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.

Big doin's

The Roanoke City Council voted unanimously to give the Nickel Plate Locomotive #763 to us. This kick-starts the chain of events involved in making the sale finally happen. The Ohio Central Railroad Historical Society will pay us once we have written confirmation that Norfolk Southern will move the engine for them. With all of that in place, #763 will pull out of Roanoke for the first time in about forty years.

Meanwhile, the Advance Auto Parts Auto Gallery is nearing completion. The museum will be closing to the public this Sunday, April 22nd, to host a private event for Advance's team members in honor of Advance's 75th anniversary. After that, the gallery will open the following week. We're not sure when the grand opening will be as there's still a lot of work to do, but the public will have access before the month is out. How wild is that?! And it's only seven months late... pesky storms.

On a slightly personal note, this blogger just returned from a trip to the Museum Store Association Conference and Expo in Denver, Colorado. Coming out of the contacts made and research done there, look for a unique product line to be introduced this fall in VMT's store, Destinations. These items won't be available anywhere else, so be sure to check back for more information.

Finally (ah... finally), the museum may be acquiring a U.S. Army Cobra helicopter for display outside the museum. The hope is to place it about twenty feet in the air in front of the building with its running lights on to attract attention. Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, we can't keep the rotor running. One flock of birds with bad depth perception and we've got a mess.

Stay tuned for more, and some pictures of our fearless leader trying to operate a Zamboni machine in a shirt and tie!

763

There was a good deal of discussion when it was announced that we were going to sell the Nickel Plate locomotive, No. 763 to the Ohio Central Railroad Historical Society (no direct link available). We received positive and negative feedback, but the reasoning behind the decision seems to have been lost amid nostalgia and passion. We'd like to explain why we chose to sell this piece of the collection, and how it will benefit you, our patrons.

To start, we need to clear up that we, the museum, cannot actually sell this particular locomotive. It doesn't belong to us. Rather, it belongs to the City of Roanoke, having been gifted to the city by Norfolk & Western in the 1960s when this museum was the Roanoke Transportation Museum. At no point has the Virginia Museum of Transportation ever owned this locomotive, and as such, its sale must ultimately be made by the city, not us.

On down the rabbit hole, this locomotive in no way furthers the mission of VMT. What is our mission, you ask? It is:

To preserve and interpret the transportation heritage of the Commonwealth by collecting, restoring and exhibiting significant artifacts in order to serve and educate the citizens of Virginia.

That's it. So why doesn't #763 add to this? #763 never ran one foot within the borders of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It came here purely by chance when Norfolk & Western acquired the Nickel Plate line. As diesels were replacing steam engines, there was no need for this piece, but it would be bad politics to simply scrap it. So, it went to the City of Roanoke, home of Norfolk & Western's headquarters at the time. The city stuck it in our back yard, where it's been quite literally through hell and high water.

Ok, now for the ugly part -- money. The American Association of Museums (AAM) contends that it is in bad form to sell any piece of a museum's collection unless the money from the sale directly benefits the collection through restoration or the purchase of another piece. Well, we can't really argue that fact. As mentioned above, the City of Roanoke would receive the money, and it would be at their discretion to allocate it to VMT or not. Assuming they would, the money would at least partially go toward the collection. There's more to it, though.

It has not been made clear quite how dire things have been for VMT financially. In a year that saw the roof torn off the building like wrapping paper on Christmas morning, the state cut our funding by nearly 60%, and the City of Roanoke which owns more than 40% of our collection, gave us a mere $52,000 (representing about a 5% cut from the previous year). The sale of #763 for $125,000, to be blunt, keeps our doors open.

If we want to adhere strictly to the AAM's guideline about the application of money from the sale, then no, it isn't all going where it should. To that, we can only say this:

If we are closed, the pieces in our collection will deteriorate more than they would when we are open.

Period. Do we have a full-time restoration team? No. Could we afford one if we did? Probably not. Would the sale of #763 allow for that? You better believe it would. It would also pay for us to offer educational programs to schools and community organizations, it would go toward restoring and preserving the pieces of our collection, and it would enable us to exhibit better the artifacts we already have. All of these things are 100% in line with our mission statement.

It is undeniable that #763 has a special place in the heart for a lot of Roanokers and Virginia rail fans alike. The decision to sell the locomotive is not meant in any way to belittle or demean this sentiment. Rather, the opposite is true. The Ohio Central Railroad Historical Society has both the money and the ability to restore #763 to operating condition. Upon doing so, it will run excursions in Ohio, providing an unforgettable and meaningful experience to the citizens of Ohio, the engine's true home.

We hope that you'll come to see #763 one last time before it leaves Roanoke. It had a long history here, and will leave amid tears and celebration. But its sale helps us do our jobs, and our jobs make your experiences here better.