primarily as entertainment (fan trips) and engage in activities which aren't physically strenuous nor dirty (collecting timetables and photographs). The clean shirts can't be bothered with "participating" in an rr museum until the dirty shirts have built something, and then they try to waltz in to take over (where they display a distinct tendency to pontificate from their overstufffed board of director's chairs). The two groups can complement each other, but they have to make a conscious effort to do so. If they don't, no more museum, especially if the dirty shirts become estranged and leave.
>The controversies over Feather River, Niles, and GGRM are an examples of this problem among RR museums and collections.
Unstated in most of the threads about these places is the "Cult of the Personality" which develops among the entrenched leadership. From what my spies tell me, there is a large "museum" out in the sticks of rural Northern California which has a really bad case of this at the moment.
>Many of these groups need to merge, since they don't or shortly won't have the resources or personnel necessary to maintain or operate these collections.
This is my opinion, but GGRM should do this with PLA and forget about Santa Cruz. It they go to Santa Cruz, they will wind up being shut out from their own equipment.
>Several of these collections will need new homes, and new relationships with the agencies that own and operate the lines they operate on, or reside on.
My understanding of PLA's situation is that Alameda County is the designated custodian of the former SP Niles Sub under the "Rails to Trails" act (the right-of-way banking act). The custodian is just that: a caretaker, not an "owner". PLA has an agreement with the county to build and operate its RR on a section of this R/W (IOW, PLA owns its track but not the land it sits on). WRM's situation is precisely the same with the exception that it's the designated custodian of the former SN line between Cannon and Montezuma. It bought (and owns) the railroad which is on the R/W for which it's caretaker.
In both cases the organizations stand to loose everything they've built and installed on these R/Ws because any rail operator can come along and file a certificate of need to re-open the R/W as a railroad. Re-opening a former R/W from a rails to trails is a long, drawn-out process, and if successful, the custodian of the R/W loses custodianship of it (PLA and WRM would be compensated for their investments in track etc.). This is much less likely to happen at WRM than PLA because the SN R/W doesn't go anywhere desirable commercially the way the former SP Niles line does.
>Factions of old geezers whining about the other factions of old geezers is not conducive to that relationship building.
This is what lead to the demise of the Ohio Railway Museum, although I understand a new generation is trying to make a comeback.
