Earlier this month, there was a thread on the conditional acquisition of two more Sacramento Shop buildings by the California State Railroad Museum. One post pointed to an article in the Bee, which said in part

Quote:

The red brick-erecting shop also will be transferred to the parks department, but not until it raises the money to rehabilitate the shell of the building and pay for 25 percent of the exhibits planned in the new museum, Steinberg said.
The department will have to raise the money in three years or lose the erecting shop, unless Thomas Enterprises fails to deliver streets, sewers, utilities and other improvements in that time. If such necessities are delayed, state parks gets more time.

"It's not fair to hold the museum to a deadline when people can't get to it or there are no water or electric lines to it," Jones said.

Both parties have agreed to hire an independent consulting firm to determine what should be in the museum and how much it will cost to create.

This appears to be related to the efforts of Charlie Getz to bring exhibits from the Narrow Gauge Preservation Foundation and the National Model Railroad Association Howell Day Muzeum into one of these buildings. Does anyone have more information on the status or credibility of Getz's effort? Is there an assumption that the NGPF and NMRA will also bring money to this party? It looks like the CSRM Foundation will need money, and the other player or players won't be able to come in without an entry fee of some sort. I spoke with one of the principals in the NGPF, and it seems as if he expects more fundraising will be needed, and I suspect not of the "everyone send in a check for $20" variety.

Does anyone have more info on this? I would assume that the actual cost of bringing the buildings up to an acceptable standard -- pretty, OSHA, computer-friendly, earthquake safe -- would not be nominal. Are these folks thinking realistically?