Railroad Museums have been struggling with how best to house railroad 
collections for many years.



Railroad cars, while designed to be outside deteriorate quickly unless 
carefully maintained.  They are large objects.



The problem is two fold.  First protecting the railroad equipment, and 
secondly displaying the equipment.  For some years the most common solution 
was a pole barn.  This is an agricultural building consisting of telephone 
poles set into the soil, with commercial roof trusses generally roofed with 
corrugated iron.  Many did not have walls.  If walls were present, they too 
were corrugated iron.  Most of the buildings did not have foundations, had 
dirt floors, and lacked fire protection or climate control.  Telephone poles 
eventually rot.  At least one museum building has burned.



Generally museums closely space the tracks to allow the maximum number of 
cars to be stored, which makes them difficult to see.  It is not an issue 
for operating museums which can pull the cars out on open days, then put 
them away, or for non-public storage of the un-restored, semi derelict cars 
that most museums have.



The common current solution is prefabricated steel buildings on a perimeter 
foundation, increasingly with fire sprinklers.  These are better buildings 
but still have issues as display buildings.



The city of Los Angles build a open sided steel building to house some of 
their railroad collection at Travel Town in Griffith park… It has some nice 
architectural details making it look like a traditional railroad train shed. 
They left enough space between the tracks to allow guests to view the cars. 
The railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has large steel buildings.  Again they 
space the tracks well, placing smaller artifacts there, so the trains are 
visible.  They also have an overhead walkway, and have placed the cars on a 
gentle curve, breaking up the “lines of trains”



There are several museums which have adaptively used historic railroad 
buildings… Particularly the Savannah George museum, housed in an old 
railroad round house and shops, and the Baltimore and Ohio museum, again in 
a roundhouse.  The California State Railroad Museum is in the process of 
developing a second facility in the 1860’s Central Pacific Railroad 
backshops.



There are some railroad specific resources, the Association of Railroad 
Museums (ARM, www.arm.org) and Railway Preservation News, (www.rypn.org)





Randy Hees

Patterson House at Ardenwood Farm

City of Fremont, CA



and occasionally at the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad 
Resources (www.spcrr.org)





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 7:10 AM
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Seeking advice shelter for Railroad Cars


> We are working with another non-profit that runs the Atchison Rail Museum 
> and are seeking some ideas, or how other places have already solved 
> similar problems.
>
> The rail cars, including 1902 Steam Engine, several unique caboose 
> designs, dining and other cars are in an open air setting and beginning to 
> show deterioration - we know we have to do something soon otherwise we 
> will begin to lose these pieces of our railroad heritage.
>
> Has anyone already taken on this problem - designed and built a cover 
> structure to keep railroad cars out of the weather?
> Any advice on this or if you know places that have their rail cars covered 
> that I could seek out information from would be great.
> Also any suggestions on someone who specializes in conserving railcars, 
> old fire equipment, etc.
>
> Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
>
> Chris Taylor
> Executive Director
> Atchison County Historical Society
> P.O. Box 201
> 200 S. 10th Street, Santa Fe Depot
> Atchison, KS 66002
> 913-367-6238
> [log in to unmask]
> www.atchisonhistory.org
>
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