Madness and Gladness

This year the Virginia Museum of Transportaton celebrates its 45th anniversary. That has sparked my curiosity about the earlier years of VMT history. Since I have only lived in Roanoke a dozen years, I knew little about the Wasena Park era, before the flood of ’85 wreaked its havoc.

Learning about those early days gives a clearer perspective on VMT’s present. For example, a current topic of debate—sparked by the Museum Management Consultants now-infamous report—focuses on whether we should be a transportation or a railroad-only institution. It’s a debate, however, you cannot realistiically have without under­standing how we got to where we are now.

History shows that the museum had a broad transportation focus from day one. The first two items on display (that’s right—we began as a two-piece band) were a N&W loco­motive and a fire truck. Soon the J611 loco was added, followed by more railroad equip­ment, trucks, buses, autos and planes.

One photo I found, obviously taken from the bridge above, shows the museum in the middle of a car show. Rows and rows of shiny automobiles are being prowled by spectators while proud and protective owners stand by their treasures. Southwest Virginia’s love of the car played an important role in museum life even then.

Fast forward to 2008 and you find VMT celebrating the grand opening of its new Advance Auto car gallery, followed two months later by the seventh annual incarnation of that steel and wheels invasion known as Star City Motor Madness. Held the last Friday and Saturday each June, the event turns Roanoke into hot wheels heaven.

“Madness” includes two events: a Friday night cruise on Williamson Road and a Satur­day show downtown. Last year approximately 15,000 cars, trucks and motorcycles gathered for the cruise. The combined events drew over 80,000 people. Two features I find especially appealing are the free admission for spectators and the money raised for VMT (which helped pay for the auto gallery, by the way).

Friday, June 27th (6pm to 10pm) classic and special interest auto­mo­biles, trucks and motorcycles will assemble for a cruise on Roanoke's historic Williamson Road, which still maintains that feel of Rt. 11 when it was this region’s version of Rt. 66. Two locations will be available for cruisers to park and let spectators get up close and personal, with food and entertainment within easy reach.

Saturday, June 28th, 2pm to 7pm, the car/truck/motorcycle show will occupy a large section of downtown Roanoke including Elmwood Park. The featured vehicle this year is the Corvette, and more than 100 of those beauties will shine. The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky will have a display and General Motors will exhibit a prototype of the new Corvette ZR1. Music, special programming and kids’ activities will add to the fun. George Barris, “King of Kustomizers,” will be present.

More is happening than what I have mentioned here. To find it all out, go to http://www.starcitymotormadness.com/ and check out all the details.

It’s easy for train lovers to get tunnel vision over transportation issues and even feel some resentment at the automobile for stealing much of railroads’ glory in the last half of the 20th century. However, our love affair with cars has that same passion for travel, adventure and mechanical power that has stirred railroad enthusiasts for so long. They are both key parts of America’s story, and the current gas cost explosion should heighten our appreciation for each.

To have Motor Madness in Roanoke is exciting, another thrill in a region so rich in transportation heritage.

Trains or "Trans"

What If …?

De bait has been taken and debate has taken off.

The recently publicized report by Museum Management Consultants criticized VMT for being a transportation museum and recommended that it focus solely on railroads. That seems to have stirred as much reaction as anything in the report. Since then others have been weighing in on this issue, here and elsewhere.

“Trans” or trains? Potato or potahto? Is this a critical issue for the organization’s future?

I have some opinions. Some of you are already sharing yours. Before I add my two mashed-flat-on-the-tracks cents’ worth, though, I’d love to hear from more of you, as well as learn more details from those who are already “on record.”

So jump on in and splash around some.

Whaddya think? Should the place remain the Virginia Museum of Transportation or forsake its “official” Commonwealth status and do what it seems to do best? Why?

And if you think VMT should retain its current mission, how could it do the job better? Where should there be nips, tucks or complete overhauls? What should be changed, added, subtracted, or displayed differently? How much should the railroad theme be emphasized versus other modes of transportation?

On the other hand, if you are convinced that planes and cars should be barred and wagons and trucks should be shucked, what would you do with them? Would Roanoke accept such a change after 45 years of hybrid emphasis? Do you think a rails-only attraction would attract as many visitors? And how would you reorganize to create a successful railroad museum? What would you do with trains that is not already being done?

Then there is the geographical issue. Despite the General Assembly’s designation, if it refuses to provide funds, should VMT’s collection be tailored more to this part of Virginia and its unique transportation history? (To a degree, that is already the case with the preponderance of Norfolk & Western materials.) To what extent should the focus be on what Roanokers will support?

Much of this is purely theoretical at this point. Nevertheless, it’s fun to play armchair quarterback, I mean, engineer. Not only that, such a debate serves a valuable function. Whether VMT ever changes its mission, clarifying the answers to such questions can help sharpen the museum’s focus and increase its effectiveness.

At least more people are talking about VMT again. That in itself is progress.

Keeping the Faith

Keeping Secrets and Keeping the Faith
March 10, 2008

The secret is finally out.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation is in trouble. Deep trouble. Museum Management Consultants says so. The newspaper says they say so. The newspaper’s editorial writers say that is so, so troubling.

So?

The press and public comments last week were unfairly harsh. Yes, mistakes have been made and accountability is critical whenever you ask to spend other people’s dough. Given the extenuating circumstances and the dedicated efforts of current staff, however, a little less invective and a little more perspective would have been nice.

Ultimately the press coverage may serve as a blessing by raising public awareness, but it also highlighted a number of myths floating around.

Myth #1: There was a secret. Nobody has tried to keep this information hush-hush. The city commissioned the study. Norfolk Southern Foundation paid for it. VMT welcomed it. Visitors who know the place could see and sense it. It was a secret only to those who have remained out of touch with the place.

Myth #2: VMT’s problems are primarily due to bad management. What happens to any organization when it loses 48% of its budget support? Has to reduce staff to the bone (and remove a few ribs as well)? Changes leadership repeatedly? Has its ability to do marketing and outreach crippled?

Myth #3: The Museum appeals to a very limited audience. Is it just for tiny tots and old railroaders? Is it only a blue-collar museum (as though blue-collar folks aren’t important or can’t appreciate aesthetics)?

Actually, attractions like VMT appeal to a broad cross-section of the population. We Americans like “earthy” history exhibits. We especially like seeing and feeling and smelling the metal, wood and leather of things on wheels. And we love trains, even decades after American railroads passed their zenith.

Myth #4: The Museum decided to sell the Nickel Plate steam locomotive to pay bills. They reluctantly agreed to sell only after they were approached by another tourist organization and after they concluded that this loco, which never ran in Virginia, had little relevance to the mission of VMT.

And due to extraordinary circumstances, on this rare occasion the funds from such a sale were used for operations rather than acquisitions. Frankly, I would rather have an open facility with one less exhibit than a bankrupt and closed attraction with its exhibits intact.

Myth #5: VMT is just another museum—nice but not critical to Roanoke. I wish the reactions of media and public officials had been a little more “we” and less “they.” After all, there is no cultural attraction in Roanoke with the same intrinsic connections to the city as VMT. I appreciate Mill Mountain Theatre, the Roanoke Symphony, the Art and Science Museums. However, none of them relates to Roanoke and southwest Virginia the way those historic exhibits in that historic freight station do.

VMT carries the soul of Roanoke. The railroad transformed a bucolic village into a regional urban center. It put Roanoke on the map. Even now the rush and roar of trains bisect the heart of downtown. I have a stack of books on American railroading piled on my den table right now. In every one of them Roanoke’s growth and accomplishments via the railroad get significant attention.

No one did steam railroading as impressively for as long as the Norfolk and Western. No other railroad built its own locomotives and built them so well that they are still considered among the best ever manufactured more than a half-century later.

Vintage cars and buggies aside, that’s why VMT exists. That’s why the Winston Link Museum came here. Those two, the multi-million dollar Railwalk that connects them, and the continued imposing presence of N&W’s successor are integrated threads of a rich and unique tapestry.

Myth #6: VMT shouldn’t look to donors to rescue it from distress. Why not? It is a wonderful treasure worth saving. However financially successful it may become in the future, current circumstances require big hearts from both government and private parties.

The Museum of Transportation isn’t asking for a marvelous new building, just an adequately-maintained vintage facility. It doesn’t need a $3 million-plus operating budget, just sufficient funding to once again employ an adequate number of professional staff and effectively manage and market its product. It isn’t asking for millions to purchase new exhibits, just enough to restore and protect the irreplaceable pearls of transportation history it already has at its fingertips.

All that VMT’s leadership wants is the means to run a “mainline” operation once again rather than maneuver along a wobbly, rusty and overgrown side track.

That would be so, so …right.

Report Card

When I was a kid, one of my least favorite days was when report cards would be sent home. I was a pretty good student, I'll concede, but I had one of those mothers who liked to nitpick. I once brought home a report card that had five As and one A-minus (I was a nerd). Her first question was, "Couldn't manage another A?"

I say this because we have a report card day coming up. The report from the Museum Management Consultants* is in our hands for final review before it's released into the wild. Because it is still in the review stages, I'm prohibited from speaking about its contents specifically. So we'll speak generally, and all will be clear when the report is made public.

The good news is that there is nothing in the report we didn't already know. We know we're short-staffed, we know we're inadequately funded, and we know that the personnel we have are not true museum professionals with curatorial, archival, or exhibition experience. We know that our building is too large and that our collection is too broad. We'll tell anyone that asks. Shucks, we might just put it on our blog.

The rest of the good news is that the MMC had the wisdom to compare us to museums with similar collections, not museums in a similar region as we had initially feared. Comparing us to the Science Museum of Western Virginia or the Mill Mountain Zoo would be the proverbial apples and oranges comparison, which is rarely more substantial than, "Well, they're both kind of round." Our comparison museums included the North Carolina Transportation Museum, the B&O Railroad Museum, the National Transport Museum in St. Louis, and a few others.

The bad news is that the results, while honest and forthcoming, are not favorable. No sugar-coating bushes or beating around dances here. They represent the good-faith recommendations of a business with more than twenty years of doing exactly this, and doing it with good results. What they presented is a well-rounded summation of what people in the biz call, "screwing stuff up."

When the report becomes public, one of two things will happen: One, the public will take little or no interest in it at all, as is the typical response to news involving the museum; or Two, there will be clamor for changes in leadership, organization, this, that, the other, etc.. Between the Scylla and Charybdis of apathy and antipathy is the best path for us.

All that said, we're not bringing home five As and an A-minus. Sorry, Mom.

*This report was the subject of our blog post that had to be taken down.