Full Version: Please help save a museum!
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In short, due to constant battles between the museum and the local government (the mayor of which has been seeking to press the museum out of town for a while now), the museum trust has been evicted from the site. They are given an unrealistically short time to do something about the railroad, and an equally unrealistic date (in a matter of a few weeks) to remove all the trains if the terms can't be reached.

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The museum is housed in an old PRR station on what was once Pennsy's "Back road" to New York City. Inside are several rail and local related artifacts. In addtion, the museum owns several historic and rare pieces of equipment, such as a PRR N5C and NX23 cabin car, a pair of GE switchers and some rolling stock from the Roebling Steel plant, a 1928 tidewater tank car, a Rock Island PS-1 Boxcar, a former LV hopper and a CNJ wood caboose (which my troop and i rebuilt the walls to).

The museum also maintains the local rails to trails paths.

The equipment is in rough shape, but much progress has been made in terms of laying track and renovating the station itself.

If you want to help, PM me and i'll give you the details. Hopefully, we can get together enough opposition that we may be able to overturn the tide. Needless to say, I've put in quite a few hours in this place, and thats nothing compared to what the regular staff do on a weekly basis. The last thing i want to see is all this work go into oblivion.

Thanks for your support,
Chris
Hmmm... sounds like some personalities are getting in the way of moving forward with the museum, although a transfer to the county level seems promising.

Good luck!

Andrew
I hope things work out to save this museum.On a related note,I read in the morning paper that the Montreal Railroad Modeller's Assosciation located in Montreal's historic Griffintown neighbourhood will also be closing after 38 years---it is believed to be Canada's largest fully operational model railway.I've never been there but it must be a beautiful layout---if any members live in the area,it may be your last chance to see this layout
cn nutbar Wrote:I hope things work out to save this museum.On a related note,I read in the morning paper that the Montreal Railroad Modeller's Assosciation located in Montreal's historic Griffintown neighbourhood will also be closing after 38 years---it is believed to be Canada's largest fully operational model railway.I've never been there but it must be a beautiful layout---if any members live in the area,it may be your last chance to see this layout


I have been, and it is definitely worth the drive - even from Southern Ontario. I will be in Montreal next week - thanks for the reminder to call them again.

My write-up about AMFM (Association des Modelistes Ferroviaire de Montreal) was in the Gauge newsletter (see page 6&7):
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The club's website is here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.canadacentral.org/Bienvenue_EN.htm">http://www.canadacentral.org/Bienvenue_EN.htm</a><!-- m -->


Andrew
Andrew, an article from the Hamilton Spectator (with video): http://www.thespec.com/news/canada/artic...dismantled. Chris, I certainly hope some accommodation can be reached - politics and budget priorities being as contentious as they are now. Money is tight, egos get bruised...but, once this stuff is lost, it's gone forever.
Chris,

Your cause is a noble one and I shudder to think that one person has that kind of authority and short-sightedness to be able to pull the plug. I'm guessing that some 90% of the members here would be willing to jump in and help given the chance and ability. Your main problem with that is location. I live in Arizona, a good 2500 miles away and I'm relatively close compared to other folks. Is it possible that we could help being so far away? If so, let us know what we can do. It's sickening to see yet another piece of history being threatened. There's got to be more to this than his dislike for the appearance of a "distraction". Someone with a soul would help organize a campaign to get things moving along to make this a showplace. I'm betting that shortly, we'll find the station is torn down and replaced by yet another Walgreen's, Denny's or a mega-screen theater, and the mayor will be driving around in a brand new BMW that he found in his driveway when he got back from his vacation in Hawaii.
Sounds like the museum staff needs to mount a media campaign against the perpetrator.
The best thing you can do if you are interested is to send me a PM, so i can give you the emails of the township council, from which you can appeal to them to reconsider evicting the railroad museum. So far, all hope is not lost, but i don't want to just post people's emails directly onto the forums.

If you DO live geographically close to southern New Jersey, then the best thing would be to show up! the township municipal building can easily be accessed from I-295 (exit 40, Route 38) and then driving east down route 38 to Pemberton. the building is addressed at 500 Pemberton-Browns Mills Rd, Pemberton, NJ, 08068-1539. This is across the street from the large Pemberton Campus of Burlington County College. Route 38 merges into this road, and its about two lights down from the merge.

Alternatively, the NJ turnpike could be taken to exit 5, and then taking Route 541 to the Mt. Holly Bypass, which goes straight to route 38.

Thanks for the support guys!
Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:The best thing you can do if you are interested is to send me a PM, so i can give you the emails of the township council, from which you can appeal to them to reconsider evicting the railroad museum. So far, all hope is not lost, but i don't want to just post people's emails directly onto the forums.

You could post any publicly available email, like the one for the mayor, or a contact email for the museum that might appear on their respective web pages. Or post a link to their "contact" pages.


Andrew
MasonJar Wrote:
Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:The best thing you can do if you are interested is to send me a PM, so i can give you the emails of the township council, from which you can appeal to them to reconsider evicting the railroad museum. So far, all hope is not lost, but i don't want to just post people's emails directly onto the forums.

You could post any publicly available email, like the one for the mayor, or a contact email for the museum that might appear on their respective web pages. Or post a link to their "contact" pages.


Andrew
Posting emails on a public forum is not a good idea, except if, as Andrew says, it's already on a public site. If there is a public site, Andrew's suggestion is a good one, just post a link to the site. If these email addresses aren't public knowledge, then by all means, distribute them by PM to those that ask, and being an old Jersey boy myself, I'm asking.
I received this response to an email I sent:

"The problem stems from the irrefutable insubordination of the organization’s former president. We said NO to the addition of the new piece of equipment on the property and the County, to which we intend to convey the property, agreed with us. The organization’s former president apparently decided that he was going to do what he wants anyway. It’s not a petty issue. We manage quite a bit of municipally owned property. Imagine the chaos if all of our licensees and tenants did what they want regardless of the terms of their agreements or our policies and rules."
There's a lot about this that we do not know, and, perhaps do not want to know. This is one of those issues that I would need to hear both sides of the situation, clearly and completely, before passing any kind of judgement.
" --and nine rings were given to the race of Men, who, above all things, desire power. ", and I get the feeling that one or both sides are unwilling to surrender any small part of their perceived power, to resolve the issue.
Unfortunate as it might be, "things", come to pass. So be it, and fall on.
Sumpter250 Wrote:I received this response to an email I sent:

"The problem stems from the irrefutable insubordination of the organization’s former president. We said NO to the addition of the new piece of equipment on the property and the County, to which we intend to convey the property, agreed with us. The organization’s former president apparently decided that he was going to do what he wants anyway. It’s not a petty issue. We manage quite a bit of municipally owned property. Imagine the chaos if all of our licensees and tenants did what they want regardless of the terms of their agreements or our policies and rules."
There's a lot about this that we do not know, and, perhaps do not want to know. This is one of those issues that I would need to hear both sides of the situation, clearly and completely, before passing any kind of judgement.
" --and nine rings were given to the race of Men, who, above all things, desire power. ", and I get the feeling that one or both sides are unwilling to surrender any small part of their perceived power, to resolve the issue.
Unfortunate as it might be, "things", come to pass. So be it, and fall on.

I think the problem here though, is that they want to totally remove every last thing from the site. I agree, it was a dumb move on that guys part to put that locomotive in there, but at the same time, the stuff that HAS been there is being threatened.

The goal is to convince the local government not to throw everyone out. As you've noted, the guy who brought in the piece in question is the FORMER president. So to did the secretary step down. The main drive is by other volunteers who have been working on all this equipment, indeed they are the ones who seem to be putting all the effort in.
Sounds like the mayor is working on a deal to do something with the land, perhaps build yet another shopping center.

--Randy
rrinker Wrote:Sounds like the mayor is working on a deal to do something with the land, perhaps build yet another shopping center.

--Randy

no, thats not going to happen, the land is already destined for the county.

That said, i'm more than a little mad. I went to that township meeting, (they even quoted me in the newspaper), but apparently, the railroad guys are in more trouble than just bringing in that locomotive. The next day, i read in the newspaper that they put it on what was Wawa's "easement" (Wawa is a northeastern convenience store/gas station, for you western folks), land that will one day be a parking lot for the station and its rails to trails path. According to the newspaper, (which is not always accurate), they were told that day the locomotive was brought in that it was Wawa's property, and that they had 48 hours to move it. because the historic trust couldn't, now they're getting sued by Wawa. The wawa already had fights with the Historic trust a couple years ago when the wawa tried to acquire the land (successfully) which was a former PRR yard that the historic trust wanted to expand on, so the Wawa has never been on good terms with the trust either.

While i personally think that wawa is being a pain (its on the very far edge of what might be considered wawa's territory), but they are within their right to complain. why didn't the Historic trust check these things before they placed the train? shady political dealings or not, property lines don't just change, that wawa has been there now for a few years.

They already know that the local government and the wawa have been trying to get rid of them, why would they do something like that and put themselves in a position to be obliterated?

If they can't figure something out, the county gets the train station and the land, and the trains go. Its looking like they are out of bargaining chips.
Seems like the Game is lost. Equipment is up for auction by Pemberton township on August 12. anything else left will be "disposed" of. There was no way any of that equipment was going to be moved in 30 days, and now its all probably doomed. Who is going to take any of that stuff?

It makes me mad just a little bit, because i put a lot of work into the CNJ caboose they have there, pretty much the entire fallof 2007 i was out there every weekend, now its fate is uncertain. It hurts just a little more than i can type. Sad

While I do realize that putting that extra locomotive in is a bad idea, Looking back at it all, there are all sorts of conflicting information being sent out by the township and the trust, and whats more, the township illegally condemned all the equipment two weekends ago to prevent any work on being done on them (the County was going to buy up the land if the historic trust could show that it would restore the equipment).

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