I was a member of a certain museum in CA for 8 years and I was much more interested in working than "running" the trains. Right off the bat I realized there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians and those of us who volunteered REAL labor were often treated like paid ones, which I found to be incomprehensible. Over time I organized some of the first work parties at this so-called museum and people were ready to come out of the wood work to put in time and yet after a while they too wore out from the leadership's lack of support and yet ready ability to criticize and “put down”. I finally wore out, along with many others, and said I was done, but much of my work still lives on even after 18 years of being away.

It just seems to be the nature of railfans to be dysfunctional (I do include myself in on this) and the reason we have earned the moniker of "foamer" by the professional rail folks just may be the key to it all. We live in our own little worlds, which, lets face it, most of the rest of the world doesn't comprehend. We are obsessed with a hobby which doesn't fit all that well with the general public i.e. sitting for hours beside a track waiting for a one minute opportunity to photograph something....memorizing amazing stats on locomotives and box cars and god knows what that no one else could give a damn about (including me)… camping next to tracks....sitting in a stuffy auditorium for 10 hours watching slide shows of trains.... listening to scanners endlessly all day and all night....talking and bashing rail museums, other foamers, paint schemes, font styles and slamming this railroad and that railroad and wishing for the old days and yet forgetting how we bashed the railroads in the old days (remember when SP was dissed at Winterail and now we applaud anything SP?) And aren’t we always amazed that someone actually has a long term girlfriend/wife that will put up with our hobby (doesn’t say much for her huh? LOL)

So add this dysfunctional gene pool to the "leadership" of a museum and you end up with no talent to reinforce volunteers and who are incapable of creating a welcoming environment to anyone new. And, sadly, those "leaders" probably couldn't hold down a decent job let alone be in charge of anything in the private sector and because they can't hold a job they have the time to be at the museums and eventually take over when there is a vacuum to be filled and slowly but surely drive away willing volunteers who eventually tire of the toxic environment created by these "heads of state".

We're all odd duck prima donnas in our own ways, but properly nurtured I feel we can make or break museums. I have yet to see one museum realistically look at itself and wonder why the heck things aren't getting done and why memberships are declining. Oh I know that we're “dying” off but I think that’s just a silly excuse - we’re hardly welcoming to any of the younger folks out there. And when the older folks are hogging the right hand seats, and say it will take years to earn the “right” to sit in it, then they need to face the fact that museums are a threatened species.