Re: RTM 19th Century Treasures

["Robert Lee" <robsl@ozemail.com.au>]

>In general I agree.
>
>> I know no organisation anywhere in the world, not even the best funded
and
>> most professional, that do both effectively. Does anyone??
>
>The Ffestiniog (Wales), Crich Tramway Museum (England), the Illinois
>Railway Museum (USA), Seashore Trolley Museum (USA), and Orange Empire
>Electric Railway Museum (USA), the Sydney Tram Museum and the AETM in
>Adelaide are a few that spring readily to mind which maintain
>representative collections in good condition and operate a significant
>number of the "exhibits" over at least several kilometers of trackage.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Bill


Thanks Bill for this point. Note, though, that these are nearly all electric
traction museums and mostly tram museums. Seashore has a far larger
collection than it can handle too. Crich and Loftus are frankly brilliant.
I'm just full of admiration for their achievement, and all done with so
little. Crich also has a superb library, about the best there is on urban
transit, so it's a real centre of excellence on research as well as
artefacts. Pity it's in the middle of nowhere (well Derbyshire anyway),
Loftus sure has a great location.

I can't really agree, though, that Ffestiniog is a museum. Sure they have
some old equipment, but operations very much rule the roost there. And the
old cars and locos are not on display. You can go to Boston Lodge, introduce
yourself and have a look at it, but that is strictly for the cognoscenti
like the esteemed subscribers to this newsgroup. It's not a public museum.
And even their oldest locos are oil-burners now for perfectly good
operational reasons. That's running a railway well, but not being a good
museum. There is a tension there! Ffestiniog always say that they are a real
railway, not a museum, so their operations are heritage operations, but need
to be real operations at the same time. To my mind that's fair enough. Most
of the coaches they use have been built over the past 20 years as well,
which is good from the point of view of the numerous passengers, as the old
timber stock, pretty as it is to look at, is horrible to ride.