[PRCo] Re: Railway museum slipping off the tracks | The Columbus Dispatch

[John Swindler]

I believe the Kansas City birney 1545 and the Detroit Peter Witt car have migrated elsewhere.  And there is 067 that migrated to PTM.  ORM is but one of several museums that make me thankful for the course steered by the local PTM people over the years.  
 
Cheers
John 
 
 

 
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Railway museum slipping off the tracks | The Columbus Dispatch
> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 21:30:49 -0400
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> 
> For God's sake, Dennis, I hope we don't feel a compulsion to acquire any of their junk. 
> 
> Forty or more years ago they had a strong membership base interested trolleys. They took two carbodies that were sheds, chicken coups or outbuildings and restored them. One was a Columbus, Delaware and Marion Red Bird built by ACF in the middle 1920s. Fabulous job. The other was a mid 1920s Columbus, Ohio streetcar. Those were great restoration efforts. They also had (still do have) an Illinois Terminal PCC. They also had a C&LE Red Devil, brought back from Crandic and restored. Look great. 
> 
> Then the steam types took over and the trolley guys left. All the work that went into the property in the 1960s and 1970s evaporated. The restored cars rusted. You can totally restore a streetcar, then put it out in the weather for 40 years and it looks like &^%$. Those restored cars need a transfusion of a few hundred thousand dollars each all over again. 
> 
> They also have an Erie gas-electric car. It also looks today like something that was expelled from the rear of a passing horse. The N&W steam engine they were running in the 1950s is a bucket of rust today and incapable of being operated. 
> 
> I made a quick inspection of the property the morning of that day you qualified me on 4398. It's not worth the investment to bring it back to life. What they have today is like trying to revive the 100 year old man that just had a heart attack and has all his arteries plugged with cholesterol. It isn't a museum; to quote the guide book that reviewed Seashore some years ago, "it's a junk yard masquerading as a museum." But it makes Seashore look like a supreme effort. Worthington actually looks like a junkyard behind a hurricane fence. You actually look for the dog but that would cost money to feed. 
> 
> The Cynic
> 
> 
> On Sep 9, 2010, at 6:55 AM, Dennis F Cramer wrote:
> 
> > http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/08/worthington-museum-slipping-off-the-tracks.html?sid=101
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > DF Cramer
> > 
> 
> 
>