A Train Buff at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
Posted by Steven J. Peitzman on 09/08 at 02:13 PM
I’m a train buff. I usually express this in terms of an interest in the social and technical history of railroads, and although that’s valid, if fact I love steam locomotives. I’ve even acquired some fondness for the early generation diesels. Aside from riding Amtrak and other trains whenever feasible (and sometimes when hardly that), and some reading, my main buffing occurs at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, where as a member of its “Friends” I serve as a volunteer docent (though we don’t much use that word). This Museum, the largest in the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) system, sits amidst cornfields just east of Strasburg in the Lancaster County Amish region. It was placed there to adjoin the Strasburg Railroad, an early and premier steam tourist short-line; and of course for better or worse the Amish area has long been a destination for visitors.
The Railroad Musuem collects and interprets the substantial railroad history of the Commonwealth, whose ports and centers of manufacturing, coal mining, agriculture, and lumbering were connected to each other and everywhere else by railroads, including the Pennsylvania, once the nation’s largest corporation, and the Reading Company, a giant of the anthracite era. Occupying an immense segment of Philadelphia north of City Hall, the Baldwin Locomotive Works once built more steam locomotives than any other firm, and shipped them all over the world. SEPTA trains to this day still run on the right of way of the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad, founded in the 1830s and one of the nation’s earliest. And I could go on.
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is among the best in the United States. The enormous collection comprises all things railroad as long as they claim some tie with Pennsylvania--objects ranging from conductors’ ticket punches to the magisterial GG1 electric locomotive which weighs about 240 tons (we have two on site, one being “Old Rivets,” the 1935 prototype). An interactive Education Center enhances a visit, and a gallery on the second floor allows for changing exhibits, such as the current one on trains in the movies. A good library and archives are open to researchers, and almost all artifacts as well as paper materials are catalogued on-line. We are very close to final approval for membership in the prestigious Association of American Musuems, which would be a first for a railroad collection. Unfortunately, our Director was recently and suddenly transferred to the PHMC offices in Harrisburg; presumably this has something to do with the budget crisis, but member of the Friends were told very little in a terse letter.
The professional staff and volunteers from the Friends get along reasonably well, and in addition to helping with interpretation, restoration, and archival work, the organization carries out considerable fund-raising. I drive out to the Museum (ironic and irksome, but there’s no way to get there by train) about every other Sunday from late Spring through early autumn. I conduct tours or interpret in the cab of one of the steam or diesel locomotives or in a caboose, or sometimes just wander around the rolling stock hall or outside yard, answering questions and telling visitors not to walk on the rails (real railroaders of course do not do this, and every now and then someone flutters and falls).
Other than other rail buffs, why would someone visit a railroad museum? To many Americans, railroads seem part of the past, and in this case a not very interesting past. An association, if any, often will be that grandfather worked for the railroads, though which one is often unknown. A small minority of visitors are not even aware that trains still run in America; and few know that despite the dominance of trucking, trains still carry huge amounts of coal (to make electricity), ore, grain, plastic pellets, automobiles and their parts, corn syrup (to make obesity), and—in containers relayed from ships—a great deal of that which we consumers consume, clothes and gadgets largely made in China.
When I volunteer on Sunday afternoons, family groups constitute most visitors. With each set of parents one typically sees a five- or six-year old little boy, and bored sisters. There has long been an attraction of trains for children, especially boys, and of course we think of toy trains and Christmas. This linkage of childhood and colorful moving objects on tracks in recent years has been expanded by the “Thomas the Tank Engine” television show, toys, books etc., and also the “Polar Express.” And so, at least on Sundays, parents bring children to the Railroad Museum, and some of the six-year olds are surprisingly knowledgeable. For those even younger, however, the open cab of one of our steam locomotive serves mainly as a sort of playground. That’s OK—the hundred-year old engine is in this regard largely indestructible (we have many steam engines, but only one can open to visitors). All of us at the Museum want children to come and have a good time. We’d also like them, and the adults, to learn something.
Some of the parents, and not only the dads, seem open to factual explanations and clearly show fascination with the workings of the archaic behemoths. But for most, they are there for the children. This leads me to wonder to what extent in the current American mind-set museums (other than art museums) are thought of as mainly places to take children? Of course we have adult visitors without offspring, and not all are railroaders or rail enthusiasts. We receive bus loads of retired folk with commendable curiosity. But the Museum is seen as a place to take kids, as is the neighboring Strasburg Railroad. On thinking back to my own childhood, I have to admit that I cannot now imagine my parents going to a museum on their own—such a visit even then, at least for some parents, seemed a part of child-rearing. Obviously, a transportation or science museum must aim its offerings at both children and adults, not a simple process. The individual locomotive docent, such as me, must try to simultaneously sit the five-year old on the engineman’s seat and coo a bit, while (at least I do) making some effort to inject some quick bytes of information to the parents. Few opportunities arise for discussing something more conceptual, such as the meaning to the railroad workers of the rapid switch from steam to diesels. The tours I’ve written and enjoy conducting rarely find an audience, since they are clearly inappropriate for the small ones (though, oddly, five or six years they did succeed).
Finally, and not surprisingly to anyone, the visit to the Railroad Museum now more than ever translates into family photo opportunities, the child looking out the locomotive cab window (“say cheese”). This was always the case, but the imperative has risen to an insane intensity with the advent of digital cameras with their limitlessness. I don’t wish to sound too mean-spirited about all this—clearly at the museum we want the children, the families, and we have to want what they want. But I do sometimes bemoan that the photo often seems more important than some actual experience.