[PRCo] Re: First outing for Rio 1758

[Fred Schneider]

What you can say in a museum is limited to a very few minutes.   You are correct.  (I wish Derrick's system would let me say you are correct in bold face type, three inches high, in red ink.)

We had an operator at PTM who got in trouble a few years ago by keep his passengers out in the heat at the upper loop while he droned on and on and on.  For sometime afterward we were told not to give speeches.  

You need to inform the public but you need to keep it brief.   Museum operators are there to (1) entertain and (2) educate.

Entertainment is 90%.   Education is 10%.      

Sadly Americans do not take well to the words like education and learning.   That should become evident when we see that the travel channel has become recreated as the gluttony channel.   The learning channel has been redesigned simply TLC and now teaches how to chop up motorcycles.   The history channel has no peer review group because accuracy isn't important; it might better be described the hysterical channel for the amount of green programming they do ... green meaning ghosts and goblins and other things that go bump in the night.   You no longer discover anything on the discovery channel.   Even some of the best shows (means educational) have been dropped from my local PBS station because they received no support in the pledge campaigns.   

A very good friend of mine retired from years of teaching in both high school and university environments.   Ed Lybarger also knows Jim Henwood.   When Jim retired I asked him, "Why did you quit, Jim?"   He said, "I'm old enough.  I'm over 70."   I kept prying.   I said that isn't a satisfactory answer for a person who truly loved teaching like he did.  Then he said, "Well, it's hard standing on a prothesis all day."   He had cancer and one leg was partially amputated.   I looked at Jim and remarked, "Still not a good enough answer Jim.   You can sit on a stool.   You loved teaching.   You were one of those 1 in 10 who truly loved their jobs."   Then he finally gave me the right answer.   He said, "The kids come to school today and expect that we should award them a degree simply because they are paying the tuition."   To paraphrase that, Jim was telling me that kids no longer feel they need to study and work in college, just let daddy write out the checks and I should get a degree.   I told him, "Now I understood the correct reason for retiring."   

The same happens in museums ... trolley museums, railroad museums, presidents' homes, natural history museums ... we come to be entertained, we do not come to learn.   Learning is peripheral today.   You need to sneak it when they do not realize you've been hitting them over the head with some new concept.   

Ed Lybarger has a great New Yorker magazine cartoon on his refrigerator about a family trying to book tickets for a vacation.   He could tell us the exact punchline.  To paraphrase it, the lady is saying to the travel agent, "We want to go away on a tour.   What do you have where we don't have to learn anything?"




On Jun 29, 2010, at 9:33 AM, Dwight Long wrote:

> Fred
> 
> This is all good stuff, and stuff that should be said.  But most of the target audience of PTM, or any other rail museum, (target audience being in this case defined as the 90+% that pay the bills) won't give a rat's ass.  They just want a ride and one that's somewhat different from that which they can get at Kennywood.  That is what I call the "Disneyland" factor of rail museums, and I recognize it as a necessary one.  It must be catered to, or the museum will not continue to exist to support more educational functions such as those of which you speak, or the "curatorially accurate" restorations for which the Donald Currrys of the world strive to achieve.
> 
> Dwight
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: Fred Schneider 
>  To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org 
>  Sent: Monday, 28 June, 2010 16:47
>  Subject: [PRCo] Re: First outing for Rio 1758
> 
> 
>  To follow through with Dennis's statement, "Most of them do not even realize there is a
>  light rail system in Pittsburgh!"  
>  When I started playing at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum about 25 years ago several times a month we had visitors asking if we had any of the red rockets.   A lot of people still remembered those big multipe-unit semi-convertibles that ran down to the shipyards in Sparrows Point until 1950.   Some remembered the non-MU versions running to Ellicott City or on Pennsylvania Avenue.   But most people saw 3828 and thought it was one of Red Rockets.   They really didn't know the difference between a 1906-1918 semi-convertible and a 1902 box car.   It was red and had cane seats.   That is what the public remembers.  They didn't know the subtleties that one was built to run in trains and other was hand-brake city car.   
> 
>  What has happened over the last quarter century?   
> 
>  Well, I've noticed that you need to explain a lot more terms and concepts.   Things which a typical trolley museum visitor understood 25 years ago are totally alien to them today.   Here are some thoughts on what we need to explain.....
> 
>  Railroad versus trolley.   Mothers, dads, children all think of our trolleys (PTM or BSM or another other trolley museum) as choo choos.   Twenty-five years ago most visitors had ridden trolleys.   Most had ridden trains.   They understood the difference.   Today few have ever been on a train, a trolley, a subway, a bus.  The closest thing to mass transit most have been on moves above the clouds.   
> 
>  Buses versus Trolley.   They have no clue that you don't steer the trolley.   That big hand brake wheel must be the steering wheel.
> 
>  Cities.   People do not understand cities today.   Most visitors come from suburbia.   Most city dwellers today do not have the money and an automobile to venture out and look at trolley museums.   The concept of living, working, playing, shopping, going to church all in a tightly restricted area near your home is alien to most people.  The idea of cities and farms are totally foreign to people brought up in post World War II suburbia.   Most have have neither seen a city nor a cow.    I can't even imagine trying to explain to them that route 66 Wilkinsburg via Forbes was a weekday only route that actually ran on certain Sundays that were high religious holidays like Easter because people needed to get to Homewood Cemetery to put flowers on the graves of their departed relatives.   But if 1138 is ever restored to service and I run it on Easter, I would love to roll up the 66 sign just to use it for an explanation.    People today do not know that A&P started as a chain of !
> co!
>   rner stores; hells bells, they never even heard of an A&P anymore because the company has been reduced from 16,000 stores to only 460.   You can't talk about shopping downtown because people do not understand the concept today of city department stores like Gimbels or Hornes or Kauffmans with a footprint covering a whole city block.   (How could anyone accustomed to a two or three floor store in a mall comprehend Wanamakers 12 story Philadelphia store that had display windows both on Market Street as well as facing the PTC subway concourse in the basement?)   To kids accustomed to little screening rooms in multiplex cinemas, how do you explain the Mastbaum Theater in Philadelphia which had seats for 4,717 people, or the Stanley Warner in Pittsburgh (3,800 seats) or the Loews Penn (2676 seats)?   Their grandparents understood.   The people we are seeing in our museums today are clueless.   
> 
>  Air compressor.  Why that must be the engine that makes it run.   You do have to explain the concept of the trolley wire is one prong of plug and the track the other.  This is just like explaining it to people in 1886.   
> 
>  Do you pay to ride?   Sure you pay to ride.   How much?   Well it was a nickel then?   Boy that was cheap.   No, that was expensive.   That is equivalent to about $8 today with inflation.   That is why people began to drive cars because once they bought it, they forgot the first cost until they needed to buy another car.  
> 
>  Why did the trolley go away?   Because we moved into areas so spread out that public transit just cannot serve the people.   We wanted cars.   Of course I can support that with numbers.     
> 
> 
> 
>  On Jun 28, 2010, at 2:29 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:
> 
>> I think the volunteer hours were about 26-27,000 last year, or 13
>> full-timers.
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of Dennis F
>> Cramer
>> Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 1:01 PM
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: First outing for Rio 1758
>> 
>> Decisions are made by the Board of Directors of PTM as to whether a cosmetic
>> or complete restoration is to be done to a car.  The museum needs cars to
>> operate a demonstration railway.  As of this moment, these cars are
>> available to the Operations Department on a day to day basis:
>> 
>> PWCT 78, PST 66, PTC 5326 all double ended cars PTC 2711, PRCo 1711 single
>> ended PCC's
>> 
>> 4398 has not been released and has only been used on special occasions and
>> even then on a limited basis.
>> 
>> 4004 (PCC) is in the back position of the shop as there is no where else to 
>> put it.   Both it and 1711 are really not ideal for hot weather.  I know 
>> people rode them everyday to work, but a casual visitor is not happy with
>> that heat.
>> 
>> We have to put certain cars through a complete restoration so we can rotate
>> the usage.  5326 is well worn.  3756 is beyond well worn.  832 will be back
>> soon, but we always have to be prepared if something happens to any cars in
>> the fleet and things do happen, either by accident or machine failure.  14
>> is a prime example, a complete restoration was done, but mechanical failure
>> has made it inoperable.
>> 
>> As with all museums, it comes down to money.  PTM is lucky to have several
>> benefactors and a great group of dedicated volunteers.  Volunteer hours last
>> year equaled about 26 fulltime employees.  That is not too shabby.
>> 
>> Our typical visitor is a mom with the kids (or grandpa with the grandkids)
>> looking for something to do.  Most of them do not even realize there is a
>> light rail system in Pittsburgh!
>> 
>> 
>>         Dennis F. Cramer
>> http://home.windstream.net/dfc1
>> 
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