[PRCo] OERM

[Fred Schneider]

Remember the Wrecks of Perris piece that Vane Jones published many years ago in Traction and Models?   I think we all had our doubts at that time that the museum would ever amount to anything.
Well, last Saturday, I paid my fourth or fifth visit to Orange Empire Railway Museum, nee O. E. Trolley Museum.   

Like PTM, the learned that events are what bring in the gold.   

The event this last Saturday was an antique car meet.   Californians love their automobiles.   Mein Gott.   It was like walking into an AACA meet at Hershey.  All sorts of things from 1950s and 1960s restored cars back to a factory recreation of a 1930s Mercedes Benz cabriolet that was built for Eva Braun.   In addition there were r impersonators performing popular music from the 1960s.   If the cars weren't enough, they were offering Elvis Presley and the Beetles.   Once in a while a diesel passenger train, a Pacific Electric Blimp or a Los Angeles Railway narrow gauge car offered rides for those who cared.   Of yes, I did get a chance to see my old friend Dave Garcia.   John Smatlak was kind enough to show me around the property.

OERM has recently finished its own "Blimp Hanger" (my use of PTM's term which I think is more applicable in a museum which preserved cars known as Blimps), which has resulted in placing all the railway equipment under roof.   It was paid off by selling some cars to Muni and some back to Vancouver and using that money as matching funds.   Note that I carefully said all the railway equipment.   The bus and trolley buses are still outside.   I am not sure what is happen with them ... there is one person on the blind carbon list who could answer if he chooses but I didn't wish to disclose his name.   If he chooses to answer, I'll forward.   

I looked at the building that houses the Ward Kimball (Grizzly Flats Railroad) collection and asked if Kimball gave them the money to house his narrow gauge equipment.   Answer?   He gave them Disney stock and took the tax deduction for the stock.   The museum liquidated the stock to pay for the building.   

The downside?   Several local sheriff's deputies were running around trying to figure out who was spraying graffiti into the toilets while I was there.