Here's a perspective to think about:

I have a seven year old son. He LOVES trains. We get out to see trains as much as possible. He talks about going to various train museums - at one museum about 100 miles away from home, we spent probably a good 90 minutes or so there - despite the museum having just TWO display cars - it was almost entirely outdoors. But it had an engaging staff who knew how to keep the kids (him and a friend) entertained. He wants to go back.

Closer to home, there is also a "museum". It is a "museum" in name only; it has no physical property that one would commonly call a "museum". It does have a facility - it is closed to the public. Every now and then there's some posting on here or other forums of some V.I.P. group that gains access and gets to tour the "museum". But not my seven year old son.

Yet, these same groups clamor about how much money they need, how many volunteers they need... The public message is essentially "We want your money, we just don't want you - unless you fall within our criteria."

Sure, that smaller museum...they might not have an OPERATING steam locomotive, but they have a steam locomotive that is slowly being restored. They have visitors, public interest, and some nicely restored artifacts. They tell a story. And my son wants to visit it again and again. My son loves to check out a number of display steam locomotives where the cab is open and pretend that he works for the railroad. (One such locomotive is at another, non-railroad museum locally.)

The more well-known "museum"...well, we can see it's prized artifact once a year - along with, of course, hundreds of other people at the same time, and behind a chain link fence. What is the story told? What is the interest? How do the young kids who love trains get to truly experience it?

Unfortunately there are some good groups out there - that are just too far for me. One about 150 miles to the north. Another, about 300 miles to the east. There's one about 75 miles to the west whose President was kind enough to send me an e-mail that was, well, less than polite (over the use of exactly one word in a post I put to a message forum, and then basically admonishing me from ever posting anything at all because I didn't own a steam locomotive.) But it is hard to have encouragement and support for a "museum" that restricts access to its collection to but a few self-appointed V.I.P. groups over the public. My charitable budget is not exactly huge but I do make a point to donate some dollars throughout the year -- I do look for organizations that have something to show for the money. As a result, most of my donations have gone to non-railroad causes (an animal shelter, a children's hospital, and an energy assistance organization - of course it helps that I work for the power company, so I see the results of my donation every day when I speak to the customers and recipients of said assistance.)

As for that group...this year we skipped the train ride. My son got far more out of the speeder ride than on the train. It goes to show that while the adults might think "bigger is better" (you can insert your own joke here), the kids aren't as picky. My son doesn't care if it's an 0-4-0T or a AC-12 4-8-8-2. And speaking of which, there is another museum, about 175 miles away - not even a single locomotive (diesel or steam) but my son visited there a few years ago and was just amazed as to what they did have. A little known museum, no publicity (not even a website), but to a kid it was still an awesome collection of real trains he could walk around and climb inside. It's that, coupled with some childhood imagination, that introduces kids to the hobby and the interest, versus some one-off experience that can't readily be repeated.